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High crime junkies.
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I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt and the
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story I have for you today is a testament to
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a love so deep and profound that it exists almost
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outside of time itself. And that's the love of a
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parent for their child. This is the story of Kristen Modaferi.
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Your college years are supposed to be a time of exploration,
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a time to push the boundaries a little, hopefully safely,
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time to find yourself, especially back in the nineties when
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without tech your world could feel really small until you
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got to leave home for the first time. And in
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nineteen ninety seven, nothing and I mean nothing was gonna
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stop Kristin Modiferi from doing just that. She just finished
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her freshman year at North Carolina State University, where she's
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one of twenty five people in her class on a
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full ride as a park scholar.
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So girls, a smart cookie like skipped a.
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Grade and scored of fifteen seventy out of sixteen hundred
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on the SAT is kind of smart. And she's also
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brave and bold and adventurous, one of those people who
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wants to experience as much of life as she possibly can.
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So when it's time for her to plan her summer.
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It's no surprise that she's like dreaming really big. She
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wanted to push herself even farther outside of her bubble.
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College had been a good first step, but NC State
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is still just a few hours from home, and like besides,
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her big sister Allison, is a student there too, so she.
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Wanted something for herself.
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She wanted to spend the summer clear across the country
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in the Bay Area. The plan was for her to
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get a job, take photography courses at UC Berkeley, and
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she would explore the Bay Area in her free time.
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But when she pitched this idea to her parents, her
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mom Debbie was a little freaked out. I mean, after all,
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she'd be going on her own. But eventually Kristin and
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her dad Bob were able to get Debbie on board.
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So on June first, nineteen ninety seven, her eighteenth birthday,
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she kissed her parents and her three sisters goodbye, boarded
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a plane and headed west for her big San Francisco summer.
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When she got there, she rented a room with four
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male housemates across the bay in Oakland, and she picked
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up a couple of part time jobs. Almost as soon
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as she got there. She had one which was this
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weekday gig at a coffee shop called Spinelli's, and a
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weekend one at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
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And since classes weren't going to start until June twenty fourth,
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she had managed to get a whole lot of exploring
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in during those first three weeks. And the whole time, like,
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she's calling home frequently, telling her family all about everything
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that she's been up to, everything she's seen and done.
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So it's a little unusual when June twenty fourth passes
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without a call. I mean, big day, right, school's starting.
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Normally that's the kind of thing she would want to
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update them on. But still it's easy enough to write off,
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like classes just started, no big deal. Maybe she's adjusting
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to her new schedule. And eventually her dad, Bob, figures
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he's just gonna call her. I mean, the phone works
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two ways, after all, so he dials the landline number
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for the house that she's staying in. But when no
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one answers, Bob is forced to leave a message, nothing panicky,
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just like.
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Hey, it's us, Like give us a call.
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Hope you're having the time of your life, but don't
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forget about us little people. When his office phone rings
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one morning soon after, he probably expects to hear Kristen's
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cheerful voice on the other end, but that's not what happens. Instead,
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it's one of Kristen's housemates named Griffin, and what Griffin
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says sends chills down Bob's spine. Matt Birkbeck reports for
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Reader's Digest that there's no small talk. He cuts right
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to the chase and says, quote, I don't know how
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to tell you this. Your daughter's missing. Griffin says that
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none of the housemates have seen Kristin in three days.
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At first, they just figured she was out a friends
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or something, but after hearing Bob's voicemail, they started to worry,
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so they actually called the Oakland Police and reported her missing,
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and then Griffin called Bob. Now, Bob and Debbie are
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on the first available flight out to San Francisco that Friday,
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the twenty seventh, and when they land, they don't even
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drop their stuff off at a hotel. They just go
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straight to the Oakland Police Department to figure out what
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has happened so far and what they can do to
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help find their daughter.
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But the urgency that they feel.
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Isn't shared in the slightest by the desk officer, who
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just kind of shrugs, points out the time a little
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after four and says that they're gonna have to come
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back Monday because the investigators assigned to Christen's missing person's
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file are already gone for the weekend. But you know,
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even that they shouldn't really worry.
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Because, Okay, here's the thing. Missing kids aren't really a
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nine to five job.
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Like, isn't it strange?
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Like no nights or weekends? What?
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And Oakland is some like one stoplight town. It's not
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like there's one detective on the forest. I think it's wild.
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But they go on to say, like, listen, she's technically
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not a kid. She's eighteen. She's out here for her
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big adventure, like we see this all the time. She
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probably left on her own, either to run away, maybe
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just out having too much fun.
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But she'll turn up.
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And this practically knocks the wind out of Bob and Debbie,
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who know that that can't be true. I mean, for one,
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she has no reason to run away. I mean she's
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been living the dream and loving every minute of it.
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But more than that, she wouldn't put her family through
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something like this, not Bob and Debbie, not her sisters,
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not if she could help it. So, without any help
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over the weekend hours, they spend the next few days
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doing the only thing they can think to do and
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are capable of doing on their own. They hit the
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streets to try and find someone, anyone who might have
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seen or interacted with their daughter, and, knowing that that's
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not going to be enough, they also hire a PI,
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this retired FBI agent named Graham Desvernin. Now, nothing comes
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of their weekend searches, so come Monday morning, they head
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straight back to Oakland PD, where this time they're able
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to convince the lead investigator, this guy named Officer Patrick Mahaney,
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that whatever this is, it is definitely not a runaway situation,
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and as soon as he rules out that theory in
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his own mind, he and Sergent Bradley, the other investigator
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assigned to the case, hit the ground running. They interview
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her housemates, obviously, who tell them what they'd already told
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Bob and Debbie by that point, that they haven't seen
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Kristen since she left for work on the twenty third,
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and since that would have been a week day, they knew.
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She was headed to her job at the coffee shop.
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Spinelli's, so police go there to talk to her coworkers
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and they say, yes, she did show up for work
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on the twenty third.
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She was there for her whole shift.
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Everything seemed fine, and she left when the shift ended
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at three pm. But luckily, something she said or really
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asked for during her shift gave police their next breadcrumb,
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because apparently her coworkers said that that day she'd been
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asking around for direction to a park on the shoreline
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called Land's End. And this Land's End connection only gets
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stronger when investigators bring out scent dogs to try and
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trace kristen scent from Spinelli's, since they know for sure
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that she was there. And the dogs go right from
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the coffee shop to this bus stop, the very stop
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that you would go to to catch a bus to
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Land's End. So they head out toward lands End and
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the dogs pick up Kristen sent right back up where
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Officer Mahaney takes them out to the beach nearby and
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they follow it past the ruins of this giant bathhouse
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from the eighteen nineties, then on to the cliff house
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which sits on you guessed it a giant ocean side cliff,
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but Officer Mahine's stomach drops when the dogs lose the
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scent near the cliff house right at what reporting in
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the Charlotte Observer calls a quote rocky vista overlooking the
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Pacific Ocean, and this is concerning to him because he
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knows that the beauty of this place can be deceiving.
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In that same article, he used the word treacherous to
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describe it, saying that quote people fall off into the
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ocean every year.
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Was Kristin a strong swimmer?
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I mean, I think so, But this isn't the kind
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of situation where you can really swim your way out of.
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I mean, what happens is that a rogue wave will
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come out of nowhere and just literally sweep you away,
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sometimes to be found on shore later, sometimes never to
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be found.
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In describing this, it doesn't feel like this is in
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the middle of nowhere, right, Like, wouldn't someone have seen
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something like that happen in the middle of the afternoon, So.
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Yeah, that's the thing they should have because you're right,
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this area is super popular with tourists. But if that's
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what happened, no one seems to have seen a thing,
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because there aren't any reports of anyone falling in over
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the last couple of days, and as hard as they try,
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they can't find any witnesses who even saw kristin there,
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much less saw her fall in.
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So if there aren't even witnesses to her sight seeing,
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isn't it still possible she fell in without someone seeing.
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I mean, it's possible, but it feels a little bit
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like a stretch, because I guess in my mind, I'm
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thinking like a solo person just kind of walking around
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sight seeing like that wouldn't draw attention, Like I don't
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think it necessarily like precludes her having been there, So like,
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I don't think anyone not seeing her is mind blowing.
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But like if someone would have fallen in like that
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would have drawn attention, I think, so, I think it's
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just more proof that that didn't happen.
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Okay, But then why does her scent stop there?
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No one knows. I mean, maybe she followed the exact
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same path back down the cliff to the bus station
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and went somewhere else.
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Like I don't know if that's how it works or what,
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or if they have an explanation, but all they can
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do is keep looking and keep talking to the few
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people who knew Kristen, and the list out there was
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short since she'd just gotten there less than a month ago,
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but police are desperate for a lead. Was there anyone
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she met recently, anyone she didn't.
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Get along with?
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So they go back to her housemates again, trying to
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get as much insight as they can into her life
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in the Bay Area. And while they don't identify anyone
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who'd want to hurt her, they do say that her open,
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bubbly personality may have gotten her into trouble, like she
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was assuming the best of everyone to the point that
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someone could have taken advantage of that. Like for example,
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the housemates say that she was known to catch rides
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with strangers, and when she missed the last train back
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to Oakland after a concert one night, she, with her
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glass always half full, was just like, no big deal,
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I'm just gonna catch a few z's on this bench
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at the station, And the guy she was with was like, Uh,
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that's like not really an option here.
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It's a pretty bad idea.
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So why don't you just like sleep on my brother's
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couch instead, And so in that instance she did, even
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though she really didn't even know that guy. She had
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just met him that night, and she had gotten home
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safe and sound the next day. And whoever this guy is,
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he's ruled out as a suspect. But it left investigators
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wondering how many other similar encounters Kristen had had and
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how on earth were they gonna find those people. The
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best answer to everyone felt like just getting her face
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out there, have as many people as possible know that
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she's missing, and see who comes forward. So for the
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next two weeks, Bob and Debbie practice move in at Kinko's,
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where they print out missing person flyers right and left,
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and they even tap local media to get her picture
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out on TV as well. But those two weeks passed
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without any real breaks in the case, and Debbie and
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Bob are faced with this awful reality they're gonna have
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to leave California without their daughter. I mean, they've got
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three other kids to worry about, Allison, who's twenty, but
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also a fifteen year old, a seven year old, And
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the impression I get is that Allison has kind of
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been holding down the fort while they've been gone, so
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like they have to make this unbearable trade off between
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being on one coast looking for their daughter or being
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at home across the country.
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For their other three kids.
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Bob tells Aaron Lee Martin with the Charlotte Observer quote,
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if we felt like we were closing in on finding her,
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we certainly wouldn't have come home, And Debbie adds, we
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just didn't know what else we could do. So they
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make the difficult decision to leave. But just two days
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after they did, Oakland p D gets a hip that
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actually might be the key to finding Kristin. A local
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news station had gotten an anonymous call about Kristin, which
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they immediately passed along to the Oakland p D. The
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man on the other end of the line said that
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she was killed by two women who dumped her body
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under a wooden bridge in Marin County, which is like
250
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an hour or two north of San Francisco.
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I have all the questions. Does he say why she
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was killed, where this bridge was, who these women were,
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how he knows any of this?
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All of the above.
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Actually so, he claims that the three women, so Kristin
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00:12:36.840 --> 00:12:39.080
and these other two were caught up in some sort
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of love triangle, or maybe like Kristin rebuffed their advances.
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But the gist being that someone rejected someone and Kristen
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was killed as a result.
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And then as.
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Far as where he says that the bridge is near
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point raised. But that's as specific as he gets, or
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as specific as has been reported, because that's what I
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found from Burbeck's reporting and readers digest.
265
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But he does get specific.
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On names, just not his name, but he gives the
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full names of these other two women. And when Officer
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Mahaney tracks these two women down, to say that they're
269
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flabbergasted would be an understatement, because they're like, we've never
270
00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:20.799
even met Kristen and we definitely didn't do anything to
271
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hurt her.
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So it doesn't take long for.
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Him to kind of suss out that this tip is
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starting to feel a bit bogus, which if I had
275
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to put my money on it, he probably might have
276
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suspected all along. But that's not to say that he
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00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:37.720
dismissed this whole bridge thing altogether. I mean, again, he
278
00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:39.960
even at least went and talked to these women. He's
279
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.480
got to be thinking like, Okay, maybe there's some truth
280
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to this, even if it's not the full truth, you know,
281
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like why would someone point the finger at these two
282
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women at all? So while he's talking to them, he's like, Okay, listen, look,
283
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someone wants to cause problems for you. Any idea who
284
00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:57.960
that might be? Do you have enemies, anyone with a grudge?
285
00:13:58.120 --> 00:14:00.720
Basically whose list are you on exactly?
286
00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:03.840
And the women both come up with the same name,
287
00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:06.679
John Onuma. See.
288
00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:10.200
John's got a girlfriend named Jill Lampo who worked with
289
00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.519
the women at the YMCA, and for some reason, he
290
00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.919
is convinced that these two women have plotted to get
291
00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:20.159
his girlfriend, Jill fired, and basically he's had it out
292
00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:23.840
for them ever since. So maybe this John guy was
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00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.960
their caller, And that's the first thing they ask him
294
00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.759
when they go straight to confront him about this, and
295
00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:32.840
at first he denies any involvement with Kristin with even
296
00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:36.919
the anonymous call, but eventually he fesses up that yeah,
297
00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.679
he did make the call out of spite, but he
298
00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.720
doesn't know Kristin or anything. He knew about her disappearance
299
00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:48.159
and basically just decided to put these women. But he
300
00:14:48.279 --> 00:14:52.159
adds even though he doesn't know anything, he might be
301
00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:54.240
able to help them solve Kristin's case.
302
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Mm hmm, I bet he can. Go on, well, I
303
00:14:57.639 --> 00:14:58.039
wish I.
304
00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:01.279
Could, except for there is no reporting on what he
305
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:02.080
means by that.
306
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What.
307
00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:05.399
Yeah, it's really strange, Like both the Charlotte Observer and
308
00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:08.559
the San Francisco Examiner reference him saying this like in
309
00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:11.840
their reporting, but it's just this like offhanded mention and
310
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then they like move on.
311
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So I don't know.
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00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.759
I mean, I assume that investigators like looked into it,
313
00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:19.159
but maybe they didn't make anything of it.
314
00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:19.840
I don't know.
315
00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:23.039
I just know that after this they weren't done with John,
316
00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:25.120
like it was at least suspicious, whether they knew what
317
00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:27.440
it meant or not. And I know they weren't done
318
00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:30.080
with him because A I know they go looking at
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00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.559
wooden bridges. I don't know where exactly or when this happened,
320
00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:36.799
but Officer Mahany coordinates to have every last wooden bridge
321
00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:39.919
in the county looked at. But the unhelpful fact is,
322
00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:44.120
given flooding and animal activity, et cetera, like they'd have
323
00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:46.840
to be like really damn lucky to find any trace
324
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of Kristen even if she.
325
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Was dumped at one of them, and their luck just
326
00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:51.399
isn't that good.
327
00:15:51.480 --> 00:15:54.879
Nothing has ever been reported as being found in those searches.
328
00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:57.720
But the other thing they do at this time is
329
00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:00.679
they start digging into John's background to see if he's
330
00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:02.679
got any skeletons in his closet.
331
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But as Sus as John maybe.
332
00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:08.919
Which by the way is like super sus, it's still
333
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:11.440
early days and they don't want to get tunnel vision.
334
00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:14.639
So even while they're investigating him, kind of on the
335
00:16:14.679 --> 00:16:17.200
down load, they're still running down all of the leads
336
00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:19.480
that are coming in, and there are more than just
337
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:23.080
a few, mostly about possible sightings of kristin everywhere, not
338
00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:25.919
just like in the Bay Area, but from Texas to Canada.
339
00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:28.519
But every time they run those down or look into him,
340
00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:33.159
they lead nowhere. And meanwhile, her parents are working as
341
00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:35.799
hard as ever to get her name and her picture
342
00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:39.879
in front of as many people as possible. By mid October,
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00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:42.960
they've already appeared on hard copy and America's Most Wanted,
344
00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:46.000
and Debbie's even a guest on a talk show featuring
345
00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:48.919
a psychic who agrees to work with them on Kristen's case.
346
00:16:49.679 --> 00:16:52.279
And they're not like true believers or anything, like they
347
00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:54.440
know it's a hail Mary, but if a psychic is
348
00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:56.919
what it takes to find their daughter, like, so be it.
