Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
unexplained death of Gita Angara. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
of what we talked about in our previous episode? Well, our victim here
is Geeta Angara, a forty three year old chemist who originally hailed from India.
She graduated top of her class at Loyola College, and after emigrating to
the United States with her husband, she had three kids and got a bachelor's
degree and a master's degree in chemistry and then got a job at the treatment
facility for the Passaic Valley Water Commission in New Jersey. She had a high
position as senior or chemist, seemed to be well liked in her position,
though apparently there was some resentment from a few people who did not like a
female immigrant having a higher position than them, though it doesn't sound like it
led to any serious problems. But one day at work, Gita went down
into the basement for what should have been a routine assignment, but she never
returned and no one could find her, and she was eventually reported missing.
And then they discovered that because a panel on one of the floors in the
basement had been tampered with. They looked into it and found a water tank
which contained some of Gita's personal items, and it would later turn out that
her body floated to another tank and that her exact cause of death was drowning.
However, because she has bruised on her body, it seemed apparent that
someone had assaulted her and attempted to strangle her and probably unscrewed the panel,
put her body into the tank and then screwed the panel back on to cover
up what they did. There was a Scottish expert on drowning who looked at
the possibility that Guta's death could have been an accident, that maybe someone left
the panel open and she was walking through the basement and fell through, and
then later on someone went back and screwed the panel back on in order to
cover up what she had done. But the vast majority of people, including
DA's family, believed that she was the victim of a homicide and that she
was killed intentionally. Obviously, because of this security surrounding the plant, it
meant that one of her co workers had to be the killer, and they
determined that there were fifty employees working on the day that she went missing.
They did it eventually narrow things down to three suspects, but a couple of
years later they suddenly said, well, we couldn't find any evidence on them,
and now we no longer believe that they were responsible. So it sounds
like the investigation is right back to square one. And even though it seems
obvious she was killed by someone who was at the plant that day, they
just don't have any evidence to conclusively implicate anyone, and the motive for the
crime is still a mystery. So if you're an unsolved mystery span, you
might have noticed that this story is very reminiscent of the suspicion death of Dave
Box, which was featured on the show, as well as an episode of
The Trail Went Cold and an entire season of the long form investigative podcast Accused.
In both of these cases, an employee disappeared during the middle of their
shift at a large plant and was not reported missing for a long period of
time before the victim or what was left to them, was discovered on company
grounds. In one case, it was a uranium processing furnace and in the
other it was a water tank, but no matter the circumstances of how they
died, you could only hope the victim was not conscious when they found themselves
in that position. Now, Dave Box was working the graveyard shift and died
inside a building which was not being used at that particular time of night,
so if it was a homicide, you can understand how someone could have gotten
away with it. However, Geta Angara's death was a lot more brazen since
it apparently took place in an open corridor during the morning hours, so the
perpetrator got extremely lucky that no one else happened to come by while this was
going on. While a suicide has been explored as a potential explanation in the
Dave Box case, no one has ever considered that possibility in Geeta's case,
because if she jumped into the water tank voluntarily, it obviously would have been
impossible for her to slide the panel back in place behind her. Theoretically,
that detail should have eliminated all possibility of her death being an accident as well,
But this has actually been presented as a potential explanation, and we'll talk
more about that later on. Now. Dave Box's story has always had a
major conspiracy vibe surrounding it, because in the months following his death, his
plan experienced a major scandal once it became public knowledge that they have been causing
radioactive contamination in the surrounding community. So one of the most prominent theories is
that Dave was murdered because he was threatening to blow the whistle on the plant's
unsafe practices. This has been presented as a potential theory in Gheta's case as
well, but it's unclear what she could have stumbled upon that put her life
in danger. During this time period, the water facility was in the midst
of an expensive project to transition from chlorine to an ozone disinfectant system. But
while this wasn't a popular decision with all the employees, it was hardly scandalous,
believe it or not. One of the most ridiculous theories which has been
pushed forward is that the New Jersey Mob was angry about the Water Commission's decision
to switch to ozone treatment because it would curtail what their contractors were doing,
so as a result, the mob decided to order a hit on Geita.