349
00:16:57.519 --> 00:16:59.480
They meet with the wizard of Freakin' eyes if he
350
00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:03.799
could offer help. But spoiler alert, whether it's wizards or psychics,
351
00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:07.359
they never end up being the all powerful, all seeing force.
352
00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:12.079
It's always just a man behind the curtain. But sometimes
353
00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:18.680
a human man can help in his own human way.
354
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:22.519
Because around this time, October of ninety seven, Kristen's parents
355
00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:26.559
are approached by a guy named Dennis Man. Dennis lives
356
00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:29.519
there in Charlotte, North Carolina, where her family lives. He's
357
00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:32.839
this perfect stranger, mind you, but he tells them that
358
00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:35.680
he wants to move to San Francisco and look for
359
00:17:35.799 --> 00:17:40.920
Kristin full time for free if they give him their blessing.
360
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.279
Who does this guy work for?
361
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:45.440
Well, like if you're asking like police or anything, like,
362
00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:47.559
no one. He's kind of this like jack of all
363
00:17:47.599 --> 00:17:49.440
trades as far as I can put together, Like I
364
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.119
know at one point he was a supervisor at a
365
00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.839
local Charlotte shelter for the unhoused, Like that's what he
366
00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:58.519
was doing when he approaches Kristin's parents, And I know
367
00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:02.160
he's got some sort of delivery business, but like no
368
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.039
experience with missing people or investigations.
369
00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:07.839
He's gonna have to like learn that stuff. On the fly.
370
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.000
I mean, how hard could it possibly be? And listen,
371
00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:13.480
let's just say it. The offer is odd. Yeah, Like,
372
00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:15.359
I don't like see this every I don't think I've
373
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.000
ever seen this in any other case. But he swears
374
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:20.880
up and down his intentions are good. He says he's
375
00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.640
got some money saved up and he just wants to
376
00:18:23.720 --> 00:18:26.880
help because for some reason, what he knows of Kristen's
377
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:31.519
disappearance has just really affected him. So a bit strange, sure,
378
00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:33.839
but it seems like he's one of those do gooders,
379
00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:36.400
always just on the lookout for the next righteous cause.
380
00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:39.440
And I don't know how you're taking this, but I
381
00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:41.319
do not mean this in a negative way at all.
382
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.240
Like when this guy finds a cause, dude is all in.
383
00:18:46.039 --> 00:18:48.480
Like in the early nineties, he even walked across the
384
00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:51.200
country to raise money for a homeless shelter that he
385
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:55.519
wanted to open. He walked for nine months straight, covering
386
00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:58.480
three thousand miles. And I think he's just one of
387
00:18:58.519 --> 00:19:00.319
those people, Like I think there are some some people
388
00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:02.599
in the world who can hear a bad thing and
389
00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:05.000
be like, wow, that sucks, And then there's.
390
00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:08.599
Other people who feel like a very deep.
391
00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:10.440
Weight when they hear that same bad thing a weight
392
00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:13.359
that's like, I have to do something a responsibility.
393
00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:14.759
Yeah, if not me, then who?
394
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:17.400
Yeah. So this guy's kind of like the Glinda, the
395
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:20.119
Goodwitch to John's wicked Witch of the West. If we're yeah,
396
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.519
still talking us basically, Yeah.
397
00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:25.480
You've got these two men who have inserted themselves into
398
00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:30.240
the investigation, but in very different ways for very different reasons.
399
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:34.519
And Dennis even gives Kristen's parents references, and before long
400
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:37.200
they are fully on board. One more set of boots
401
00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.720
on the ground couldn't hurt, especially when they can't be
402
00:19:39.799 --> 00:19:42.759
on the other side of the country themselves. So Dennis
403
00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:46.279
closes his business, packs up his van, and heads west,
404
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.440
spending the next six months living in that van, catching
405
00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:52.160
a shower at a cheap gym when he can, handing
406
00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:55.359
out as many business cards about Kristen's disappearance as he can,
407
00:19:55.720 --> 00:19:59.000
and following up on every lead that he gets. And
408
00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:02.599
he calls or email the modafairies daily with updates.
409
00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:05.680
So how do investigators feel about this arrangement.
410
00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:09.160
I'm not sure what their initial gut reaction is, but
411
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.119
I actually think they're good with it, at least eventually,
412
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:15.359
because Debbie says that they even pass along some leads
413
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:18.480
to Dennis for him to look into, and the PI
414
00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:22.200
that they had hired sings his praises, telling Diane Souhetka
415
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:25.480
with the Charlotte Observer quote, he has a heart as
416
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:30.599
big as all outdoors. He's just different. And Debbie echoes that, saying,
417
00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:33.640
we have talked to other parents of missing children, and
418
00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:38.440
they say, we are just so lucky to have Dennis. Which, Man,
419
00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:41.319
the more I do this, the more I realize, in
420
00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:44.519
like ninety percent of cases, it's how good are the
421
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:49.160
investigators and how much support does a case have. But
422
00:20:49.319 --> 00:20:52.920
even in this case with a PI, with a denis
423
00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:57.000
basically out there full time and Officer Mahaney's still running
424
00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.519
the official investigation, the year draws to a close, and
425
00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:04.319
I can't imagine how hard that is for Kristen's family.
426
00:21:04.920 --> 00:21:07.519
Like I know that technically, again, the end of the
427
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:09.720
year is just one day leading into the next, like
428
00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:13.119
any other, but it's just this reminder that with each
429
00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:16.480
passing minute, every day and month and year, they just
430
00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:20.599
keep getting further and further away from Kristen, but no
431
00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:22.200
one is letting her be forgotten.
432
00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:25.160
In January of ninety eight, her fellow park.
433
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:27.839
Scholars at NC State come up with a clever idea
434
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:30.759
to keep her name in the spotlight. They hand out
435
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:33.960
twenty five thousand yellow ribbons before a basketball game that's
436
00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:37.240
going to be aired on ESPN. The players can't wear them,
437
00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:40.759
it's against NCAA rules, but the coaches can and so
438
00:21:40.839 --> 00:21:44.279
can the fans. So they're thinking, let's get so many
439
00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:48.000
yellow ribbons out there that the commentators have to mention them.
440
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:51.440
Maybe they'll even broadcast Christen's picture. And to be honest,
441
00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:54.079
I'm not sure if this worked, but I know that
442
00:21:54.119 --> 00:21:57.480
Alison Matiferi addressed the crowd from the court at halftime,
443
00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:02.079
So you've got to think that ESPN's something. And while
444
00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:05.359
the Monifaery family is as busy as ever in North Carolina,
445
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:08.720
back in the Bay Area, investigators still have John on
446
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:13.119
the brain, and given what they've been uncovering, they've got
447
00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:15.880
good reason for that. Like they find out that he
448
00:22:16.039 --> 00:22:19.440
likes to meet women via personal ads in the classifieds,
449
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:22.440
and when they're able to track some of these women down,
450
00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:25.920
they make some disturbing allegations.
451
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:29.839
Wait, what was happening between like week two where they
452
00:22:29.880 --> 00:22:32.640
get this John tip and all these months.
453
00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:36.720
Later, dude, I don't know. I was in circles over that.
454
00:22:36.839 --> 00:22:40.400
Because promise you, John doesn't even appear in the reporting
455
00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:45.359
until nineteen ninety nine. There is just nothing explaining why
456
00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:47.720
they sat on this guy for so long.
457
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:49.799
Okay, because I was like, I'm glad we know about
458
00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:51.640
Dennis and when he entered the picture, But if this
459
00:22:51.640 --> 00:22:53.319
stuff is going on in the background, I kind of
460
00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:54.079
want to know about it.
461
00:22:54.279 --> 00:22:56.240
What the heck? Yeah, but here we are.
462
00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:59.599
So they track down some of these women, and maybe
463
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:01.079
that's what it took them all this time.
464
00:23:01.160 --> 00:23:02.880
I mean, this is the nineties. I don't know.
465
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:06.759
But when they find them, the women have harrowing stories,
466
00:23:06.759 --> 00:23:11.200
stories of torture and sexual assault, like he would allegedly
467
00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:15.279
hold these women captive, sexually assault them, deprive them of sleep,
468
00:23:15.400 --> 00:23:19.319
and physically abuse them like burn them. Even Diane Suhetka
469
00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:22.400
even writes that John threatened the life of one woman
470
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:25.839
who tried to escape his apartment. He said to her, quote,
471
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:28.359
you know, I'm going to have to kill you. I
472
00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:31.960
can't let you go now. You know what happened to
473
00:23:32.079 --> 00:23:36.839
Kristin MODIFERI Now that alone would have been enough to
474
00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:40.519
make Debbie and Bob's stomach strap, but it was actually
475
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:43.279
something that they'd found in Kristin's room back when she
476
00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:47.720
first went missing that made them fear that John's.
477
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:49.599
Words were completely true.
478
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:53.920
In the days after Kristen's disappearance, her parents found something
479
00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:57.480
in her room that maybe didn't seem all that significant
480
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:01.359
at the time. It was a personal ad that had
481
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:05.440
run in the classifieds the week of June eleventh, nineteen
482
00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:08.200
ninety seven. Right, I'm gonna have you read this.
483
00:24:08.119 --> 00:24:12.039
For us friends females seeking friends to share activities who
484
00:24:12.119 --> 00:24:17.079
enjoy music, photography, working out, walks, coffee, or simply exploring
485
00:24:17.119 --> 00:24:20.079
the Bay Area Interested call me now.
486
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:22.599
There are some conflicting reports about the timeline of this
487
00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:26.519
whole thing, but Matt Birkbeck reports that Officer Mahaney doesn't
488
00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:30.039
find out about the ad until months after Kristin disappeared,
489
00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:33.519
and so when he finally does, Kristen's parents like they
490
00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:36.720
tell them that this ad that they find sounds a
491
00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:40.160
lot like Kristin. Like all the hobbies that are listed
492
00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:43.160
those were her hobbies, and she had complained to her
493
00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:46.160
mom that making friends out there was harder than she'd expected.
494
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.519
So when the San Francisco Bay Guardian ran a promotion
495
00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:53.799
offering free personal ads. They're like, that's totally something Kristin
496
00:24:53.960 --> 00:24:57.240
might have jumped on, like where's the bumblebff when you
497
00:24:57.359 --> 00:24:57.759
need it?
498
00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:00.559
And so you can probably see where this is going.
499
00:25:01.079 --> 00:25:04.400
Yeah, I mean John's red flags have red flags. But
500
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:07.000
I know, I don't understand why they can't for sure
501
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:09.599
link it back to Kristin, Like wouldn't there be a
502
00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:12.079
phone number with the ad? Like how else would people
503
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:13.559
be able to contact her?
504
00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:14.000
I know.
505
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:17.440
So the way that personal ads worked, at least in
506
00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:19.880
this instance, is that each poster was given their own
507
00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:23.319
voicemail box or like this individual access code to this
508
00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.960
voicemail system. So basically, the ad would list some generic
509
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:29.640
number that people could call and leave a voicemail ad,
510
00:25:29.720 --> 00:25:31.920
and then only the poster had access and could decide
511
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:33.799
whether or not to follow up, Like you're not giving
512
00:25:33.799 --> 00:25:35.920
your your home line or something like that, if that
513
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:36.400
makes sense.
514
00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:38.920
So it's like giving a PO box versus your home address.
515
00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:40.519
Yeah, so this is what I'm saying.
516
00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:44.079
They can't prove that it was Kristin, but you know,
517
00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:45.720
they find this ad in her room, it sounds a
518
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:49.079
lot like her. They think it's her now could this
519
00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:52.920
ad thing be a coincidence? It could stranger things have happened.
520
00:25:53.640 --> 00:25:55.400
What they need to do is figure out if it
521
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.279
was even Kristen's ad in the first place. Except, like
522
00:25:58.319 --> 00:26:02.799
I said, they can't. When investigators contact the paper, the
523
00:26:02.839 --> 00:26:07.079
paper's like, oh, shoot, like bad news. We actually don't
524
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:10.720
have the computer files anymore. We deleted them, like are
525
00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:12.960
bad got a free up space on the hard drive,
526
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:14.319
like the floppy disk?
527
00:26:14.480 --> 00:26:15.960
How nineteen nineties of them?
528
00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:19.880
I know, So they don't know, but knowing it sounded
529
00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:22.559
like Christin knowing it's in her room. Knowing that we
530
00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:27.039
have John that's responding to and posting his own personal ads.
531
00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:30.079
John is looking like a bad dude that is.
532
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:33.119
Looking pretty good for this crime, Like there's no question
533
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:37.079
about that. So investigators get a search warrant. And at
534
00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:38.640
this point, his red.
535
00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:40.839
Flags have red flags, which have.
536
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:45.599
Red flags because in John's apartment they find traces of blood,
537
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:48.920
although there's no reporting on where they find it or
538
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:51.200
how they find it. And I'm not going to bury
539
00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:52.880
the lead on this, like when they send it off
540
00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:56.720
for testing, it's not human blood, although their theory on
541
00:26:56.759 --> 00:27:00.279
where the blood came from is actually quite awful. Basically
542
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:02.799
they think that he hurt an ex's cat after a
543
00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:03.680
fight or something.
544
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:06.279
Just want of this guy, like you think he can't
545
00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:06.759
get worse.
546
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.519
I know, I know this comes up ugh, But it's
547
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:12.920
actually what they find that belongs to Jill that really
548
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.440
has me spiraling. According to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
549
00:27:16.799 --> 00:27:19.240
we're talking like season seven, like the Reboots by Dennis
550
00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:20.039
Farina here.
551
00:27:20.079 --> 00:27:20.960
Got it? Not the og?
552
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:21.799
Not the og.
553
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:28.680
Yeah, investigators find Jill's diary, but go figure, some pages
554
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:30.440
are gone torn out.
555
00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:32.839
Do you want to guess when those pages were from?
556
00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:39.240
Obviously from when Kristen disappeared, obviously, And investigators are like, yo, Jill,
557
00:27:39.799 --> 00:27:41.680
what the where these pages go?
558
00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:45.720
And she tells them that John tore the pages out?
559
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:47.400
Why would he do that?
560
00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:51.400
According to Officer Mahaney, Jill said, quote some of this
561
00:27:51.559 --> 00:27:55.079
stuff that was in there could come back to hurt him.
562
00:27:55.279 --> 00:27:55.960
End quote.
563
00:27:56.119 --> 00:28:00.319
Okay, which, hello, Captain obviy is here, Like what kind
564
00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:03.000
of stuff? And in my mind, I'm like, Jill, you
565
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.759
wrote the entries, you should know what was in them,
566
00:28:05.799 --> 00:28:09.839
like even if they're missing. But I can't find anything
567
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:12.680
about whether she's pressed on it, whether she says she
568
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:15.119
doesn't remembered, because like, if you're saying the stuff that
569
00:28:15.160 --> 00:28:16.599
was written could hurt him, then don't you know.
570
00:28:16.519 --> 00:28:17.240
What stuff it was?
571
00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:17.599
Yes?
572
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:19.200
Yeah, then what did you write?
573
00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:19.559
Nothing?
574
00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:23.319
There's nothing reported out there. And so the one year
575
00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:28.119
anniversary of Kristen's disappearance approaches, but it doesn't seem like
576
00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:31.839
investigators are any closer to making a move. There is
577
00:28:31.880 --> 00:28:35.319
a brief flash of hope when the Charlotte Observer publishes
578
00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:40.039
a report titled police have possible suspect in kristin modifery case,
579
00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:44.359
and that published on June eighteenth, but Officer Mahany shoots
580
00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:47.279
that down the next day, telling Dawn wood Tapka in
581
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:50.720
reporting for the News and Observer that at best, all
582
00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:54.480
he's got is some circumstantial evidence and a person of interest,
583
00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:58.160
and although investigators haven't named him at this point, the
584
00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:02.359
person of interest he's referring to is obviously John, but
585
00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:06.279
they never make a move to arrest him. By July
586
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:08.880
of nineteen ninety eight, the Mada Fairies are on their
587
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:12.279
fifth trip out to California, and they arrange for a
588
00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:15.480
full page ad in a local newspaper. Around the same time,
589
00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:18.480
they also more than double the reward that they're offering
590
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:21.160
to twenty five thousand dollars, and then they double it
591
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:24.240
again in November, even taking out a loan to cover it,
592
00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:27.119
and they arrange for twenty billboards.
593
00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:28.160
To go up in the Bay Area as well.
594
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:31.319
Now, in either the winter of ninety eight ninety nine
595
00:29:31.400 --> 00:29:35.119
or the early spring of ninety nine, investigators decide it's
596
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.039
high time to bring John in for another heart to heart,
597
00:29:38.920 --> 00:29:42.759
but when they try and find him, they can't. He
598
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:47.079
left the Bay Area and moved somewhere, So they spend
599
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:49.200
the next few months just trying to find this guy.
600
00:29:49.319 --> 00:29:53.240
But it's not until America's Most Wanted features Kristen's case
601
00:29:53.279 --> 00:29:56.319
again in May of ninety nine that an acquaintance catches
602
00:29:56.359 --> 00:29:58.960
the episode and finally tips them off that John is
603
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:03.000
in Hawaii. The San Francisco Examiner reports that same month
604
00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:06.119
that Officer Mahaney convinces him to come back to California
605
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.240
for a lie detector test. But I have no clue
606
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:12.759
if that happens or even what the results are. Like
607
00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:15.680
there's some suggestion that he sits for a polygraph with
608
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:19.599
his own hand chosen examiner, but like, is that confirmed?
609
00:30:19.880 --> 00:30:23.519
Is the examiner credible? What are the results, I don't know.
610
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:26.000
I know he claims to have passed a polygraph, but
611
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.440
I'm not exactly taking this guy at his word, and
612
00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:31.240
like mum's the word for investigators.
613
00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:34.039
Well and also like you know, polygraph polygraphs.
614
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:34.319
I know.
615
00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:38.480
So another grueling eighteen months passes, but in November of
616
00:30:38.519 --> 00:30:42.160
two thousand, something kind of amazing happens. But I actually
617
00:30:42.200 --> 00:30:44.079
need to back up just a little bit for it
618
00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:47.119
to make sense. So going all the way back to
619
00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:50.519
those first few weeks after Kristen's disappearance, Kristen's parents had
620
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:53.319
reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
621
00:30:53.359 --> 00:30:55.599
better known as nick MEK. They were trying to see
622
00:30:55.599 --> 00:30:57.400
if they could help in some way, Like they have
623
00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:00.880
tons of resources at their disposal, I mean, one of
624
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:02.599
which at the time, they were like known for these
625
00:31:02.680 --> 00:31:05.759
huge direct mailing campaigns which could reach more mailboxes and
626
00:31:05.759 --> 00:31:09.200
eyes than they could even dream of. But back then
627
00:31:09.279 --> 00:31:12.440
to their devastation, Nick Mick couldn't do anything for them
628
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:18.480
because Kristen was eighteen, I mean barely literally like twenty
629
00:31:18.839 --> 00:31:21.839
two twenty three days into being eighteen, but who's counting,
630
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:24.599
And I mean let that sink in. I mean she
631
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:28.720
was just three weeks too old to qualify for their help,
632
00:31:29.319 --> 00:31:31.240
but there was truly nothing they could do about it.
633
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:35.440
Because Nick Mick is federally funded and the charter isn't ambiguous.
634
00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:39.960
They can only help in cases involving miners, which was
635
00:31:40.200 --> 00:31:43.920
super discouraging to Kristen's family, especially once they realized that
636
00:31:43.960 --> 00:31:48.799
there actually weren't any similar organizations for missing adults. And
637
00:31:49.160 --> 00:31:52.720
for most people in their situation, that might have been
638
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:57.079
where it would end. But Bob and Debbie aren't most people,
639
00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:00.200
so at the same time that they're flying back and
640
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.440
fourth across the country on the regular trying to, you know,
641
00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:08.119
find their missing daughter, they were also organizing and collecting
642
00:32:08.319 --> 00:32:14.079
signatures and raising absolute hell. And it worked, because in
643
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:19.119
November of two thousand, President Clinton signs Kristen's Law into effect,
644
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.720
which officially establishes and funds the National Center for Missing Adults.
645
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:27.519
But while that organization would hopefully go on to help
646
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:32.160
a ton of other families, it didn't help Christen's because
647
00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:35.079
for the next eleven and a half years, there is
648
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:39.519
no resolution in her case. But remember our old friend
649
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:43.400
Dennis Man, Well, he's not in San Francisco anymore or
650
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:46.039
at least not full time, but he's never given up
651
00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:49.160
on Kristin. He's still searching for that one piece of
652
00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:52.119
evidence that could crack the case wide open, and in
653
00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:55.359
June of twenty twelve, he just might have found it,
654
00:32:56.079 --> 00:33:03.279
or rather it might just have found him. Now, everything
655
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:07.079
I'm about to say comes from either Dennis's podcast, which
656
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:09.960
you can find on Spotify it's called Find Kristen All
657
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.720
One Word, or it comes from his website, which is
658
00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:16.920
Findkristin dot com. But according to Dennis, he is just
659
00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:19.880
minding his own business one day when he sees this
660
00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:23.200
email come through. He doesn't recognize the sender, but that's
661
00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:26.480
like fifty percent of anyone's inbox these days. So click open,
662
00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:32.839
scan through, and what pops out immediately a familiar name Jill.
663
00:33:33.880 --> 00:33:37.200
So the email is from follow me here. You're not
664
00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:39.880
paying attention, now's the time to hone in. The email
665
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:45.440
is from Jill's uncle's wife, so Aunt so TVD. Maybe
666
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:47.680
I don't know the family dynamics, but that's not important
667
00:33:48.359 --> 00:33:52.920
point being this person didn't know Jill or even of her.
668
00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:56.519
Apparently the uncle wasn't around when Jill was growing up,
669
00:33:56.599 --> 00:33:59.599
but somehow they had like reconnected as adults the uncle
670
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:02.759
and Jill, but the wife hadn't really known that until
671
00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:06.400
this one day when her husband gets a call from
672
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:10.639
Jill and Jill saying strange things, things that kind of
673
00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:14.119
start to worry him. To him, she sounds unwell, like
674
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:17.800
she's going through a mental health crisis or something. According
675
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:22.000
to Dennis, this conversation went on for hours, like four
676
00:34:22.519 --> 00:34:26.840
like literally number four hours, and once the uncle realizes
677
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:29.079
that something's not right, he starts taking notes about like
678
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:31.719
what she's saying, and when he hangs up, he tells
679
00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:35.920
his wife that Jill had said something really concerning. Back
680
00:34:35.960 --> 00:34:38.280
when she lived in the Bay Area. She dated a
681
00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:42.679
quote unquote very controlling man who and I'm going to
682
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:47.360
quote the uncle's notes here, quote convinced her to assist
683
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:51.280
in an unspeakable kidnap and murder end.
684
00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:51.760
Quote.
685
00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:55.719
Now, the uncle, when he got this call, wants like,
686
00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:59.079
absolutely nothing to do with this. I mean, to be fair,
687
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:02.320
there's no suggestion he ever heard of Kristen Modifery or
688
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:05.559
her case. All he knows is that this is not
689
00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:08.119
a tree that he wants to go barking up. He'd
690
00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:10.400
like to just tuck those notes into the junk drawer
691
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:12.760
and forget about them all together, thank you very much.
692
00:35:13.320 --> 00:35:15.639
But like I said, the wife's never heard of this Nie,
693
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:19.760
so she's like, you know, I have questions, like shit,
694
00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:21.280
like he might not want to know more, but like
695
00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:22.840
I do, and.
696
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:26.719
Yeah, me too, I know, sheho'm junkie, I see you.
697
00:35:27.559 --> 00:35:29.519
Yeah, so this is what's wild.
698
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.360
She googles Jill's name again, this Knie she'd never heard of,
699
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:37.239
only to see that, like, holy effing hell, Jill very
700
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:41.599
well might be connected to an unsolved disappearance, a likely
701
00:35:41.719 --> 00:35:46.800
kidnapp and murder in San Francisco involving her abusive POS
702
00:35:46.880 --> 00:35:49.119
boyfriend at the time. And you want to know the
703
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:53.199
best part, The wife sends Dennis copies of the notes.
704
00:35:53.960 --> 00:35:55.760
Now we're obviously going to link out to those in
705
00:35:55.800 --> 00:35:59.280
the show notes. They are admittedly not the most legible.
706
00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:03.119
We're talking about copies of a copy here, and if
707
00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:06.000
you like really pull out your monocles or your magnifying glasses,
708
00:36:06.039 --> 00:36:09.360
you can see the words there plain as day. But Brett,
709
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.519
this is where things get frustrating. I don't know what
710
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:15.559
happens next. What do you mean, well, I assume Dennis
711
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:18.880
passed the notes along to investigators but there hasn't been
712
00:36:18.920 --> 00:36:23.840
an official statement from investigators about this or any kind
713
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:27.559
of reporting outside of Dennis's own publications on this, So
714
00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:29.920
that is worth noting as you're kind of vetting this
715
00:36:30.039 --> 00:36:31.480
information for yourself.
716
00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:33.480
What do her parents say about it?
717
00:36:33.800 --> 00:36:35.840
You know, I'm not sure that they've ever addressed this
718
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:39.239
incident specifically, but I do know for sure that they
719
00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:41.679
thought John and Jill were hiding something. I mean, how
720
00:36:41.679 --> 00:36:43.400
could you not think that, right?
721
00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:45.960
But I mean, that's it. This is where we are.
722
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:48.519
She's never been found and no one's ever been charged.
723
00:36:48.400 --> 00:36:51.000
Well know to both of those, but they're actually it's
724
00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:53.039
not it. So there were a few more interesting things
725
00:36:53.079 --> 00:36:56.039
that happened in the last decade, and I mean like
726
00:36:56.519 --> 00:36:58.239
brief things that popped up on the radar.
727
00:36:58.840 --> 00:37:00.800
So like, I know, ra Robert Durst.
728
00:37:00.599 --> 00:37:02.679
Somehow gets thrown into the mix as a potential person
729
00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:05.320
of interest, but that theory turns out to be every
730
00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:07.079
bit as ridiculous as it sounds. So I'm not even
731
00:37:07.079 --> 00:37:11.239
gonna waste your time. And of course, anytime there is
732
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:13.760
a missing person, you're gonna find the name Israel.
733
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:16.280
Keys, because of course there's an Israel Keys campio.
734
00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:19.199
It should always be on your BINGO card. Though to
735
00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:22.440
be fair, this one does have a decent reason. So
736
00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:27.320
after Keys was arrested, there was a list of names, profiles,
737
00:37:27.400 --> 00:37:29.719
or pictures or something on his computer, so basically like
738
00:37:30.239 --> 00:37:33.559
missing people, more than forty of them. And according to
739
00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:36.559
what Josh Hallmark says on his podcast True Crime bullsh
740
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:40.480
in a specific episode about Kristin, she was one of
741
00:37:40.519 --> 00:37:44.119
the people on that list. Now, if Josh's theory about
742
00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:47.000
the list is right, her being on there doesn't necessarily
743
00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:49.840
mean that Keys was connected. Like some people on the
744
00:37:49.840 --> 00:37:52.239
list are, some aren't. He thinks that sometimes Keys would
745
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:55.079
look up cases similar to the ones he actually did,
746
00:37:55.159 --> 00:37:58.119
or maybe he was just infatuated with missing persons cases.
747
00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:02.119
Either way, Kristin has never been linked to Keys officially
748
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:05.679
more than just that. But then there's this other rabbit
749
00:38:05.719 --> 00:38:09.440
hole that I found pretty interesting. In June of twenty fifteen,
750
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:13.400
Dennis introduces Kristen's parents to a PI that he knows
751
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:16.760
with a cadaver dog, and they asked the current owner
752
00:38:16.920 --> 00:38:19.800
of the house Kristen was living at if perhaps Buster
753
00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:22.800
this puppy could have just a little like Sniffer or two,
754
00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:27.519
and the owner agrees, and Buster actually alerts in the
755
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:32.000
basement for human decomposition, which could be a major like
756
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:33.639
holy moment.
757
00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:35.880
But the PI retired Detective Paul.
758
00:38:35.760 --> 00:38:39.920
Dowsty, cautions against jumping to conclusions. According to reporting by
759
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.679
Dedrick Russell, he says, quote, we don't know if that's Kristin.
760
00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:49.519
There are other explanations. He goes on to list cremation ashes,
761
00:38:49.760 --> 00:38:53.519
indigenous burial sites as possibilities. Now, I know the Oakland
762
00:38:53.559 --> 00:38:57.000
PD does at least bring in ground penetrating radar, but
763
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:01.159
that reveals nothing other than some very hard to shovel
764
00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:05.639
soil and clay. And then this is where things get
765
00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:09.079
a little complicated. Okay, So in twenty seventeen comes this
766
00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:12.440
guy named doctor Rpad Vass, and I don't know if
767
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:15.519
you remember him from mozillion years ago, our Brandy Hall
768
00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:16.840
episode you like.
769
00:39:16.840 --> 00:39:19.400
Because it was that name brings a lot back because
770
00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:19.920
it was wild.
771
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:23.280
It was wild, So same thing going on here.
772
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:27.679
Doctor Vass developed this specific tech that is supposed to
773
00:39:27.800 --> 00:39:31.679
detect what ABC seven News refers to as quote human
774
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:37.039
decomposition chemicals, and as we talked about in that episode,
775
00:39:37.039 --> 00:39:38.679
and we're gonna link out to it in the show notes,
776
00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:42.519
it is worth a revisit this device. What it says
777
00:39:42.559 --> 00:39:44.920
is like, basically, you can detect samples with ties to
778
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:47.920
specific DNA profile. So where a sniffer dog is like
779
00:39:48.119 --> 00:39:51.039
just DCOMP, I think this thing is saying like, oh,
780
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:56.039
specific DCOMP. And whether this thing is a revolutionary advancements
781
00:39:56.039 --> 00:40:01.079
in forensic or pure snake oil science is still very right.
782
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:04.679
But using this device, doctor Vass says he finds human
783
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:08.679
DNA in the places where the dogs detected d coom.
784
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:13.760
They think it's from blood that matches DNA samples from
785
00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:15.480
Kristen's parents.
786
00:40:15.960 --> 00:40:17.039
Wait what blood?
787
00:40:17.480 --> 00:40:21.480
Yeah, that's the question. What blood? Oakland PD didn't see
788
00:40:21.519 --> 00:40:24.639
any blood when they were there doing their GPR or digging,
789
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:27.719
But according to reporting by Bill Moffatt for sf Gate,
790
00:40:28.360 --> 00:40:32.519
doctor Vass says his technology can detect quote a chemical
791
00:40:32.599 --> 00:40:37.239
signature indicating human blood. So basically the police are.
792
00:40:37.079 --> 00:40:39.880
Like, listen, we're happy to hear you out, send us
793
00:40:39.880 --> 00:40:42.760
the samples, and we're gonna need some details on your process.
794
00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:45.559
We can verify your results, like you know, we just
795
00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:46.960
need to like take more than.
796
00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:49.079
Your word for it vet our sources. Yeah.
797
00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:53.199
Yeah, except doctor Vass isn't giving up his secrets. He
798
00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:56.960
says he has to protect his proprietary technology. So an
799
00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:00.280
Oakland PD spokeswoman says in a twenty eighteen email quot vote,
800
00:41:00.639 --> 00:41:03.800
at this time, the information we need from doctor Vass
801
00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:07.679
to collect samples for his human decomposition testing has not
802
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:12.039
been forwarded to the department end quote. Doctor Vass and
803
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:15.719
Dosti claim that this is total bs, that they absolutely
804
00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:19.280
have the technology. They say it's not even that complicated
805
00:41:19.480 --> 00:41:23.079
or advanced. But the Oakland PD sticks to their guns
806
00:41:23.239 --> 00:41:27.079
and no one is budging, so those test results never
807
00:41:27.159 --> 00:41:31.320
get confirmed by anyone but doctor Vass himself. And listen,
808
00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:33.440
I don't want to dive too deep into this theory,
809
00:41:33.559 --> 00:41:35.320
but I am going to give a few details because
810
00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:37.119
at this point, this is when like.
811
00:41:37.119 --> 00:41:38.840
A divide develops.
812
00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:42.719
So you have Officer Mahaney and Dennis who think one thing,
813
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:47.440
you have Dosty and doctor Vass who think another, and
814
00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:49.920
then you have the FBI, and then I'll get to
815
00:41:49.960 --> 00:41:52.639
them in a second. Basically, the PI and doctor Vass
816
00:41:52.679 --> 00:41:56.039
think that maybe Kristen did make it back to Oakland
817
00:41:56.039 --> 00:41:59.400
that day in nineteen ninety seven, which in theory, could
818
00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:02.639
potentially implicate the four men that she was living with
819
00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:06.320
those four men have no connection to John or Jill,
820
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:09.840
and the investigators never really consider them serious persons of interest.