Well, that theory makes no sense whatsoever, because Guita was a chemist who
had no authority to make big decisions like that. So I don't see how
murdering her would change anything. No, I'm going to go ahead and let
everyone know the mob didn't hire anyone to kill her. That is a pure
conspiracy theory kind of sounding idea. But when you do think about what was
going on at the plant, it is very clear that Gita stands out out
amongst the other employees. She's incredibly educated, she immigrated to America. She
is one of the only women likely at this plant, and she's in a
place of a supervisory role. And so when there's issues at the plant,
she's the one who's calling employees in. She's the one asked to retrain them,
she's the one offering disciplinary actions and things like that when they need to
happen. And so she's already a target there. She's confirmed that with her
husband. She said there's tension in the workplace when they talk about it being
an accident. Could it have been? There is a possibility, right,
It makes sense if she accidentally fell in and someone later came after she had
already passed away or was unconscious, they could have screwed that plate back on
the same could have happened if she was a suicidal individual, I assume,
because she could have been deceased and someone walks in and finds that plate move.
But it makes so much more sense that someone wanted her gone. They
didn't lie like the position she was in. They didn't like the way she
had authority over them, they felt insecure, they didn't like her as a
racial minority, they didn't like her as a woman. We know those things
were active. So then when you have her death and then her body recovered
thirty two hours later, especially with the bruising, it feels like we're pointing
more towards foul play. In my opinion, it feels like it could have
been something as simple as Gita was going to collect this water sample and she
ran into somebody and maybe had a few words with that person, maybe implying
that they were doing something wrong, or that is how they interpreted it,
and they didn't like it coming from her, and that it was an impulsive
crime of passion rather than something that was pre planned. I mean, the
beaker was broken there, obviously, if she was killed, there was not
some other weapon, Like we didn't see any blunt force injuries. So if
she was strangled and then put in a water tank. It was likely that
somebody just lost their temper, and who knows if it was from some kind
of verbal exchange or just something that had been building and maybe at that moment
just seeing her face was enough for this person to snap. I really don't
get the sense that there's a massive conspiracy surrounding Gyda's death, and the crime
may have been more personal in nature. This case is pretty unique in that
it seems to be pretty solvable, yet at the same time, it's also
an investigator's worst nightmare. By the sound of things, the exterior security at
the plant was pretty strong and it would have been very difficult for an outside
intruder to sneak into the facility and commit this crime. This means that the
perpetrator had to be one of Gita's coworkers who was on shift that day.
So there's a pool of fifty potential suspects to work with, But at the
same time, there really doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence which could implicate
any of them. Since there was a window of over twelve hours before the
police became involved, a number of people walked through the basement tunnels past the
spot where Gita was likely killed, contaminating the crime scene. Contaminating the crime
scene. The shards of glass on the floor from Gda's broken beaker could have
provided evidence, but someone took the initiative to throw them away, and due
to the heavy chlorination of the water, all potential forensic evidence which could have
been left by the killer on Gita's body, such as DNA and fingerprints,
were eliminated. With no witness or security camera footage placing a suspect at the
murder scene, I think the police were hoping that if they interrogated everyone hard
enough, the perpetrator would eventually break down and make a full confession, but
this never took place. For a while, investigators were certain that they had
narrowed down the field to three suspects, but after all these years, they
apparently now believed that none of these guys were actually involved. So unless a
confession takes place or someone with inside knowledge of the crime comes forward with information,
it's really hard to see how the police police will be able to build
a strong enough case against anyone to make an arrest. It kind of boggles
my mind too, when you think about there were fifty people there that day
and they were able to narrow it down to three. We don't know a
lot about that information. The one guy was down in that area, so
it was pretty clear he would be one of the people you'd question. But
I'm wondering if the other two, if fellow employees were able to say they
had a problem with her, right there was tension with her, and that's
how they were even brought to the forefront in the first place. Yeah,
I really wonder about that. I can understand police not releasing that information publicly,
but when they say we've narrowed it down from fifty to eight, and
now we've narrowed it down to three, I have to guess that they came
to this conclusion just from maybe people other employees telling them that these people had
a problem with the GITA and could have had a motive to kill her.