821
00:42:10.079 --> 00:42:12.159
Has there ever been any follow up on those guys though,
822
00:42:12.199 --> 00:42:14.760
Like where are they now? Have they gotten into any trouble?
823
00:42:15.239 --> 00:42:16.559
Honestly, I'm not sure.
824
00:42:16.599 --> 00:42:19.360
I know Officer Mahaney felt like they were super cooperative
825
00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:23.559
and forthright during the initial investigation, and Dennis has spoken
826
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:26.360
to three of four and he felt like mostly kind
827
00:42:26.360 --> 00:42:28.880
of the same way. And he also points something out
828
00:42:28.880 --> 00:42:32.360
that feels important in the context of the housemates. It's
829
00:42:32.360 --> 00:42:36.559
not like Kristen joined this group of four longtime besties
830
00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:38.559
when she moved out to that house in Oakland. Like
831
00:42:38.920 --> 00:42:41.519
they were all just renting rooms that happened to be
832
00:42:41.519 --> 00:42:44.760
in the same house, Like that was their entire connection
833
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:47.280
to one another, except for two of them. Two of
834
00:42:47.320 --> 00:42:49.760
them were brothers, But for the most part, it was
835
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:53.760
just this house sharing arrangement. So in my personal opinion,
836
00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:56.199
like any theory that they've all been keeping this dirty
837
00:42:56.280 --> 00:42:59.440
shared secret for the past twenty seven years, it's like
838
00:42:59.480 --> 00:43:00.760
it's more of a stretch, right, Like.
839
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:03.400
They have no obligation to do that for each other.
840
00:43:03.719 --> 00:43:07.280
Right, But maybe there was a threat that was close
841
00:43:07.320 --> 00:43:11.559
to home, you see, unbeknownst to investigators on Kristen's case,
842
00:43:11.559 --> 00:43:15.079
for the first year of the investigation, the house directly
843
00:43:15.159 --> 00:43:18.440
next door to hers operated as some sort of transitional
844
00:43:18.440 --> 00:43:22.039
housing for criminal offenders. And, as far as I can tell,
845
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:25.519
and it could be wrong, information is scarce, it might
846
00:43:25.559 --> 00:43:28.960
have been used for juvenile offenders, which isn't to say
847
00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:31.400
that you have to be a legal adult to be dangerous,
848
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:33.519
but a house full of wayward teens seems a lot
849
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.000
less threatening than like a house full of adult offenders.
850
00:43:36.039 --> 00:43:38.719
I don't know, but either way, like I was saying,
851
00:43:38.760 --> 00:43:42.320
there's a divide. Officer Mahaney doesn't buy any of this theory.
852
00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:45.440
Neither does Dennis. They still seem pretty certain that all
853
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:49.199
roads lead back to John Onuma. When he was asked
854
00:43:49.199 --> 00:43:52.039
in twenty twenty three where he thinks Kristen's remains are,
855
00:43:52.519 --> 00:43:56.039
Officer Mahaney told Andrew Chammings and Katie Dowd for SFGate quote,
856
00:43:56.440 --> 00:43:59.519
I'd say she was dumped off a bridge in Marin County.
857
00:44:00.280 --> 00:44:03.360
Quote Marin County, where John claimed her body had been
858
00:44:03.440 --> 00:44:08.079
dumped all those years ago. But interestingly, a twenty seventeen
859
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:12.639
ABC seven article states that the FBI has cleared John
860
00:44:12.840 --> 00:44:16.039
and Jill as persons of interest and they have closed
861
00:44:16.119 --> 00:44:19.880
their case on Kristin. The reporter for that article, Katie
862
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:23.400
UTIs actually reached out to John for her piece, and
863
00:44:23.559 --> 00:44:26.519
he admitted to calling the initial tip in way back when,
864
00:44:26.639 --> 00:44:29.800
but says that he regrets it. He told her quote,
865
00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:32.599
I put the attention on me when I shouldn't have,
866
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:35.719
and I screwed up. I took the focus off of
867
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:36.559
the investigation.
868
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:37.679
End quote.
869
00:44:38.320 --> 00:44:40.960
But and I feel like this is an important butt.
870
00:44:41.559 --> 00:44:44.320
A spokesperson for the FBI put out a statement in
871
00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:49.199
twenty twenty three indicating that they didn't see anything suggesting
872
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:53.639
that Kristin actually met with foul play at all, which
873
00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:57.440
seems to be a page that literally no one else
874
00:44:57.639 --> 00:44:57.920
is on.
875
00:44:58.360 --> 00:44:59.960
I was gonna say, I didn't even realize that way,
876
00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:01.840
like a page in the book.
877
00:45:01.599 --> 00:45:05.039
We were reading, right, And I don't know if I
878
00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:07.719
don't have enough information about what the FBI means by that.
879
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:10.360
I don't know if if they go to the scent
880
00:45:10.480 --> 00:45:12.320
right like the dogs tracked her scent to the cliff,
881
00:45:12.360 --> 00:45:14.719
did she fall off the cliff? Is that what they believe,
882
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:16.679
and that's why they're saying no foul play or are
883
00:45:16.679 --> 00:45:20.320
they suggesting that she walked away? Like they don't say
884
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:22.239
any of that. They just say that there's no foul
885
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.480
play at all. So not only did they like write
886
00:45:24.519 --> 00:45:28.679
off persons of interest, they're like, there's no persons of interest, there's.
887
00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:30.440
No reason for a person of interest.
888
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:33.480
Yeah, and again, don't get it twisted like FBI's saying that,
889
00:45:33.519 --> 00:45:35.760
but I don't. I don't think that's what local police
890
00:45:35.800 --> 00:45:38.440
are saying. What does her family think, Well, I don't
891
00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:41.519
know if they subscribe to any one theory. I mean,
892
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:44.079
that's hard to do when your loved one is missing.
893
00:45:44.119 --> 00:45:46.360
Like at least the people that I've talked to who
894
00:45:46.360 --> 00:45:47.360
have a missing loved one.
895
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:50.159
It's like every day you could feel differently, like.
896
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:53.719
Because anything in everything seems possible when you don't know
897
00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:57.559
what actually happened. So that's kind of where Kristen's case
898
00:45:57.599 --> 00:46:01.280
stands today. Her dad, Bob died in twenty twenty two
899
00:46:01.400 --> 00:46:04.280
from leukemia, and maybe there are.
900
00:46:04.320 --> 00:46:06.320
Answers after death. I like to think so.
901
00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:09.679
Debbie says that as she was saying her goodbye, she
902
00:46:09.760 --> 00:46:12.440
asked him to give Kristen hugs from herself and from
903
00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:13.760
Kristen's sisters.
904
00:46:14.159 --> 00:46:14.639
If you know.
905
00:46:14.639 --> 00:46:17.880
Anything about the disappearance of Kristin Modaferi from the Bay
906
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:21.599
Area in June of nineteen ninety seven, please pass your
907
00:46:21.599 --> 00:46:25.119
information along to the Oakland Police Department Missing Persons Unit.
908
00:46:25.639 --> 00:46:28.719
They can be reached at five one zero two three
909
00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:46.280
eight three six four one. You can find all the
910
00:46:46.360 --> 00:46:50.559
source material for this episode on our website, Crimejunkie podcast
911
00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:51.960
dot com.
912
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:54.440
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
913
00:46:54.679 --> 00:46:56.440
We're going to be back next week with a brand
914
00:46:56.440 --> 00:46:58.400
new episode, but if you want to stick around for
915
00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:00.239
a couple of minutes, we've got some good new use
916
00:47:00.280 --> 00:47:26.920
for you. All Right, crime junkies, let's lighten things up
917
00:47:26.960 --> 00:47:29.760
a little bit. Yeah, we've got another tried and true
918
00:47:29.800 --> 00:47:31.440
good segment for you this month.
919
00:47:31.519 --> 00:47:32.400
Thank goodness too.
920
00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:35.280
I know, I know I could use use a little
921
00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:35.960
good this month.
922
00:47:36.519 --> 00:47:39.239
Yeah, And like always, this story is amazing, but the
923
00:47:39.360 --> 00:47:43.239
timing within it is just it's really something. Dear Ashley
924
00:47:43.280 --> 00:47:46.159
and Britt, I can't even believe the timing on what
925
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:49.199
just happened. I'm a longtime crime junkie and decided to
926
00:47:49.239 --> 00:47:51.559
listen to your most recent episode on scams on my
927
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:55.480
neighborhood walk just now. I literally still had my AirPods
928
00:47:55.559 --> 00:47:58.280
in from finishing the episode when my phone rang with
929
00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:01.599
a blocked call. I don't I don't even know why
930
00:48:01.639 --> 00:48:03.960
I decided to answer, because I usually screen calls, but
931
00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:07.639
I did answer. They verified my name and identified themselves
932
00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:09.280
as from the City Police Department.
933
00:48:09.800 --> 00:48:10.599
Shut up.
934
00:48:11.440 --> 00:48:14.239
The initial statement was that they had an official notification
935
00:48:14.320 --> 00:48:16.480
for me, and my thoughts instantly went to the worst
936
00:48:16.519 --> 00:48:19.079
case scenario. That's something had happened to someone in my family.
937
00:48:19.480 --> 00:48:22.320
So I was emotionally revd up. And then he started
938
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:25.079
to talk about how they had assigned document by me,
939
00:48:25.400 --> 00:48:27.840
saying I would appear in court on a certain date.
940
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:31.840
Shot up that I had missed the court appearance. They
941
00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:34.280
said they were calling on behalf of a judge and
942
00:48:34.320 --> 00:48:37.119
that there was now a misdemeanor charge in my name
943
00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:41.280
for failure to appear. Obviously, I never assigned anything and
944
00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:45.000
had no knowledge of what they were talking about. This
945
00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:47.760
is a big deal to anyone, but particularly to me,
946
00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:53.239
because my professional license is affected by any non traffic charge. However,
947
00:48:53.960 --> 00:48:59.039
I had finished your scam episode just thirty seconds prior,
948
00:48:59.239 --> 00:49:02.000
so even though I was freaking out, I told them
949
00:49:02.079 --> 00:49:04.639
to please repeat their name, and I'd be coming in
950
00:49:04.679 --> 00:49:07.400
person with my uncle, who is a lawyer. This is true,
951
00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:10.079
he's actually a retired lawyer. He went on about how
952
00:49:10.119 --> 00:49:12.719
I didn't need a lawyer, but X and Y were happening,
953
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:16.519
but I maintained I would come in person, and then
954
00:49:16.559 --> 00:49:19.519
he said that if I would not follow the instructions
955
00:49:19.519 --> 00:49:22.320
on the phone, he needed me to verbally repeat some
956
00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:26.280
statement with my information, saying I wouldn't proceed. I told
957
00:49:26.360 --> 00:49:29.199
him I would not give any personal information over the phone,
958
00:49:29.199 --> 00:49:32.119
but wanted his name and I am coming in person.
959
00:49:32.599 --> 00:49:35.320
He then started getting flustered and putting me on hold,
960
00:49:35.679 --> 00:49:39.519
presumably to readdress the script, but I held to the
961
00:49:39.559 --> 00:49:42.119
statement that I needed his name and would come in person.
962
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:45.239
I offered to call back to the non emergency line.
963
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:48.760
He kept trying to push for additional personal information, but
964
00:49:48.800 --> 00:49:52.000
I ultimately sure he did hung up when he kept
965
00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:55.840
putting me on hold. He immediately called back, and I
966
00:49:55.960 --> 00:49:58.440
told him that he had thirty seconds to tell me
967
00:49:58.440 --> 00:50:00.840
his name and where I should come in person, for
968
00:50:00.920 --> 00:50:04.320
which he had no answer. So I hung up again
969
00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:08.079
and declined the subsequent three or four calls, I cannot
970
00:50:08.119 --> 00:50:10.320
believe the timing. If I hadn't heard this episode. When
971
00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:12.800
I did, I think I would have been so flustered
972
00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:14.719
by everything in the phone call that I would have
973
00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:19.159
at least provided a lot more at the minimum. It's
974
00:50:19.280 --> 00:50:24.199
absolutely terrifying to receive a notification call quote from the police,
975
00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:28.360
and even as a well educated, long standing crime junkie,
976
00:50:28.360 --> 00:50:32.880
I was panicking. Your episode saved my personal information and
977
00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:36.880
possibly my bank account. I have the utmost respect for
978
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:39.639
those that shared their stories so I could learn from
979
00:50:39.639 --> 00:50:42.840
them and be safe. Much love, Hi, Sarah.
980
00:50:43.719 --> 00:50:48.519
I literally have full body chill. That is breaking unbelievable.
981
00:50:48.679 --> 00:50:50.519
That has to feel like you're in a movie, like
982
00:50:50.519 --> 00:50:53.360
it's made up right, Like you're listening to this episode
983
00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:56.639
on scam Yeah, and then someone tries to scam you
984
00:50:56.960 --> 00:50:58.119
thirty seconds later.
985
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:01.039
You couldn't convince me like I wasn't on my own
986
00:51:01.079 --> 00:51:02.079
version of The Truman Show.
987
00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:06.840
Really is it all about me? Oh man? That is
988
00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:07.719
really stinking cool.
989
00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:10.519
Like again, my hope, obviously was that we help a
990
00:51:10.559 --> 00:51:11.880
person or two with that episode.
991
00:51:12.119 --> 00:51:14.000
I didn't think it happened at that quickly.
992
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:18.360
Is unbelievable. Also, I love to know that we're blowing
993
00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:20.519
up their spot. These people are going to need a
994
00:51:20.519 --> 00:51:22.079
new scam. Yeah, that's amazing.
995
00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:23.159
Oh love it.
996
00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:28.719
Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production, So what do
997
00:51:28.760 --> 00:51:29.360
you think, Chuck?
998
00:51:29.719 --> 00:51:30.320
Do you approve
1
00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:01.520
High crime junkies.
2
00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:04.960
I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt and the
3
00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.400
story I have for you today is a testament to
4
00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:11.320
a love so deep and profound that it exists almost
5
00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.240
outside of time itself. And that's the love of a
6
00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:18.679
parent for their child. This is the story of Kristen Modaferi.
7
00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:55.880
Your college years are supposed to be a time of exploration,
8
00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:59.280
a time to push the boundaries a little, hopefully safely,
9
00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:02.719
time to find yourself, especially back in the nineties when
10
00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:06.159
without tech your world could feel really small until you
11
00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:08.640
got to leave home for the first time. And in
12
00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:12.040
nineteen ninety seven, nothing and I mean nothing was gonna
13
00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:15.760
stop Kristin Modiferi from doing just that. She just finished
14
00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:18.959
her freshman year at North Carolina State University, where she's
15
00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.120
one of twenty five people in her class on a
16
00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:23.079
full ride as a park scholar.
17
00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:26.040
So girls, a smart cookie like skipped a.
18
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Grade and scored of fifteen seventy out of sixteen hundred
19
00:01:29.079 --> 00:01:31.359
on the SAT is kind of smart. And she's also
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00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:34.680
brave and bold and adventurous, one of those people who
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00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:38.120
wants to experience as much of life as she possibly can.
22
00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:40.840
So when it's time for her to plan her summer.
23
00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:44.000
It's no surprise that she's like dreaming really big. She
24
00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:47.000
wanted to push herself even farther outside of her bubble.
25
00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:49.959
College had been a good first step, but NC State
26
00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:52.719
is still just a few hours from home, and like besides,
27
00:01:52.760 --> 00:01:55.879
her big sister Allison, is a student there too, so she.
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Wanted something for herself.
29
00:01:57.359 --> 00:02:00.000
She wanted to spend the summer clear across the country
30
00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:02.840
in the Bay Area. The plan was for her to
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00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:05.760
get a job, take photography courses at UC Berkeley, and
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00:02:05.799 --> 00:02:08.080
she would explore the Bay Area in her free time.
33
00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:10.520
But when she pitched this idea to her parents, her
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00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:13.319
mom Debbie was a little freaked out. I mean, after all,
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00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:16.599
she'd be going on her own. But eventually Kristin and
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00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:19.360
her dad Bob were able to get Debbie on board.
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00:02:19.719 --> 00:02:23.039
So on June first, nineteen ninety seven, her eighteenth birthday,
38
00:02:23.319 --> 00:02:26.319
she kissed her parents and her three sisters goodbye, boarded
39
00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:29.759
a plane and headed west for her big San Francisco summer.
40
00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:33.080
When she got there, she rented a room with four
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00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:36.199
male housemates across the bay in Oakland, and she picked
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00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:38.240
up a couple of part time jobs. Almost as soon
43
00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:40.240
as she got there. She had one which was this
44
00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:43.319
weekday gig at a coffee shop called Spinelli's, and a
45
00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:46.400
weekend one at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
46
00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:49.400
And since classes weren't going to start until June twenty fourth,
47
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:51.599
she had managed to get a whole lot of exploring
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00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:54.639
in during those first three weeks. And the whole time, like,
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00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:57.759
she's calling home frequently, telling her family all about everything
50
00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:00.199
that she's been up to, everything she's seen and done.
51
00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:04.560
So it's a little unusual when June twenty fourth passes
52
00:03:04.719 --> 00:03:07.879
without a call. I mean, big day, right, school's starting.
53
00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:09.840
Normally that's the kind of thing she would want to
54
00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:13.240
update them on. But still it's easy enough to write off,
55
00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.319
like classes just started, no big deal. Maybe she's adjusting
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00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:19.439
to her new schedule. And eventually her dad, Bob, figures
57
00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:21.919
he's just gonna call her. I mean, the phone works
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00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:24.919
two ways, after all, so he dials the landline number
59
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:26.680
for the house that she's staying in. But when no
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00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:30.039
one answers, Bob is forced to leave a message, nothing panicky,
61
00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:30.560
just like.
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Hey, it's us, Like give us a call.
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Hope you're having the time of your life, but don't
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00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:37.639
forget about us little people. When his office phone rings
65
00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:41.000
one morning soon after, he probably expects to hear Kristen's
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00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:45.520
cheerful voice on the other end, but that's not what happens. Instead,
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00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:49.439
it's one of Kristen's housemates named Griffin, and what Griffin
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00:03:49.479 --> 00:03:53.759
says sends chills down Bob's spine. Matt Birkbeck reports for
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00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:56.680
Reader's Digest that there's no small talk. He cuts right
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00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:59.560
to the chase and says, quote, I don't know how
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00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:03.599
to tell you this. Your daughter's missing. Griffin says that
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00:04:03.719 --> 00:04:06.960
none of the housemates have seen Kristin in three days.
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At first, they just figured she was out a friends
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00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.039
or something, but after hearing Bob's voicemail, they started to worry,
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00:04:12.080 --> 00:04:15.000
so they actually called the Oakland Police and reported her missing,
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00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:17.879
and then Griffin called Bob. Now, Bob and Debbie are
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00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:21.279
on the first available flight out to San Francisco that Friday,
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00:04:21.319 --> 00:04:24.279
the twenty seventh, and when they land, they don't even
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00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:26.480
drop their stuff off at a hotel. They just go
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00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:28.920
straight to the Oakland Police Department to figure out what
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00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:30.680
has happened so far and what they can do to
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00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:31.600
help find their daughter.
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But the urgency that they feel.
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Isn't shared in the slightest by the desk officer, who
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just kind of shrugs, points out the time a little
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00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:41.920
after four and says that they're gonna have to come
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00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:46.079
back Monday because the investigators assigned to Christen's missing person's
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00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:49.360
file are already gone for the weekend. But you know,
89
00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:51.360
even that they shouldn't really worry.
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00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:54.560
Because, Okay, here's the thing. Missing kids aren't really a
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00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:55.720
nine to five job.
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Like, isn't it strange?
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Like no nights or weekends? What?
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00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:02.000
And Oakland is some like one stoplight town. It's not
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00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:04.480
like there's one detective on the forest. I think it's wild.
96
00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:07.120
But they go on to say, like, listen, she's technically
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not a kid. She's eighteen. She's out here for her
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big adventure, like we see this all the time. She
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00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:15.639
probably left on her own, either to run away, maybe
100
00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:16.800
just out having too much fun.
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But she'll turn up.
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And this practically knocks the wind out of Bob and Debbie,
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who know that that can't be true. I mean, for one,
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00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:25.920
she has no reason to run away. I mean she's
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00:05:25.959 --> 00:05:28.319
been living the dream and loving every minute of it.
106
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But more than that, she wouldn't put her family through
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00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:35.040
something like this, not Bob and Debbie, not her sisters,
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00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:38.040
not if she could help it. So, without any help
109
00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:40.399
over the weekend hours, they spend the next few days
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doing the only thing they can think to do and
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are capable of doing on their own. They hit the
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00:05:45.319 --> 00:05:48.600
streets to try and find someone, anyone who might have
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00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:52.040
seen or interacted with their daughter, and, knowing that that's
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00:05:52.079 --> 00:05:54.079
not going to be enough, they also hire a PI,
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00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:59.079
this retired FBI agent named Graham Desvernin. Now, nothing comes
116
00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:02.480
of their weekend searches, so come Monday morning, they head
117
00:06:02.519 --> 00:06:05.800
straight back to Oakland PD, where this time they're able
118
00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:09.240
to convince the lead investigator, this guy named Officer Patrick Mahaney,
119
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that whatever this is, it is definitely not a runaway situation,
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and as soon as he rules out that theory in
121
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his own mind, he and Sergent Bradley, the other investigator
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assigned to the case, hit the ground running. They interview
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her housemates, obviously, who tell them what they'd already told
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Bob and Debbie by that point, that they haven't seen
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Kristen since she left for work on the twenty third,
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and since that would have been a week day, they knew.
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She was headed to her job at the coffee shop.
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Spinelli's, so police go there to talk to her coworkers
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and they say, yes, she did show up for work
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on the twenty third.
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She was there for her whole shift.
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Everything seemed fine, and she left when the shift ended
133
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at three pm. But luckily, something she said or really
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asked for during her shift gave police their next breadcrumb,
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because apparently her coworkers said that that day she'd been
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asking around for direction to a park on the shoreline
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00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:06.120
called Land's End. And this Land's End connection only gets
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stronger when investigators bring out scent dogs to try and
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trace kristen scent from Spinelli's, since they know for sure
140
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that she was there. And the dogs go right from
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the coffee shop to this bus stop, the very stop
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that you would go to to catch a bus to
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Land's End. So they head out toward lands End and
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the dogs pick up Kristen sent right back up where
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Officer Mahaney takes them out to the beach nearby and
146
00:07:29.079 --> 00:07:32.040
they follow it past the ruins of this giant bathhouse
147
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from the eighteen nineties, then on to the cliff house
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which sits on you guessed it a giant ocean side cliff,
149
00:07:39.879 --> 00:07:43.399
but Officer Mahine's stomach drops when the dogs lose the
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scent near the cliff house right at what reporting in
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the Charlotte Observer calls a quote rocky vista overlooking the
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Pacific Ocean, and this is concerning to him because he
153
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knows that the beauty of this place can be deceiving.
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00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:58.600
In that same article, he used the word treacherous to
155
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describe it, saying that quote people fall off into the
156
00:08:01.639 --> 00:08:03.199
ocean every year.
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Was Kristin a strong swimmer?
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00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:06.480
I mean, I think so, But this isn't the kind
159
00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:08.720
of situation where you can really swim your way out of.
160
00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:11.480
I mean, what happens is that a rogue wave will
161
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come out of nowhere and just literally sweep you away,
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sometimes to be found on shore later, sometimes never to
163
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be found.
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00:08:17.480 --> 00:08:19.160
In describing this, it doesn't feel like this is in
165
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the middle of nowhere, right, Like, wouldn't someone have seen
166
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something like that happen in the middle of the afternoon, So.
167
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Yeah, that's the thing they should have because you're right,
168
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this area is super popular with tourists. But if that's
169
00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:33.279
what happened, no one seems to have seen a thing,
170
00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:35.720
because there aren't any reports of anyone falling in over
171
00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:38.399
the last couple of days, and as hard as they try,
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00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:41.799
they can't find any witnesses who even saw kristin there,
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much less saw her fall in.
174
00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:46.440
So if there aren't even witnesses to her sight seeing,
175
00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:49.080
isn't it still possible she fell in without someone seeing.
176
00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:51.600
I mean, it's possible, but it feels a little bit
177
00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:54.080
like a stretch, because I guess in my mind, I'm
178
00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:56.360
thinking like a solo person just kind of walking around
179
00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.240
sight seeing like that wouldn't draw attention, Like I don't
180
00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:02.919
think it necessarily like precludes her having been there, So like,
181
00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:05.320
I don't think anyone not seeing her is mind blowing.
182
00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:07.559
But like if someone would have fallen in like that
183
00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:10.440
would have drawn attention, I think, so, I think it's
184
00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.600
just more proof that that didn't happen.
185
00:09:12.919 --> 00:09:14.919
Okay, But then why does her scent stop there?
186
00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:18.320
No one knows. I mean, maybe she followed the exact
187
00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:21.320
same path back down the cliff to the bus station
188
00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:22.879
and went somewhere else.
189
00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:25.240
Like I don't know if that's how it works or what,
190
00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:27.639
or if they have an explanation, but all they can
191
00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:30.679
do is keep looking and keep talking to the few
192
00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:33.480
people who knew Kristen, and the list out there was
193
00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:36.480
short since she'd just gotten there less than a month ago,
194
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:40.360
but police are desperate for a lead. Was there anyone
195
00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:42.559
she met recently, anyone she didn't.
196
00:09:42.279 --> 00:09:43.039
Get along with?
197
00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:46.200
So they go back to her housemates again, trying to
198
00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:48.799
get as much insight as they can into her life
199
00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:51.639
in the Bay Area. And while they don't identify anyone
200
00:09:51.679 --> 00:09:54.279
who'd want to hurt her, they do say that her open,
201
00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:57.840
bubbly personality may have gotten her into trouble, like she
202
00:09:58.080 --> 00:10:00.799
was assuming the best of everyone to the point that
203
00:10:00.879 --> 00:10:04.159
someone could have taken advantage of that. Like for example,
204
00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:06.519
the housemates say that she was known to catch rides
205
00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:09.320
with strangers, and when she missed the last train back
206
00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:11.840
to Oakland after a concert one night, she, with her
207
00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:14.360
glass always half full, was just like, no big deal,
208
00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:16.080
I'm just gonna catch a few z's on this bench
209
00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:18.720
at the station, And the guy she was with was like, Uh,
210
00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:20.720
that's like not really an option here.
211
00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:21.720
It's a pretty bad idea.
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00:10:21.799 --> 00:10:23.720
So why don't you just like sleep on my brother's
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couch instead, And so in that instance she did, even
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00:10:27.320 --> 00:10:29.399
though she really didn't even know that guy. She had
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00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:32.279
just met him that night, and she had gotten home
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safe and sound the next day. And whoever this guy is,
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he's ruled out as a suspect. But it left investigators
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00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.840
wondering how many other similar encounters Kristen had had and
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how on earth were they gonna find those people. The
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00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:51.240
best answer to everyone felt like just getting her face
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00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:54.759
out there, have as many people as possible know that
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she's missing, and see who comes forward. So for the
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next two weeks, Bob and Debbie practice move in at Kinko's,
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where they print out missing person flyers right and left,
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and they even tap local media to get her picture
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00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:10.399
out on TV as well. But those two weeks passed
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00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:13.120
without any real breaks in the case, and Debbie and
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00:11:13.159 --> 00:11:16.600
Bob are faced with this awful reality they're gonna have
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to leave California without their daughter. I mean, they've got
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three other kids to worry about, Allison, who's twenty, but
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also a fifteen year old, a seven year old, And
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the impression I get is that Allison has kind of
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been holding down the fort while they've been gone, so
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like they have to make this unbearable trade off between
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being on one coast looking for their daughter or being
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at home across the country.
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For their other three kids.
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Bob tells Aaron Lee Martin with the Charlotte Observer quote,
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if we felt like we were closing in on finding her,
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we certainly wouldn't have come home, And Debbie adds, we
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00:11:50.879 --> 00:11:53.600
just didn't know what else we could do. So they
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00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:57.480
make the difficult decision to leave. But just two days
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after they did, Oakland p D gets a hip that
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actually might be the key to finding Kristin. A local
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00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:09.039
news station had gotten an anonymous call about Kristin, which
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00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:12.279
they immediately passed along to the Oakland p D. The
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man on the other end of the line said that
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she was killed by two women who dumped her body
249
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under a wooden bridge in Marin County, which is like
250
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an hour or two north of San Francisco.
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I have all the questions. Does he say why she
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00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:30.440
was killed, where this bridge was, who these women were,
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how he knows any of this?
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All of the above.
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00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:36.799
Actually so, he claims that the three women, so Kristin
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00:12:36.840 --> 00:12:39.080
and these other two were caught up in some sort
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of love triangle, or maybe like Kristin rebuffed their advances.
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But the gist being that someone rejected someone and Kristen
259
00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:47.200
was killed as a result.
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And then as.
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Far as where he says that the bridge is near
262
00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:54.840
point raised. But that's as specific as he gets, or
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00:12:54.879 --> 00:12:57.559
as specific as has been reported, because that's what I
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found from Burbeck's reporting and readers digest.
265
00:13:00.679 --> 00:13:02.679
But he does get specific.
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On names, just not his name, but he gives the
267
00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:09.519
full names of these other two women. And when Officer
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00:13:09.559 --> 00:13:11.879
Mahaney tracks these two women down, to say that they're
269
00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:16.559
flabbergasted would be an understatement, because they're like, we've never
270
00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:20.799
even met Kristen and we definitely didn't do anything to
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hurt her.
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00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:23.720
So it doesn't take long for.
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Him to kind of suss out that this tip is
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00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:29.399
starting to feel a bit bogus, which if I had
275
00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:31.279
to put my money on it, he probably might have
276
00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:34.399
suspected all along. But that's not to say that he
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00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:37.720
dismissed this whole bridge thing altogether. I mean, again, he
278
00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:39.960
even at least went and talked to these women. He's
279
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.480
got to be thinking like, Okay, maybe there's some truth
280
00:13:42.559 --> 00:13:44.840
to this, even if it's not the full truth, you know,
281
00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.320
like why would someone point the finger at these two
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00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:51.159
women at all? So while he's talking to them, he's like, Okay, listen, look,
283
00:13:51.320 --> 00:13:55.080
someone wants to cause problems for you. Any idea who
284
00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:57.960
that might be? Do you have enemies, anyone with a grudge?
285
00:13:58.120 --> 00:14:00.720
Basically whose list are you on exactly?
286
00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:03.840
And the women both come up with the same name,
287
00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:06.679
John Onuma. See.
288
00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:10.200
John's got a girlfriend named Jill Lampo who worked with
289
00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.519
the women at the YMCA, and for some reason, he
290
00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.919
is convinced that these two women have plotted to get
291
00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:20.159
his girlfriend, Jill fired, and basically he's had it out
292
00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:23.840
for them ever since. So maybe this John guy was
293
00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.960
their caller, And that's the first thing they ask him
294
00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.759
when they go straight to confront him about this, and
295
00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:32.840
at first he denies any involvement with Kristin with even
296
00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:36.919
the anonymous call, but eventually he fesses up that yeah,
297
00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.679
he did make the call out of spite, but he
298
00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.720
doesn't know Kristin or anything. He knew about her disappearance
299
00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:48.159
and basically just decided to put these women. But he
300
00:14:48.279 --> 00:14:52.159
adds even though he doesn't know anything, he might be
301
00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:54.240
able to help them solve Kristin's case.
302
00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:57.600
Mm hmm, I bet he can. Go on, well, I
303
00:14:57.639 --> 00:14:58.039
wish I.
304
00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:01.279
Could, except for there is no reporting on what he
305
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:02.080
means by that.
306
00:15:02.360 --> 00:15:02.519
What.
307
00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:05.399
Yeah, it's really strange, Like both the Charlotte Observer and
308
00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:08.559
the San Francisco Examiner reference him saying this like in
309
00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:11.840
their reporting, but it's just this like offhanded mention and
310
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:12.679
then they like move on.
311
00:15:12.919 --> 00:15:14.120
So I don't know.
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00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.759
I mean, I assume that investigators like looked into it,
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00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:19.159
but maybe they didn't make anything of it.