While securities protocols preventing outsiders from entering the plant seemed to be adequate, security
protocols inside the plant were a different story. Since no key card access was
required at the time, anyone could move about the plant freely and pretty much
go wherever they wanted. They've since remedied that in the years following Gita's death,
but investigators have stated that if these security protocols have been around all along,
it would have been easier to track all of the employee's movements that day
and possibly determine who is in the basement during the approximate time period Gita was
killed. It's pretty unsettling to hear that the underground water tanks were not equipped
with any lighting or ladders, even though there was a five foot gap between
the water and the panels, so if someone did fall in there by accident,
it would have been impossible for them to climb out before they succumbed the
freezing cold temperatures. In addition, the sensor, which was designed to send
out alerts about changes with the water displacement, just happened to be broken that
day, which is why it didn't go off when Gita's body hit the water.
It's possible it was deliberately sabotaged by the perpetrator, but if the sensor
was simply broke in, that's really not reassuring. Remember this was just over
three years removed from nine to eleven, and one disturbing point which was raised
is if the sensor couldn't detect a body. What if there had been an
attempt at a terrorist act and someone dumped some dangerous chemicals into the drinking water.
Obviously, Yita's death exposed some major inadequacies with the plant safety protocols,
and that alone would have been grounds for her family to say, listen,
you were responsible in many ways for even allowing her body to sit in that
water for so long, right, and for the aftermath that came with that,
because had that sensor been working, had those protocols been checked and that
was working, the moment her body hit that water, the alarms would have
gone off. So God forbid it was an accident. God forbid, she
had been rendered unconscious but was still alive. Someone could have run to that
tank and removed her body and saved her life. And so it really was
that sensor alone could have been a deciding factor whether she was able to get
retrieved from that tank or not. And so since there wouldn't be going off
for hours without someone checking it, someone would have immediately run down there because,
like you said, at the time, they would have been on alert
for any potential risk of something foreign going into that water. And that is
true because Geta's exact cause of death was drowning, so she technically was still
alive when she first went into the water. We don't know if she was
still conscious or not. But like you said, if the sensor had gone
off, there still would have been a chance to rescue her and save her
life if they had gotten there in time. Oh. Absolutely, you hear
a people who have been underwater for a couple of minutes, right and are
still rescued, and so a plant like that, response would be quick.
When they thought, okay, the rates have the levels of water have gone
this much over the sensor, something's really problematic down there, there'd be a
massive rush to get to that tank. And we know when it comes to
asphyxiating somebody or strangling them that it can take like three four minutes, so
it can take an inordinate amount of time. I'm more time than I think
that most people prepare to be in a position with their hands around somebody's neck
or using a ligature. So it's possible that whomever her attacker was, they
thought, okay, well she's rendered unconscious. At least if she isn't dead
by the time she hits that water, she'll die from drowning. I also
find it troubling that there was a window of over six hours during Geita's shift
when her whereabouts were unaccounted for, but no one really seemed to be troubled
by it, and the police were not contacted until several hours after her shift
ended. I mean, when Gita went missing, she was carrying a radio
which wound up being found inside the tank, but it's not clear if anyone
even attempted to call her on the radio to see where she was. Even
if there was only one person who was directly involved in Gita's death, this
makes me wonder if others might have been aware of what happened but kept their
mouths shut. The panel to the water tank weighed about fifty pounds. It
would have been difficult for one person to remove it, dump get it into
the tank, and then replace the panel by themselves. So even if only
one person killed her, they could have enlisted the assistance of others to cover
the whole thing up. You can't understand how unsettling this whole situation must have
been for everyone at the plant. It was conclusively established that Geta's killer had
to be one of the fifty employees working there that day, which men from
that point on, they all had to keep showing up with the knowledge that
at least one of their co workers was a murderer and continuing to get away
with it. I heard the morale at the plant went down following Gita's death,
and I can certainly understand why, as I'm sure many of the employees
felt they had to constantly look over their shoulders. I definitely would think there's
a concern there when you have fifty employees who realized that their supervisor has been
found in a water tank. They have no idea, just like we're sitting
here years later with no answers. They have no idea what happened to her,
and so I would assume that they also learned she had bruising on her.
The family was likely outspoken that they believed it was a murder, and
so the people who are looking around there going, well, if it's a
murder, it was one of us, and it is. It's like that
game of clue where there's only this many people in the house and we have
a deceased individual who did it, and it would be that constant fear of
if we can't figure out what happened to her. Then we make all of
these assumptions and we're looking back and forth saying it's one of us. So
am I safe out word? Remember that episode we recorded a few months ago
about the death of Rodney Marx at the research station in Antarctica. Yes,
yes, And even though we don't know for certain if that's a homicide,
you can still imagine the fear that, well, if it was a murderer.
We're trapped here in the middle of nowhere for a couple more months,
and at least one of these people is a murderer, so we're going to
have to constantly look over our shoulder and be frightened for months. And yeah,
thinking he was poisoned or something. I've got to sit here and eat
and drink around you people like yeah, I'm pretty sure. We all kept
saying that it was like the plot of a horror movie, like there was
no way in or out. We talked about that doctor that basically had to
perform like a biopsy or a lumbaectomy or whatever and like treat her breast cancer
at that station. It's just so intense to be trapped there with a potential
murderer. Oof and it's kind of the same thing here where it's like,
even though they still got to pay the bills, So even though they're showing
up to work potentially with a murderer, they still have to keep doing it
whether they like it or not. It seems like the majority consensus about Ghita
was that she was a very dependable and well liked person at the plant,
but there have been quotes from anonymous sources about how some of Ghita's co workers
resented her because of her education and qualifications and did not appreciate being a subordinate
for an immigrant. No matter who was responsible, it sounds like investigators have
always believed this was not a premeditated murder her, but more of a spur
of the moment crime the passion. After all, Yita had strangulation marks on
her neck, which seems to imply that the perpetrator had no weapon on them
and was trying to fatally choke her. And since drowning was her exact cause
of death, Guita was technically still alive when she was thrown into the tank.
We know that Gita was heading down into the basement to calibrate the instruments
when she disappeared, so it seems like she must have crossed paths with her
killer in the corridor, who subsequently attacked her before they removed the floor panel
and dumped her body into the tank. But what could have caused things to
escalate like this? Did Gita bump into someone and get into a heated confrontation
which led to violence, or did she stumble upon something she wasn't supposed to
see which led to her being killed. Do you guys remember the pink stuff
that they were finding in the water. Did they ever determine what that was?
Because is it possible someone was manipulating and doing something to the system that
caused that contamination and they're saying, oh what now, we can't use this
new system. It doesn't work right, like causing a problem, And maybe
someone was down there doing something like that. I'm not exactly sure what the
pinkish substance was, but I do know they found it when Geta was absent,
So it could be one of those things where someone was doing something while
she wasn't around and she was trying to maybe I'd cover the truth about it,
like try to figure out what was going on here, and maybe someone
got paranoid and decided to kill her for it. It was established that one
of Gita's coworkers from the lab asked her to go down into the basement and
later went to search for her, where he discovered the broken glass from Geta's
beaker. Under these circumstances, you can understand why this guy would have been
one of the three employees that police zeroed in on as a potential suspect,
But they apparently no longer believe that any of these three men were involved.
Without knowing anything else about this lab technician or his relationship with Gita, or
potential motives for wanting to harm her, I cannot evaluate the likely of him
being the perpetrator. One detail I do find interesting is that before this incident
took place, some of the plant's employees claimed they had no idea there were
tanks underneath the basement floor and walked through that area numerous times without even realizing
there were millions of gallons of water below them. But obviously Guida's killer would
have known this since they went to the trouble of removing a panel and disposing
of her body. Considering that many of the screws on the panel were broken
or missing, and it was left slightly Ajar. I get the impression that
whoever did this was in a hurry for fear that someone else would enter the
corridor and catch them. So I'm assuming that when investigators were narrowing down their
pool of suspects, they focused on employees who might have had knowledge of those
tanks and the panels. Another odd detail of this case is that they filmed
an episode of Law and Order spu at the plant one year earlier, which
contained a scene where a victim's body was found floating inside a water tank.
As you probably know, the bread and butter of the entire Law and Order
franchise a fictitious storylines which are based on real life crimes from the news.
Well, this is a rare occurrence where the real life crime occurred after the
Law and Order episode. Of course, the whole thing is probably just a
coincidence, as investigators found no indication that Getah's death was some sort of copycat
crime. But I can help but wonder if the perpetrator might have seen the
episode and remembered it, which is how they came up with the idea of
hiding Geta's body inside a water tank. That gave me chills when you said
that this was a Law and Order episode, and did you say it was
filmed at the facility it was, Yeah, so that's just crazy. Oh
my lord, Yes, that seems really odd. It's also very eerie.