314
00:15:19.279 --> 00:15:19.840
I don't know.
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00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:23.039
I just know that after this they weren't done with John,
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00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:25.120
like it was at least suspicious, whether they knew what
317
00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:27.440
it meant or not. And I know they weren't done
318
00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:30.080
with him because A I know they go looking at
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00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.559
wooden bridges. I don't know where exactly or when this happened,
320
00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:36.799
but Officer Mahany coordinates to have every last wooden bridge
321
00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:39.919
in the county looked at. But the unhelpful fact is,
322
00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:44.120
given flooding and animal activity, et cetera, like they'd have
323
00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:46.840
to be like really damn lucky to find any trace
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00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:47.919
of Kristen even if she.
325
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Was dumped at one of them, and their luck just
326
00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:51.399
isn't that good.
327
00:15:51.480 --> 00:15:54.879
Nothing has ever been reported as being found in those searches.
328
00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:57.720
But the other thing they do at this time is
329
00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:00.679
they start digging into John's background to see if he's
330
00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:02.679
got any skeletons in his closet.
331
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But as Sus as John maybe.
332
00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:08.919
Which by the way is like super sus, it's still
333
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:11.440
early days and they don't want to get tunnel vision.
334
00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:14.639
So even while they're investigating him, kind of on the
335
00:16:14.679 --> 00:16:17.200
down load, they're still running down all of the leads
336
00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:19.480
that are coming in, and there are more than just
337
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:23.080
a few, mostly about possible sightings of kristin everywhere, not
338
00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:25.919
just like in the Bay Area, but from Texas to Canada.
339
00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:28.519
But every time they run those down or look into him,
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00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:33.159
they lead nowhere. And meanwhile, her parents are working as
341
00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:35.799
hard as ever to get her name and her picture
342
00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:39.879
in front of as many people as possible. By mid October,
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00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:42.960
they've already appeared on hard copy and America's Most Wanted,
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00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:46.000
and Debbie's even a guest on a talk show featuring
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00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:48.919
a psychic who agrees to work with them on Kristen's case.
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00:16:49.679 --> 00:16:52.279
And they're not like true believers or anything, like they
347
00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:54.440
know it's a hail Mary, but if a psychic is
348
00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:56.919
what it takes to find their daughter, like, so be it.
349
00:16:57.519 --> 00:16:59.480
They meet with the wizard of Freakin' eyes if he
350
00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:03.799
could offer help. But spoiler alert, whether it's wizards or psychics,
351
00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:07.359
they never end up being the all powerful, all seeing force.
352
00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:12.079
It's always just a man behind the curtain. But sometimes
353
00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:18.680
a human man can help in his own human way.
354
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:22.519
Because around this time, October of ninety seven, Kristen's parents
355
00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:26.559
are approached by a guy named Dennis Man. Dennis lives
356
00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:29.519
there in Charlotte, North Carolina, where her family lives. He's
357
00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:32.839
this perfect stranger, mind you, but he tells them that
358
00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:35.680
he wants to move to San Francisco and look for
359
00:17:35.799 --> 00:17:40.920
Kristin full time for free if they give him their blessing.
360
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.279
Who does this guy work for?
361
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:45.440
Well, like if you're asking like police or anything, like,
362
00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:47.559
no one. He's kind of this like jack of all
363
00:17:47.599 --> 00:17:49.440
trades as far as I can put together, Like I
364
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.119
know at one point he was a supervisor at a
365
00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.839
local Charlotte shelter for the unhoused, Like that's what he
366
00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:58.519
was doing when he approaches Kristin's parents, And I know
367
00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:02.160
he's got some sort of delivery business, but like no
368
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.039
experience with missing people or investigations.
369
00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:07.839
He's gonna have to like learn that stuff. On the fly.
370
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.000
I mean, how hard could it possibly be? And listen,
371
00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:13.480
let's just say it. The offer is odd. Yeah, Like,
372
00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:15.359
I don't like see this every I don't think I've
373
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.000
ever seen this in any other case. But he swears
374
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:20.880
up and down his intentions are good. He says he's
375
00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.640
got some money saved up and he just wants to
376
00:18:23.720 --> 00:18:26.880
help because for some reason, what he knows of Kristen's
377
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:31.519
disappearance has just really affected him. So a bit strange, sure,
378
00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:33.839
but it seems like he's one of those do gooders,
379
00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:36.400
always just on the lookout for the next righteous cause.
380
00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:39.440
And I don't know how you're taking this, but I
381
00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:41.319
do not mean this in a negative way at all.
382
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.240
Like when this guy finds a cause, dude is all in.
383
00:18:46.039 --> 00:18:48.480
Like in the early nineties, he even walked across the
384
00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:51.200
country to raise money for a homeless shelter that he
385
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:55.519
wanted to open. He walked for nine months straight, covering
386
00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:58.480
three thousand miles. And I think he's just one of
387
00:18:58.519 --> 00:19:00.319
those people, Like I think there are some some people
388
00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:02.599
in the world who can hear a bad thing and
389
00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:05.000
be like, wow, that sucks, And then there's.
390
00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:08.599
Other people who feel like a very deep.
391
00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:10.440
Weight when they hear that same bad thing a weight
392
00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:13.359
that's like, I have to do something a responsibility.
393
00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:14.759
Yeah, if not me, then who?
394
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:17.400
Yeah. So this guy's kind of like the Glinda, the
395
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:20.119
Goodwitch to John's wicked Witch of the West. If we're yeah,
396
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.519
still talking us basically, Yeah.
397
00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:25.480
You've got these two men who have inserted themselves into
398
00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:30.240
the investigation, but in very different ways for very different reasons.
399
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:34.519
And Dennis even gives Kristen's parents references, and before long
400
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:37.200
they are fully on board. One more set of boots
401
00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.720
on the ground couldn't hurt, especially when they can't be
402
00:19:39.799 --> 00:19:42.759
on the other side of the country themselves. So Dennis
403
00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:46.279
closes his business, packs up his van, and heads west,
404
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.440
spending the next six months living in that van, catching
405
00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:52.160
a shower at a cheap gym when he can, handing
406
00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:55.359
out as many business cards about Kristen's disappearance as he can,
407
00:19:55.720 --> 00:19:59.000
and following up on every lead that he gets. And
408
00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:02.599
he calls or email the modafairies daily with updates.
409
00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:05.680
So how do investigators feel about this arrangement.
410
00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:09.160
I'm not sure what their initial gut reaction is, but
411
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.119
I actually think they're good with it, at least eventually,
412
00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:15.359
because Debbie says that they even pass along some leads
413
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:18.480
to Dennis for him to look into, and the PI
414
00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:22.200
that they had hired sings his praises, telling Diane Souhetka
415
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:25.480
with the Charlotte Observer quote, he has a heart as
416
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:30.599
big as all outdoors. He's just different. And Debbie echoes that, saying,
417
00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:33.640
we have talked to other parents of missing children, and
418
00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:38.440
they say, we are just so lucky to have Dennis. Which, Man,
419
00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:41.319
the more I do this, the more I realize, in
420
00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:44.519
like ninety percent of cases, it's how good are the
421
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:49.160
investigators and how much support does a case have. But
422
00:20:49.319 --> 00:20:52.920
even in this case with a PI, with a denis
423
00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:57.000
basically out there full time and Officer Mahaney's still running
424
00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.519
the official investigation, the year draws to a close, and
425
00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:04.319
I can't imagine how hard that is for Kristen's family.
426
00:21:04.920 --> 00:21:07.519
Like I know that technically, again, the end of the
427
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:09.720
year is just one day leading into the next, like
428
00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:13.119
any other, but it's just this reminder that with each
429
00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:16.480
passing minute, every day and month and year, they just
430
00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:20.599
keep getting further and further away from Kristen, but no
431
00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:22.200
one is letting her be forgotten.
432
00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:25.160
In January of ninety eight, her fellow park.
433
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:27.839
Scholars at NC State come up with a clever idea
434
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:30.759
to keep her name in the spotlight. They hand out
435
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:33.960
twenty five thousand yellow ribbons before a basketball game that's
436
00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:37.240
going to be aired on ESPN. The players can't wear them,
437
00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:40.759
it's against NCAA rules, but the coaches can and so
438
00:21:40.839 --> 00:21:44.279
can the fans. So they're thinking, let's get so many
439
00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:48.000
yellow ribbons out there that the commentators have to mention them.
440
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:51.440
Maybe they'll even broadcast Christen's picture. And to be honest,
441
00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:54.079
I'm not sure if this worked, but I know that
442
00:21:54.119 --> 00:21:57.480
Alison Matiferi addressed the crowd from the court at halftime,
443
00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:02.079
So you've got to think that ESPN's something. And while
444
00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:05.359
the Monifaery family is as busy as ever in North Carolina,
445
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:08.720
back in the Bay Area, investigators still have John on
446
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:13.119
the brain, and given what they've been uncovering, they've got
447
00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:15.880
good reason for that. Like they find out that he
448
00:22:16.039 --> 00:22:19.440
likes to meet women via personal ads in the classifieds,
449
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:22.440
and when they're able to track some of these women down,
450
00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:25.920
they make some disturbing allegations.
451
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:29.839
Wait, what was happening between like week two where they
452
00:22:29.880 --> 00:22:32.640
get this John tip and all these months.
453
00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:36.720
Later, dude, I don't know. I was in circles over that.
454
00:22:36.839 --> 00:22:40.400
Because promise you, John doesn't even appear in the reporting
455
00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:45.359
until nineteen ninety nine. There is just nothing explaining why
456
00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:47.720
they sat on this guy for so long.
457
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:49.799
Okay, because I was like, I'm glad we know about
458
00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:51.640
Dennis and when he entered the picture, But if this
459
00:22:51.640 --> 00:22:53.319
stuff is going on in the background, I kind of
460
00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:54.079
want to know about it.
461
00:22:54.279 --> 00:22:56.240
What the heck? Yeah, but here we are.
462
00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:59.599
So they track down some of these women, and maybe
463
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:01.079
that's what it took them all this time.
464
00:23:01.160 --> 00:23:02.880
I mean, this is the nineties. I don't know.
465
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:06.759
But when they find them, the women have harrowing stories,
466
00:23:06.759 --> 00:23:11.200
stories of torture and sexual assault, like he would allegedly
467
00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:15.279
hold these women captive, sexually assault them, deprive them of sleep,
468
00:23:15.400 --> 00:23:19.319
and physically abuse them like burn them. Even Diane Suhetka
469
00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:22.400
even writes that John threatened the life of one woman
470
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:25.839
who tried to escape his apartment. He said to her, quote,
471
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:28.359
you know, I'm going to have to kill you. I
472
00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:31.960
can't let you go now. You know what happened to
473
00:23:32.079 --> 00:23:36.839
Kristin MODIFERI Now that alone would have been enough to
474
00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:40.519
make Debbie and Bob's stomach strap, but it was actually
475
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:43.279
something that they'd found in Kristin's room back when she
476
00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:47.720
first went missing that made them fear that John's.
477
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:49.599
Words were completely true.
478
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:53.920
In the days after Kristen's disappearance, her parents found something
479
00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:57.480
in her room that maybe didn't seem all that significant
480
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:01.359
at the time. It was a personal ad that had
481
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:05.440
run in the classifieds the week of June eleventh, nineteen
482
00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:08.200
ninety seven. Right, I'm gonna have you read this.
483
00:24:08.119 --> 00:24:12.039
For us friends females seeking friends to share activities who
484
00:24:12.119 --> 00:24:17.079
enjoy music, photography, working out, walks, coffee, or simply exploring
485
00:24:17.119 --> 00:24:20.079
the Bay Area Interested call me now.
486
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:22.599
There are some conflicting reports about the timeline of this
487
00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:26.519
whole thing, but Matt Birkbeck reports that Officer Mahaney doesn't
488
00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:30.039
find out about the ad until months after Kristin disappeared,
489
00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:33.519
and so when he finally does, Kristen's parents like they
490
00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:36.720
tell them that this ad that they find sounds a
491
00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:40.160
lot like Kristin. Like all the hobbies that are listed
492
00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:43.160
those were her hobbies, and she had complained to her
493
00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:46.160
mom that making friends out there was harder than she'd expected.
494
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.519
So when the San Francisco Bay Guardian ran a promotion
495
00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:53.799
offering free personal ads. They're like, that's totally something Kristin
496
00:24:53.960 --> 00:24:57.240
might have jumped on, like where's the bumblebff when you
497
00:24:57.359 --> 00:24:57.759
need it?
498
00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:00.559
And so you can probably see where this is going.
499
00:25:01.079 --> 00:25:04.400
Yeah, I mean John's red flags have red flags. But
500
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:07.000
I know, I don't understand why they can't for sure
501
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:09.599
link it back to Kristin, Like wouldn't there be a
502
00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:12.079
phone number with the ad? Like how else would people
503
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:13.559
be able to contact her?
504
00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:14.000
I know.
505
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:17.440
So the way that personal ads worked, at least in
506
00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:19.880
this instance, is that each poster was given their own
507
00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:23.319
voicemail box or like this individual access code to this
508
00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.960
voicemail system. So basically, the ad would list some generic
509
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:29.640
number that people could call and leave a voicemail ad,
510
00:25:29.720 --> 00:25:31.920
and then only the poster had access and could decide
511
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:33.799
whether or not to follow up, Like you're not giving
512
00:25:33.799 --> 00:25:35.920
your your home line or something like that, if that
513
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:36.400
makes sense.
514
00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:38.920
So it's like giving a PO box versus your home address.
515
00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:40.519
Yeah, so this is what I'm saying.
516
00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:44.079
They can't prove that it was Kristin, but you know,
517
00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:45.720
they find this ad in her room, it sounds a
518
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:49.079
lot like her. They think it's her now could this
519
00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:52.920
ad thing be a coincidence? It could stranger things have happened.
520
00:25:53.640 --> 00:25:55.400
What they need to do is figure out if it
521
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.279
was even Kristen's ad in the first place. Except, like
522
00:25:58.319 --> 00:26:02.799
I said, they can't. When investigators contact the paper, the
523
00:26:02.839 --> 00:26:07.079
paper's like, oh, shoot, like bad news. We actually don't
524
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:10.720
have the computer files anymore. We deleted them, like are
525
00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:12.960
bad got a free up space on the hard drive,
526
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:14.319
like the floppy disk?
527
00:26:14.480 --> 00:26:15.960
How nineteen nineties of them?
528
00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:19.880
I know, So they don't know, but knowing it sounded
529
00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:22.559
like Christin knowing it's in her room. Knowing that we
530
00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:27.039
have John that's responding to and posting his own personal ads.
531
00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:30.079
John is looking like a bad dude that is.
532
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:33.119
Looking pretty good for this crime, Like there's no question
533
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:37.079
about that. So investigators get a search warrant. And at
534
00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:38.640
this point, his red.
535
00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:40.839
Flags have red flags, which have.
536
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:45.599
Red flags because in John's apartment they find traces of blood,
537
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:48.920
although there's no reporting on where they find it or
538
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:51.200
how they find it. And I'm not going to bury
539
00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:52.880
the lead on this, like when they send it off
540
00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:56.720
for testing, it's not human blood, although their theory on
541
00:26:56.759 --> 00:27:00.279
where the blood came from is actually quite awful. Basically
542
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:02.799
they think that he hurt an ex's cat after a
543
00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:03.680
fight or something.
544
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:06.279
Just want of this guy, like you think he can't
545
00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:06.759
get worse.
546
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.519
I know, I know this comes up ugh, But it's
547
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:12.920
actually what they find that belongs to Jill that really
548
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.440
has me spiraling. According to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
549
00:27:16.799 --> 00:27:19.240
we're talking like season seven, like the Reboots by Dennis
550
00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:20.039
Farina here.
551
00:27:20.079 --> 00:27:20.960
Got it? Not the og?
552
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:21.799
Not the og.
553
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:28.680
Yeah, investigators find Jill's diary, but go figure, some pages
554
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:30.440
are gone torn out.
555
00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:32.839
Do you want to guess when those pages were from?
556
00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:39.240
Obviously from when Kristen disappeared, obviously, And investigators are like, yo, Jill,
557
00:27:39.799 --> 00:27:41.680
what the where these pages go?
558
00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:45.720
And she tells them that John tore the pages out?
559
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:47.400
Why would he do that?
560
00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:51.400
According to Officer Mahaney, Jill said, quote some of this
561
00:27:51.559 --> 00:27:55.079
stuff that was in there could come back to hurt him.
562
00:27:55.279 --> 00:27:55.960
End quote.
563
00:27:56.119 --> 00:28:00.319
Okay, which, hello, Captain obviy is here, Like what kind
564
00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:03.000
of stuff? And in my mind, I'm like, Jill, you
565
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.759
wrote the entries, you should know what was in them,
566
00:28:05.799 --> 00:28:09.839
like even if they're missing. But I can't find anything
567
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:12.680
about whether she's pressed on it, whether she says she
568
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:15.119
doesn't remembered, because like, if you're saying the stuff that
569
00:28:15.160 --> 00:28:16.599
was written could hurt him, then don't you know.
570
00:28:16.519 --> 00:28:17.240
What stuff it was?
571
00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:17.599
Yes?
572
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:19.200
Yeah, then what did you write?
573
00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:19.559
Nothing?
574
00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:23.319
There's nothing reported out there. And so the one year
575
00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:28.119
anniversary of Kristen's disappearance approaches, but it doesn't seem like
576
00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:31.839
investigators are any closer to making a move. There is
577
00:28:31.880 --> 00:28:35.319
a brief flash of hope when the Charlotte Observer publishes
578
00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:40.039
a report titled police have possible suspect in kristin modifery case,
579
00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:44.359
and that published on June eighteenth, but Officer Mahany shoots
580
00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:47.279
that down the next day, telling Dawn wood Tapka in
581
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:50.720
reporting for the News and Observer that at best, all
582
00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:54.480
he's got is some circumstantial evidence and a person of interest,
583
00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:58.160
and although investigators haven't named him at this point, the
584
00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:02.359
person of interest he's referring to is obviously John, but
585
00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:06.279
they never make a move to arrest him. By July
586
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:08.880
of nineteen ninety eight, the Mada Fairies are on their
587
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:12.279
fifth trip out to California, and they arrange for a
588
00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:15.480
full page ad in a local newspaper. Around the same time,
589
00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:18.480
they also more than double the reward that they're offering
590
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:21.160
to twenty five thousand dollars, and then they double it
591
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:24.240
again in November, even taking out a loan to cover it,
592
00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:27.119
and they arrange for twenty billboards.
593
00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:28.160
To go up in the Bay Area as well.
594
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:31.319
Now, in either the winter of ninety eight ninety nine
595
00:29:31.400 --> 00:29:35.119
or the early spring of ninety nine, investigators decide it's
596
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.039
high time to bring John in for another heart to heart,
597
00:29:38.920 --> 00:29:42.759
but when they try and find him, they can't. He
598
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:47.079
left the Bay Area and moved somewhere, So they spend
599
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:49.200
the next few months just trying to find this guy.
600
00:29:49.319 --> 00:29:53.240
But it's not until America's Most Wanted features Kristen's case
601
00:29:53.279 --> 00:29:56.319
again in May of ninety nine that an acquaintance catches
602
00:29:56.359 --> 00:29:58.960
the episode and finally tips them off that John is
603
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:03.000
in Hawaii. The San Francisco Examiner reports that same month
604
00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:06.119
that Officer Mahaney convinces him to come back to California
605
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.240
for a lie detector test. But I have no clue
606
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:12.759
if that happens or even what the results are. Like
607
00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:15.680
there's some suggestion that he sits for a polygraph with
608
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:19.599
his own hand chosen examiner, but like, is that confirmed?
609
00:30:19.880 --> 00:30:23.519
Is the examiner credible? What are the results, I don't know.
610
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:26.000
I know he claims to have passed a polygraph, but
611
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.440
I'm not exactly taking this guy at his word, and
612
00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:31.240
like mum's the word for investigators.
613
00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:34.039
Well and also like you know, polygraph polygraphs.
614
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:34.319
I know.
615
00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:38.480
So another grueling eighteen months passes, but in November of
616
00:30:38.519 --> 00:30:42.160
two thousand, something kind of amazing happens. But I actually
617
00:30:42.200 --> 00:30:44.079
need to back up just a little bit for it
618
00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:47.119
to make sense. So going all the way back to
619
00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:50.519
those first few weeks after Kristen's disappearance, Kristen's parents had
620
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:53.319
reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
621
00:30:53.359 --> 00:30:55.599
better known as nick MEK. They were trying to see
622
00:30:55.599 --> 00:30:57.400
if they could help in some way, Like they have
623
00:30:57.799 --> 00:31:00.880
tons of resources at their disposal, I mean, one of
624
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:02.599
which at the time, they were like known for these
625
00:31:02.680 --> 00:31:05.759
huge direct mailing campaigns which could reach more mailboxes and
626
00:31:05.759 --> 00:31:09.200
eyes than they could even dream of. But back then
627
00:31:09.279 --> 00:31:12.440
to their devastation, Nick Mick couldn't do anything for them
628
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:18.480
because Kristen was eighteen, I mean barely literally like twenty
629
00:31:18.839 --> 00:31:21.839
two twenty three days into being eighteen, but who's counting,
630
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:24.599
And I mean let that sink in. I mean she
631
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:28.720
was just three weeks too old to qualify for their help,
632
00:31:29.319 --> 00:31:31.240
but there was truly nothing they could do about it.
633
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:35.440
Because Nick Mick is federally funded and the charter isn't ambiguous.
634
00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:39.960
They can only help in cases involving miners, which was
635
00:31:40.200 --> 00:31:43.920
super discouraging to Kristen's family, especially once they realized that
636
00:31:43.960 --> 00:31:48.799
there actually weren't any similar organizations for missing adults. And
637
00:31:49.160 --> 00:31:52.720
for most people in their situation, that might have been
638
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:57.079
where it would end. But Bob and Debbie aren't most people,
639
00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:00.200
so at the same time that they're flying back and
640
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.440
fourth across the country on the regular trying to, you know,
641
00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:08.119
find their missing daughter, they were also organizing and collecting
642
00:32:08.319 --> 00:32:14.079
signatures and raising absolute hell. And it worked, because in
643
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:19.119
November of two thousand, President Clinton signs Kristen's Law into effect,
644
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.720
which officially establishes and funds the National Center for Missing Adults.
645
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:27.519
But while that organization would hopefully go on to help
646
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:32.160
a ton of other families, it didn't help Christen's because
647
00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:35.079
for the next eleven and a half years, there is
648
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:39.519
no resolution in her case. But remember our old friend
649
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:43.400
Dennis Man, Well, he's not in San Francisco anymore or
650
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:46.039
at least not full time, but he's never given up
651
00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:49.160
on Kristin. He's still searching for that one piece of
652
00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:52.119
evidence that could crack the case wide open, and in
653
00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:55.359
June of twenty twelve, he just might have found it,
654
00:32:56.079 --> 00:33:03.279
or rather it might just have found him. Now, everything
655
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:07.079
I'm about to say comes from either Dennis's podcast, which
656
00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:09.960
you can find on Spotify it's called Find Kristen All
657
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.720
One Word, or it comes from his website, which is
658
00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:16.920
Findkristin dot com. But according to Dennis, he is just
659
00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:19.880
minding his own business one day when he sees this
660
00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:23.200
email come through. He doesn't recognize the sender, but that's
661
00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:26.480
like fifty percent of anyone's inbox these days. So click open,
662
00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:32.839
scan through, and what pops out immediately a familiar name Jill.
663
00:33:33.880 --> 00:33:37.200
So the email is from follow me here. You're not
664
00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:39.880
paying attention, now's the time to hone in. The email
665
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:45.440
is from Jill's uncle's wife, so Aunt so TVD. Maybe
666
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:47.680
I don't know the family dynamics, but that's not important
667
00:33:48.359 --> 00:33:52.920
point being this person didn't know Jill or even of her.
668
00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:56.519
Apparently the uncle wasn't around when Jill was growing up,
669
00:33:56.599 --> 00:33:59.599
but somehow they had like reconnected as adults the uncle
670
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:02.759
and Jill, but the wife hadn't really known that until
671
00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:06.400
this one day when her husband gets a call from
672
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:10.639
Jill and Jill saying strange things, things that kind of
673
00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:14.119
start to worry him. To him, she sounds unwell, like
674
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:17.800
she's going through a mental health crisis or something. According
675
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:22.000
to Dennis, this conversation went on for hours, like four
676
00:34:22.519 --> 00:34:26.840
like literally number four hours, and once the uncle realizes
677
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:29.079
that something's not right, he starts taking notes about like
678
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:31.719
what she's saying, and when he hangs up, he tells
679
00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:35.920
his wife that Jill had said something really concerning. Back
680
00:34:35.960 --> 00:34:38.280
when she lived in the Bay Area. She dated a
681
00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:42.679
quote unquote very controlling man who and I'm going to
682
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:47.360
quote the uncle's notes here, quote convinced her to assist
683
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:51.280
in an unspeakable kidnap and murder end.
684
00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:51.760
Quote.
685
00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:55.719
Now, the uncle, when he got this call, wants like,
686
00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:59.079
absolutely nothing to do with this. I mean, to be fair,
687
00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:02.320
there's no suggestion he ever heard of Kristen Modifery or
688
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:05.559
her case. All he knows is that this is not
689
00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:08.119
a tree that he wants to go barking up. He'd
690
00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:10.400
like to just tuck those notes into the junk drawer
691
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:12.760
and forget about them all together, thank you very much.
692
00:35:13.320 --> 00:35:15.639
But like I said, the wife's never heard of this Nie,
693
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:19.760
so she's like, you know, I have questions, like shit,
694
00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:21.280
like he might not want to know more, but like
695
00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:22.840
I do, and.
696
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:26.719
Yeah, me too, I know, sheho'm junkie, I see you.
697
00:35:27.559 --> 00:35:29.519
Yeah, so this is what's wild.
698
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.360
She googles Jill's name again, this Knie she'd never heard of,
699
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:37.239
only to see that, like, holy effing hell, Jill very
700
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:41.599
well might be connected to an unsolved disappearance, a likely
701
00:35:41.719 --> 00:35:46.800
kidnapp and murder in San Francisco involving her abusive POS
702
00:35:46.880 --> 00:35:49.119
boyfriend at the time. And you want to know the
703
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:53.199
best part, The wife sends Dennis copies of the notes.
704
00:35:53.960 --> 00:35:55.760
Now we're obviously going to link out to those in
705
00:35:55.800 --> 00:35:59.280
the show notes. They are admittedly not the most legible.
706
00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:03.119
We're talking about copies of a copy here, and if
707
00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:06.000
you like really pull out your monocles or your magnifying glasses,
708
00:36:06.039 --> 00:36:09.360
you can see the words there plain as day. But Brett,
709
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.519
this is where things get frustrating. I don't know what
710
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:15.559
happens next. What do you mean, well, I assume Dennis
711
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:18.880
passed the notes along to investigators but there hasn't been
712
00:36:18.920 --> 00:36:23.840
an official statement from investigators about this or any kind
713
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:27.559
of reporting outside of Dennis's own publications on this, So
714
00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:29.920
that is worth noting as you're kind of vetting this
715
00:36:30.039 --> 00:36:31.480
information for yourself.
716
00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:33.480
What do her parents say about it?
717
00:36:33.800 --> 00:36:35.840
You know, I'm not sure that they've ever addressed this
718
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:39.239
incident specifically, but I do know for sure that they
719
00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:41.679
thought John and Jill were hiding something. I mean, how
720
00:36:41.679 --> 00:36:43.400
could you not think that, right?
721
00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:45.960
But I mean, that's it. This is where we are.
722
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:48.519
She's never been found and no one's ever been charged.
723
00:36:48.400 --> 00:36:51.000
Well know to both of those, but they're actually it's
724
00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:53.039
not it. So there were a few more interesting things
725
00:36:53.079 --> 00:36:56.039
that happened in the last decade, and I mean like
726
00:36:56.519 --> 00:36:58.239
brief things that popped up on the radar.
727
00:36:58.840 --> 00:37:00.800
So like, I know, ra Robert Durst.
728
00:37:00.599 --> 00:37:02.679
Somehow gets thrown into the mix as a potential person
729
00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:05.320
of interest, but that theory turns out to be every
730
00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:07.079
bit as ridiculous as it sounds. So I'm not even
731
00:37:07.079 --> 00:37:11.239
gonna waste your time. And of course, anytime there is
732
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:13.760
a missing person, you're gonna find the name Israel.
733
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:16.280
Keys, because of course there's an Israel Keys campio.
734
00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:19.199
It should always be on your BINGO card. Though to
735
00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:22.440
be fair, this one does have a decent reason. So
736
00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:27.320
after Keys was arrested, there was a list of names, profiles,
737
00:37:27.400 --> 00:37:29.719
or pictures or something on his computer, so basically like
738
00:37:30.239 --> 00:37:33.559
missing people, more than forty of them. And according to
739
00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:36.559
what Josh Hallmark says on his podcast True Crime bullsh
740
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:40.480
in a specific episode about Kristin, she was one of
741
00:37:40.519 --> 00:37:44.119
the people on that list. Now, if Josh's theory about
742
00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:47.000
the list is right, her being on there doesn't necessarily
743
00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:49.840
mean that Keys was connected. Like some people on the
744
00:37:49.840 --> 00:37:52.239
list are, some aren't. He thinks that sometimes Keys would
745
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:55.079
look up cases similar to the ones he actually did,
746
00:37:55.159 --> 00:37:58.119
or maybe he was just infatuated with missing persons cases.
747
00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:02.119
Either way, Kristin has never been linked to Keys officially
748
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:05.679
more than just that. But then there's this other rabbit
749
00:38:05.719 --> 00:38:09.440
hole that I found pretty interesting. In June of twenty fifteen,
750
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:13.400
Dennis introduces Kristen's parents to a PI that he knows
751
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:16.760
with a cadaver dog, and they asked the current owner
752
00:38:16.920 --> 00:38:19.800
of the house Kristen was living at if perhaps Buster
753
00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:22.800
this puppy could have just a little like Sniffer or two,
754
00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:27.519
and the owner agrees, and Buster actually alerts in the
755
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:32.000
basement for human decomposition, which could be a major like
756
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:33.639
holy moment.
757
00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:35.880
But the PI retired Detective Paul.
758
00:38:35.760 --> 00:38:39.920
Dowsty, cautions against jumping to conclusions. According to reporting by
759
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.679
Dedrick Russell, he says, quote, we don't know if that's Kristin.
760
00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:49.519
There are other explanations. He goes on to list cremation ashes,
761
00:38:49.760 --> 00:38:53.519
indigenous burial sites as possibilities. Now, I know the Oakland
762
00:38:53.559 --> 00:38:57.000
PD does at least bring in ground penetrating radar, but
763
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:01.159
that reveals nothing other than some very hard to shovel
764
00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:05.639
soil and clay. And then this is where things get
765
00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:09.079
a little complicated. Okay, So in twenty seventeen comes this
766
00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:12.440
guy named doctor Rpad Vass, and I don't know if
767
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:15.519
you remember him from mozillion years ago, our Brandy Hall
768
00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:16.840
episode you like.
769
00:39:16.840 --> 00:39:19.400
Because it was that name brings a lot back because
770
00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:19.920
it was wild.
771
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:23.280
It was wild, So same thing going on here.
772
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:27.679
Doctor Vass developed this specific tech that is supposed to
773
00:39:27.800 --> 00:39:31.679
detect what ABC seven News refers to as quote human
774
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:37.039
decomposition chemicals, and as we talked about in that episode,
775
00:39:37.039 --> 00:39:38.679
and we're gonna link out to it in the show notes,
776
00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:42.519
it is worth a revisit this device. What it says
777
00:39:42.559 --> 00:39:44.920
is like, basically, you can detect samples with ties to
778
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:47.920
specific DNA profile. So where a sniffer dog is like
779
00:39:48.119 --> 00:39:51.039
just DCOMP, I think this thing is saying like, oh,
780
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:56.039
specific DCOMP. And whether this thing is a revolutionary advancements
781
00:39:56.039 --> 00:40:01.079
in forensic or pure snake oil science is still very right.
782
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:04.679
But using this device, doctor Vass says he finds human
783
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:08.679
DNA in the places where the dogs detected d coom.
784
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:13.760
They think it's from blood that matches DNA samples from
785
00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:15.480
Kristen's parents.
786
00:40:15.960 --> 00:40:17.039
Wait what blood?