I don't know, is it that a copycat? Is it? Like you
said, in the heat of the moment, they said, what do I
do with her body? And they said, well, wait, we were
here when they were filming, and they dumped her in the water tank.
I'm going to go ahead and do that. It seems way too ironic for
that to be a coincidence. Yeah. Are you aware, Robin, if
all the employees knew that the plant was used to film that Lawn Order episode.
That's a good question, because it's possible that they filmed while the plant
was closed and none of the employees were there because they didn't want to disrupt
work. But I have to think that they were at least aware of it,
and that they probably some of them would have at least watched the episode
and realized, hey, that's where I work. So I'm sure sure it
was probably common knowledge. I would think they'd know, like here they filmed
like a ghost Hunter episode, you know, at the local hotel, and
everyone was like, Oh my gosh, they're filming at the hotel on Thursday.
This is so cool. I wish I was on you know, the
schedule that day, and so I would think it was quite a big deal,
especially such a large show. This isn't like a mom and pop production
company coming into film a forty five second you know promo. This is a
Law and Order episode. So I bet they were all quite aware and quite
excited and then able to say like, oh my gosh, that's my office.
Holy cow, that's where I go down every day, right, And
I bet people were quite hyped up about the facility being featured on the show,
which would lead us to believe that probably if everybody the plan knew about
this, they likely all watched the episode. Because if your workplace is featured
on a show like Law and Order, SBU, I think you would actually
want to see that episode and then talk about it later with everybody at work.
And that's why it's not implausible that it could have been on the killer's
mind when they were thinking of a way to dispose of Geita's body. Well,
investigators actually looked through the possibility that Geta's death might have been connected to
another similar unsolved homicide which took place in New Jersey over thirty six years earlier.
The crime occurred on August the thirty first, nineteen sixty eight, at
a massive eighty six building campus for the Hoffman Laroche pharmaceutical firm, which was
Lowald on the Passaic County Essex County border. That evening, the body of
a twenty two year old secretary named Joan Freeman was found in the hallway of
building number thirty four. She was struck on the hedge several times with a
wooden mallet before her throat was slashed. Joan had been employed by the firm
for three years, and since it was a Saturday, she was working there
alone doing overtime. She had spent the day in a second floor library recording
the employee's work hours from their time cards before she was attacked from behind in
the hallway. Much like the Passaic Valley Water Commission treatment facility, the Hoffman
Laroche campus had a high level of security and was surrounded by fences, so
access was restricted to employees, meaning that Jan's killer had to be someone who
worked for the company. However, there were no fingerprints found in the wooden
mallets, and the knife was never found, so investigators had no forensic evidence
to identify a suspect. They also found nothing in Joan's background to provide any
insight into a potential motive for this crime. Over the course of the next
several months, a grand jury investigation would take place, though I get the
impression they did not have a specific suspect in mind and only wanted to test
the waters to see what kind of case they could present if the suspect ever
popped up on the radar. But even though over three hundred people were interviewed,
the investigation hit a complete dead end, and Joan's murder is still unsolved
to this day. Given that both crimes took place in Passaic Valley, the
investigators on Geta's case thought there were enough similarities to look into the possibility that
they were connected. They checked to see if there were any employees who had
worked for both Hoffman Laroche and the water treatment facility during the respective time periods
of each murder that came up empty, and yes, given the massive time
difference, I am inclined to believe that these two crimes are not connected,
because, at the minimum Guta's killer would have had to have been in their
late fifties if they were also responsible for murdering Joan Well. Joan Freeman's case
sounds like a pretty baff mystery in its own right. I get the feeling
that investigators only looked at her murder because they were grasping its straws and desperate
to explore any possible lead to help them solve Geeta's case. Yeah, it
does seem like a little bit of a stretch. Are they ironically similar?
Yes, I mean, you have an unsolved murder in a workplace, no
forensic evidence to go off of. But other than that, you know one's
attacked, one strangled, and you have a thirty six year gap. And
so while you definitely do have killers who have killed over the course of decades,
to say that you can successfully pull it off in an isolated, confined
workplace over and over and over again and get away with it so seamlessly,
I think that would be quite implausible. However, the big complicating factor in
this case is the theory that Gita could have accidentally fallen into the water tank
her self because someone left the panel open during the early stages of the investigation,
no one was even willing to entertain that notion, because well, who
would have put the panel back in place after she fell in. It seems
this idea gained traction when Scottish forensic pathologist Derek Pounder pushed forward the possibility that
the cold temperature of the water caused hemorrhaging on Guita's neck, which could have
been mistaken for strangulation mars. But there are numerous fallacies with this theory,
and by Pounder's own admission, this type of thing only occurs in a small
percentage of drowning cases, and technically Pounder was only presenting a hypothetical scenario without
actually looking at Gita's body or the autopsy reports, whereas the five pathologists who
did perform a full examination concluded that she was likely the victim of a homicide.
I think this theory has gained more traction since the former lead detected James
Wood, went on the record claiming the Pounder's assessment caused him to change his
mind and he now believes that Geeda's death was an accident. Well, you
have to take into account that Wood made the statement after his retirement, and
no homicide detective wants to end their career with an unsolved murder still on the
books. So maybe this was his way of rationalizing the whole situation. Well,
if I could go home and enjoy retirement and not think about the cases
that haunt me, right, because you don't want to go off of your
career with unsolved murders lingering. They're people and they matter, and a lot
of these detectives really do carry those people with them. So if he could
say, listen, a scientist comes forward. He says that he thinks it
is a drowning. He said, there's cases like this. I'm just gonna
go with that, like I could see that being a peace of mind thing.
But I also when you talk about Pounder, he didn't look at her
body. Yes, have there been a few cases where there's bruising on the
neck according to Pounder, Yes, But again we talked about this. I
believe on episode one where to have her sitting in that position for so long
that that cold water is going to create just a simple ring around her neck
of strangulation. I don't buy that. I think you would have either multiple
rings showing when she got more and more tired and going below the water more
and more even bruising on her face when she just has her mouth above water
trying to breathe. Unless she was rendered unconscious before she was put into that
water and via strangulation and wasn't actually bobbing in the water, But if she
was fighting for her life, I think there would be different kind of marks,
maybe even more bruising where she's trying to hit the side of the tank
and crawl out. Just I'm not buying it. I think when you have
five people who actually got to see her body and then you have Pounder who
didn't, and it is just saying, well, once I saw this case
where this happened, I'm not going to pin my career in a conclusion of
a case on that assessment. The other ammunition for this theater is the anonymous
plant insider who claimed that a water quality supervisor may have removed a panel from
the basement corridor's floor to collect water samples on the day of Keita's death,
providing a potential explanation for how she could have stepped in there accidentally. The
evidence seemed to show that the panel had been put back in place very hastily,
so theoretically, if the responsible party returned to the scene and discovered the
Gheeta drowned. Because of their own negligence, they could have replaced the panel
and kept their mouth shut about what they did. I mean, this plant
obviously had serious internal issues with their safety protocols, so I cannot completely discount
the possibility that a scenario like this took place. I know that one of
the three potential suspects investigators focused on was a supervisor, though it's unclear if
it might have been the same old school water quality supervisor. This anonymous insider
was referring to. If a person is indirectly responsible for someone's death by negligence,
but is interrogated as if they committed an intentional homicide, you have to
wonder if them might affect their demeanor. I know that James Woods said he
believed that one of the suspects was on the verge of cracking and making a
confession before he stopped talking to the police. So could this person have been
overwhelmed with guilt because they were responsible for Ghita's death even though it was purely
accidental. I mean, I assume you could be, but you would really
pray that people's moral compass would say, oh my god, there's this poor
family. There's three children and a husband who are wondering what happened. I
messed up, Like I removed that panel this morning, and I want to
tell them what happened, because what if it was the panel falling through or
she stepped on it and she fell into the water. I don't know.
Maybe I'm an odd ball, but I feel like I would say, this
is so accidental? Could it have been my fault? Like I almost feel
like I'd come forward and be like they found her body down there there was
a panel missing, Oh my god, I moved a panel this morning.
Was it that panel? And give information if it's accidental? I don't.