787
00:40:17.480 --> 00:40:21.480
Yeah, that's the question. What blood? Oakland PD didn't see
788
00:40:21.519 --> 00:40:24.639
any blood when they were there doing their GPR or digging,
789
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:27.719
But according to reporting by Bill Moffatt for sf Gate,
790
00:40:28.360 --> 00:40:32.519
doctor Vass says his technology can detect quote a chemical
791
00:40:32.599 --> 00:40:37.239
signature indicating human blood. So basically the police are.
792
00:40:37.079 --> 00:40:39.880
Like, listen, we're happy to hear you out, send us
793
00:40:39.880 --> 00:40:42.760
the samples, and we're gonna need some details on your process.
794
00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:45.559
We can verify your results, like you know, we just
795
00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:46.960
need to like take more than.
796
00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:49.079
Your word for it vet our sources. Yeah.
797
00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:53.199
Yeah, except doctor Vass isn't giving up his secrets. He
798
00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:56.960
says he has to protect his proprietary technology. So an
799
00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:00.280
Oakland PD spokeswoman says in a twenty eighteen email quot vote,
800
00:41:00.639 --> 00:41:03.800
at this time, the information we need from doctor Vass
801
00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:07.679
to collect samples for his human decomposition testing has not
802
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:12.039
been forwarded to the department end quote. Doctor Vass and
803
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:15.719
Dosti claim that this is total bs, that they absolutely
804
00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:19.280
have the technology. They say it's not even that complicated
805
00:41:19.480 --> 00:41:23.079
or advanced. But the Oakland PD sticks to their guns
806
00:41:23.239 --> 00:41:27.079
and no one is budging, so those test results never
807
00:41:27.159 --> 00:41:31.320
get confirmed by anyone but doctor Vass himself. And listen,
808
00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:33.440
I don't want to dive too deep into this theory,
809
00:41:33.559 --> 00:41:35.320
but I am going to give a few details because
810
00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:37.119
at this point, this is when like.
811
00:41:37.119 --> 00:41:38.840
A divide develops.
812
00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:42.719
So you have Officer Mahaney and Dennis who think one thing,
813
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:47.440
you have Dosty and doctor Vass who think another, and
814
00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:49.920
then you have the FBI, and then I'll get to
815
00:41:49.960 --> 00:41:52.639
them in a second. Basically, the PI and doctor Vass
816
00:41:52.679 --> 00:41:56.039
think that maybe Kristen did make it back to Oakland
817
00:41:56.039 --> 00:41:59.400
that day in nineteen ninety seven, which in theory, could
818
00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:02.639
potentially implicate the four men that she was living with
819
00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:06.320
those four men have no connection to John or Jill,
820
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:09.840
and the investigators never really consider them serious persons of interest.
821
00:42:10.079 --> 00:42:12.159
Has there ever been any follow up on those guys though,
822
00:42:12.199 --> 00:42:14.760
Like where are they now? Have they gotten into any trouble?
823
00:42:15.239 --> 00:42:16.559
Honestly, I'm not sure.
824
00:42:16.599 --> 00:42:19.360
I know Officer Mahaney felt like they were super cooperative
825
00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:23.559
and forthright during the initial investigation, and Dennis has spoken
826
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:26.360
to three of four and he felt like mostly kind
827
00:42:26.360 --> 00:42:28.880
of the same way. And he also points something out
828
00:42:28.880 --> 00:42:32.360
that feels important in the context of the housemates. It's
829
00:42:32.360 --> 00:42:36.559
not like Kristen joined this group of four longtime besties
830
00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:38.559
when she moved out to that house in Oakland. Like
831
00:42:38.920 --> 00:42:41.519
they were all just renting rooms that happened to be
832
00:42:41.519 --> 00:42:44.760
in the same house, Like that was their entire connection
833
00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:47.280
to one another, except for two of them. Two of
834
00:42:47.320 --> 00:42:49.760
them were brothers, But for the most part, it was
835
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:53.760
just this house sharing arrangement. So in my personal opinion,
836
00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:56.199
like any theory that they've all been keeping this dirty
837
00:42:56.280 --> 00:42:59.440
shared secret for the past twenty seven years, it's like
838
00:42:59.480 --> 00:43:00.760
it's more of a stretch, right, Like.
839
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:03.400
They have no obligation to do that for each other.
840
00:43:03.719 --> 00:43:07.280
Right, But maybe there was a threat that was close
841
00:43:07.320 --> 00:43:11.559
to home, you see, unbeknownst to investigators on Kristen's case,
842
00:43:11.559 --> 00:43:15.079
for the first year of the investigation, the house directly
843
00:43:15.159 --> 00:43:18.440
next door to hers operated as some sort of transitional
844
00:43:18.440 --> 00:43:22.039
housing for criminal offenders. And, as far as I can tell,
845
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:25.519
and it could be wrong, information is scarce, it might
846
00:43:25.559 --> 00:43:28.960
have been used for juvenile offenders, which isn't to say
847
00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:31.400
that you have to be a legal adult to be dangerous,
848
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:33.519
but a house full of wayward teens seems a lot
849
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.000
less threatening than like a house full of adult offenders.
850
00:43:36.039 --> 00:43:38.719
I don't know, but either way, like I was saying,
851
00:43:38.760 --> 00:43:42.320
there's a divide. Officer Mahaney doesn't buy any of this theory.
852
00:43:42.440 --> 00:43:45.440
Neither does Dennis. They still seem pretty certain that all
853
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:49.199
roads lead back to John Onuma. When he was asked
854
00:43:49.199 --> 00:43:52.039
in twenty twenty three where he thinks Kristen's remains are,
855
00:43:52.519 --> 00:43:56.039
Officer Mahaney told Andrew Chammings and Katie Dowd for SFGate quote,
856
00:43:56.440 --> 00:43:59.519
I'd say she was dumped off a bridge in Marin County.
857
00:44:00.280 --> 00:44:03.360
Quote Marin County, where John claimed her body had been
858
00:44:03.440 --> 00:44:08.079
dumped all those years ago. But interestingly, a twenty seventeen
859
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:12.639
ABC seven article states that the FBI has cleared John
860
00:44:12.840 --> 00:44:16.039
and Jill as persons of interest and they have closed
861
00:44:16.119 --> 00:44:19.880
their case on Kristin. The reporter for that article, Katie
862
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:23.400
UTIs actually reached out to John for her piece, and
863
00:44:23.559 --> 00:44:26.519
he admitted to calling the initial tip in way back when,
864
00:44:26.639 --> 00:44:29.800
but says that he regrets it. He told her quote,
865
00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:32.599
I put the attention on me when I shouldn't have,
866
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:35.719
and I screwed up. I took the focus off of
867
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:36.559
the investigation.
868
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:37.679
End quote.
869
00:44:38.320 --> 00:44:40.960
But and I feel like this is an important butt.
870
00:44:41.559 --> 00:44:44.320
A spokesperson for the FBI put out a statement in
871
00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:49.199
twenty twenty three indicating that they didn't see anything suggesting
872
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:53.639
that Kristin actually met with foul play at all, which
873
00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:57.440
seems to be a page that literally no one else
874
00:44:57.639 --> 00:44:57.920
is on.
875
00:44:58.360 --> 00:44:59.960
I was gonna say, I didn't even realize that way,
876
00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:01.840
like a page in the book.
877
00:45:01.599 --> 00:45:05.039
We were reading, right, And I don't know if I
878
00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:07.719
don't have enough information about what the FBI means by that.
879
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:10.360
I don't know if if they go to the scent
880
00:45:10.480 --> 00:45:12.320
right like the dogs tracked her scent to the cliff,
881
00:45:12.360 --> 00:45:14.719
did she fall off the cliff? Is that what they believe,
882
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:16.679
and that's why they're saying no foul play or are
883
00:45:16.679 --> 00:45:20.320
they suggesting that she walked away? Like they don't say
884
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:22.239
any of that. They just say that there's no foul
885
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.480
play at all. So not only did they like write
886
00:45:24.519 --> 00:45:28.679
off persons of interest, they're like, there's no persons of interest, there's.
887
00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:30.440
No reason for a person of interest.
888
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:33.480
Yeah, and again, don't get it twisted like FBI's saying that,
889
00:45:33.519 --> 00:45:35.760
but I don't. I don't think that's what local police
890
00:45:35.800 --> 00:45:38.440
are saying. What does her family think, Well, I don't
891
00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:41.519
know if they subscribe to any one theory. I mean,
892
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:44.079
that's hard to do when your loved one is missing.
893
00:45:44.119 --> 00:45:46.360
Like at least the people that I've talked to who
894
00:45:46.360 --> 00:45:47.360
have a missing loved one.
895
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:50.159
It's like every day you could feel differently, like.
896
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:53.719
Because anything in everything seems possible when you don't know
897
00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:57.559
what actually happened. So that's kind of where Kristen's case
898
00:45:57.599 --> 00:46:01.280
stands today. Her dad, Bob died in twenty twenty two
899
00:46:01.400 --> 00:46:04.280
from leukemia, and maybe there are.
900
00:46:04.320 --> 00:46:06.320
Answers after death. I like to think so.
901
00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:09.679
Debbie says that as she was saying her goodbye, she
902
00:46:09.760 --> 00:46:12.440
asked him to give Kristen hugs from herself and from
903
00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:13.760
Kristen's sisters.
904
00:46:14.159 --> 00:46:14.639
If you know.
905
00:46:14.639 --> 00:46:17.880
Anything about the disappearance of Kristin Modaferi from the Bay
906
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:21.599
Area in June of nineteen ninety seven, please pass your
907
00:46:21.599 --> 00:46:25.119
information along to the Oakland Police Department Missing Persons Unit.
908
00:46:25.639 --> 00:46:28.719
They can be reached at five one zero two three
909
00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:46.280
eight three six four one. You can find all the
910
00:46:46.360 --> 00:46:50.559
source material for this episode on our website, Crimejunkie podcast
911
00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:51.960
dot com.
912
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:54.440
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
913
00:46:54.679 --> 00:46:56.440
We're going to be back next week with a brand
914
00:46:56.440 --> 00:46:58.400
new episode, but if you want to stick around for
915
00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:00.239
a couple of minutes, we've got some good new use
916
00:47:00.280 --> 00:47:26.920
for you. All Right, crime junkies, let's lighten things up
917
00:47:26.960 --> 00:47:29.760
a little bit. Yeah, we've got another tried and true
918
00:47:29.800 --> 00:47:31.440
good segment for you this month.
919
00:47:31.519 --> 00:47:32.400
Thank goodness too.
920
00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:35.280
I know, I know I could use use a little
921
00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:35.960
good this month.
922
00:47:36.519 --> 00:47:39.239
Yeah, And like always, this story is amazing, but the
923
00:47:39.360 --> 00:47:43.239
timing within it is just it's really something. Dear Ashley
924
00:47:43.280 --> 00:47:46.159
and Britt, I can't even believe the timing on what
925
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:49.199
just happened. I'm a longtime crime junkie and decided to
926
00:47:49.239 --> 00:47:51.559
listen to your most recent episode on scams on my
927
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:55.480
neighborhood walk just now. I literally still had my AirPods
928
00:47:55.559 --> 00:47:58.280
in from finishing the episode when my phone rang with
929
00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:01.599
a blocked call. I don't I don't even know why
930
00:48:01.639 --> 00:48:03.960
I decided to answer, because I usually screen calls, but
931
00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:07.639
I did answer. They verified my name and identified themselves
932
00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:09.280
as from the City Police Department.
933
00:48:09.800 --> 00:48:10.599
Shut up.
934
00:48:11.440 --> 00:48:14.239
The initial statement was that they had an official notification
935
00:48:14.320 --> 00:48:16.480
for me, and my thoughts instantly went to the worst
936
00:48:16.519 --> 00:48:19.079
case scenario. That's something had happened to someone in my family.
937
00:48:19.480 --> 00:48:22.320
So I was emotionally revd up. And then he started
938
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:25.079
to talk about how they had assigned document by me,
939
00:48:25.400 --> 00:48:27.840
saying I would appear in court on a certain date.
940
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:31.840
Shot up that I had missed the court appearance. They
941
00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:34.280
said they were calling on behalf of a judge and
942
00:48:34.320 --> 00:48:37.119
that there was now a misdemeanor charge in my name
943
00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:41.280
for failure to appear. Obviously, I never assigned anything and
944
00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:45.000
had no knowledge of what they were talking about. This
945
00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:47.760
is a big deal to anyone, but particularly to me,
946
00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:53.239
because my professional license is affected by any non traffic charge. However,
947
00:48:53.960 --> 00:48:59.039
I had finished your scam episode just thirty seconds prior,
948
00:48:59.239 --> 00:49:02.000
so even though I was freaking out, I told them
949
00:49:02.079 --> 00:49:04.639
to please repeat their name, and I'd be coming in
950
00:49:04.679 --> 00:49:07.400
person with my uncle, who is a lawyer. This is true,
951
00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:10.079
he's actually a retired lawyer. He went on about how
952
00:49:10.119 --> 00:49:12.719
I didn't need a lawyer, but X and Y were happening,
953
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:16.519
but I maintained I would come in person, and then
954
00:49:16.559 --> 00:49:19.519
he said that if I would not follow the instructions
955
00:49:19.519 --> 00:49:22.320
on the phone, he needed me to verbally repeat some
956
00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:26.280
statement with my information, saying I wouldn't proceed. I told
957
00:49:26.360 --> 00:49:29.199
him I would not give any personal information over the phone,
958
00:49:29.199 --> 00:49:32.119
but wanted his name and I am coming in person.
959
00:49:32.599 --> 00:49:35.320
He then started getting flustered and putting me on hold,
960
00:49:35.679 --> 00:49:39.519
presumably to readdress the script, but I held to the
961
00:49:39.559 --> 00:49:42.119
statement that I needed his name and would come in person.
962
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:45.239
I offered to call back to the non emergency line.
963
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:48.760
He kept trying to push for additional personal information, but
964
00:49:48.800 --> 00:49:52.000
I ultimately sure he did hung up when he kept
965
00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:55.840
putting me on hold. He immediately called back, and I
966
00:49:55.960 --> 00:49:58.440
told him that he had thirty seconds to tell me
967
00:49:58.440 --> 00:50:00.840
his name and where I should come in person, for
968
00:50:00.920 --> 00:50:04.320
which he had no answer. So I hung up again
969
00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:08.079
and declined the subsequent three or four calls, I cannot
970
00:50:08.119 --> 00:50:10.320
believe the timing. If I hadn't heard this episode. When
971
00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:12.800
I did, I think I would have been so flustered
972
00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:14.719
by everything in the phone call that I would have
973
00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:19.159
at least provided a lot more at the minimum. It's
974
00:50:19.280 --> 00:50:24.199
absolutely terrifying to receive a notification call quote from the police,
975
00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:28.360
and even as a well educated, long standing crime junkie,
976
00:50:28.360 --> 00:50:32.880
I was panicking. Your episode saved my personal information and
977
00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:36.880
possibly my bank account. I have the utmost respect for
978
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:39.639
those that shared their stories so I could learn from
979
00:50:39.639 --> 00:50:42.840
them and be safe. Much love, Hi, Sarah.
980
00:50:43.719 --> 00:50:48.519
I literally have full body chill. That is breaking unbelievable.
981
00:50:48.679 --> 00:50:50.519
That has to feel like you're in a movie, like
982
00:50:50.519 --> 00:50:53.360
it's made up right, Like you're listening to this episode
983
00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:56.639
on scam Yeah, and then someone tries to scam you
984
00:50:56.960 --> 00:50:58.119
thirty seconds later.
985
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:01.039
You couldn't convince me like I wasn't on my own
986
00:51:01.079 --> 00:51:02.079
version of The Truman Show.
987
00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:06.840
Really is it all about me? Oh man? That is
988
00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:07.719
really stinking cool.
989
00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:10.519
Like again, my hope, obviously was that we help a
990
00:51:10.559 --> 00:51:11.880
person or two with that episode.
991
00:51:12.119 --> 00:51:14.000
I didn't think it happened at that quickly.
992
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:18.360
Is unbelievable. Also, I love to know that we're blowing
993
00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:20.519
up their spot. These people are going to need a
994
00:51:20.519 --> 00:51:22.079
new scam. Yeah, that's amazing.
995
00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:23.159
Oh love it.
996
00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:28.719
Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production, So what do
997
00:51:28.760 --> 00:51:29.360
you think, Chuck?
998
00:51:29.719 --> 00:51:30.320
Do you approve