Yes, someone passed away, But when there's an accident like that, you're
not going to be charged with murder or something because you didn't screw a panel
on tight enough. It was a workplace accident and the company would get in
trouble, but you're not. I don't. I don't know. I guess
a lot of people cover their own skin before they do the right thing,
but you'd pray that that wouldn't be the case when a mother dies and people
are wondering what the heck happened to her. But if there's like five pathologists
who are saying that their likely way that Gita died was by homicide, then
I could see if that was already the narrative that somebody, even if they
accidentally were like, okay, I put the panel there and it was a
total accident. I didn't know that she was in the tank at that point,
they might be nervous to come forward and be questioned as a murder suspect,
because how many times do we see where somebody who is innocent, or
maybe the one that discovers the body, they're then like suspect numero uno.
There's times where police do get it wrong or investigators get it wrong. So
I could see how somebody would be slightly trepidacious if they did that. But
I'm the same way as you ash. If it were me in that situation,
the guilt would get me, so I would have to come forward and
be like it was me. I accidentally did this. I had no idea,
and I'm sorry. I do see what you're saying too. Though if
the narrative was already homicide, I might have more like, oh my gosh,
because ask rebel, he said, please don't ever die in are like
around me, right, don't let me be the first to find you,
because he's like, I don't trust people anymore, Like I'd be scared to
call nine one one and what would follow, you know, because you do
see these cases where people are accused of murder when a natural death or an
accident occurs. But I would assume that they knew her body was found in
that tank, and I'm not sure that the homicide narrative was immediate, but
like you said, if it was, then oh my lord, maybe I
don't want to put myself in position anymore. I was just saying, gosh,
when they're scrambling to figure out what happened to this poor woman, I
was down there, Like maybe information would have come out before the homicide noticed,
but it I still am leaning towards the fact that it was a murder,
given the fact that these five pathologists all agreed and they saw her body
well. One of the biggest issues with this accident theory is that Gita was
known for being a very conscientious person, and she'd walked through those basement corridors
numerous times before, so everyone who knew her found it unlikely that she would
have failed to notice an open panel in the floor. I also think that
if Gita had fallen into the tank, her beaker may have been found in
there, alongside her radio and clipboard, but since it was found broken on
the basement floor, this suggests that she got into a struggle beforehand. Even
though an alternate theory was presented to explain how cold water could have caused the
marks on Gita's neck, Let's not forget that she also had additional bruising on
her waist and elbow. So I really think the evidence supports her being violently
attacked. We've covered so many cases where the authorities ruled someone's death to be
a suicide or an accident and ignored compelling evidence to suggest homicide. But I
think this is one case where they got it right the first time around,
and that any alternate theories besides Gita being murdered do not hold up at all.
But even if by chance, this was an accident, whoever left that
panel open and caused Geeda to fall to her death still needs to be held
accountable for what happened. I mean, it's true they need to be able
to tell what happens so that her family has answers. Again, I think
the plant as a whole would be more responsible for not having the protocols in
place, for not having safety checks or signing off when you move the panel,
all the things that could have been put into place to protect all the
employees from accidents like that, those would be the things that I'd focus on.
I think the family needs the answers, and that's what should be compelling
someone to say, I did this. I need to tell you what happened.
I'm so remorseful it was an accident and see what occurred. But again,
I just don't feel like that's the case. I feel like the beaker
was dropped in a struggle. That's why she got the bruising on her waist,
Like what part of you would be bruised on your waist unless she fell
through that hole and hit the you know, the side on the way down.
She has bruising on her waist, she has bruising on other parts of
her body. She has that strangulation markings that by pathologists recorded they saw on
her body. It just indicates more that there was a struggle and a fight
and then a desperate need to cover her up. And then you think back
that one year earlier, in that same location, they filmed a lawn or
episode where a woman drowned in the tank, and I could see someone saying,
that is genius. I'm going to dispose of her body here and it'll
be hours before they find her. I'll be home, they won't even know
what happened to her. Still don't have a clear cut idea of what the
motive might have been for a homicide, but I doubt the crime was pre
planned, and I think the perpetrator or perpetrators just got very lucky that they
weren't caught in the act, and some potentially crucial evidence which could have implicated
them wound up being destroyed. But no matter how Gheeta died, this was
just an incredibly tragic end to her life. Remember this is a woman who
found great success in her male dominated native country for not only becoming the first
woman to attend Loyola College, but graduating as the top student in her class.
She then moved to the US to provide a better life for her family
and was pretty much living the American dream until her life was cut short by
a pretty horrific death. I read a number of heartbreaking articles about the difficulties
that Gyeeda's husband, Jaya, and their children have experienced while dealing with her
loss, as I know that Jaya actually held on too Geda's cell phone and
would frequently call her voicemail just so he could hear his deceased wife speak again.
The Ingara family has frequently voiced for frustrations over the police's inability to make
an arrest in the case, but I honestly get the impression that without any
real forensic evidence to work with, there's really not much they can do until
they receive a big break. Perhaps all this case needs for a resolution is
for the right person to come forward. So if you happen to have any
information on the death of Geta Angara, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules
Ashley any final thoughts in this case. I can't stop thinking about her three
babies and how their father was the one who had to step up and comfort
his children and the loss of their mother. He also has to try to
grieve the loss of his best friend and the fellow parent in the house,
So he's raising these babies on his own without the person who he created them
with. The children are growing up and having these experiences where their mother should
be present and she's not. And more so in these cases where you see
a woman fight so hard and she moves to America to create this dream where
she says, I'm going to raise a family in America so I can provide
for them. I'm going to secure my education so that I can financially be
an asset to my family. And that's what she's doing. And then all
of a sudden, she doesn't come home one day after work. And I
can't even imagine what that was like with those three children learning that their mother
was deceased. And you have this father who, like he said, I
would call her phone just to hear her voice. Been there, done that.
It is awful. And yet, like I said, he's also responsible
for these three children who are grieving as well. So accident or homicide,
it would be my prayer that someone in that fifty person pool would say I
have information. It might not even seem significant, it might seem so minor.
I remember overhearing a conversation where someone was frustrated with her. I remember
hearing a conversation where someone said they gave information they probably shouldn't have known.
There was this conflict that I'm aware of. Any of that could be profound
information, even if it doesn't seem like it. So, like you said,
without forensic evidence, which we don't have here because of the chlorine,
and without people coming forward, these cases can't be investigated deeply by police,
there's nothing to go on. And so at this point it would take somebody
who's had distance in space and time to say, I have information and I
don't know if it'll help, but see if it will, and you never
know, it could both a case wide open. That's what I hope for
as well. I really, just like you said, Ash, I can't
stop thinking about her three children and her husband who were left behind. Gito
was brilliant to be the first woman to be in Loyola College after it became
co ed, to get a masters and bachelors there, to come to the
United States to get two more master's degrees and a PhD. She was so
accomplished and clearly so so intelligent. Oh when I forgot to mention that she
won the gold medal for being the student at the top of her class,
being an immigrant woman at the time, being in this position of power at
this water treatment plant or facility. It couldn't have been easy, and yet
she managed to navigate it. And I'm sure that she did it all with
grace because that just seems to be the type of woman that she was.
And I really hope that in these coming years, before the clock starts to
run out on who may have done this, people start to die, things
change. This was so many years ago, that somebody will come forward with
some kind of information, because even if that person wasn't responsible, I believe
that there are multiple people there who are aware of what happened and who is
the perpetrator, because it just seems unlikely that it was one person was able
to dispose of her body into that tank and to get that panel on there,
even if it was somebody who just helped in the aftermath during the cleanup,
there has to be somebody out there who has this guilt that is eating
away at them just because of the knowledge that they have. And I really
hope that in these coming years they come forward and give those babies that resolution
of who killed their mother and why. Yeah, this is definitely such a
frustrating and heartbreaking case because we've gone over all the points how Ghita was a
brilliant woman who moved her family to the US and was living her best life,
but then wound up being murdered in a place she probably never would expect
it. I don't think she felt that when she went down to the basement
of her plant to perform a routine check that she would cross paths with someone
who would kill her. And we talked about how this is both solvable and
unsolvable because you only have a limited amount of suspects to work with. It
had to be an employee at the plant, and you, like Jules said,
could only one person have done this, Like there has to be other
people who at least know or suspect who is responsible. Yet they have no
forensic evidence, no security footage, no eyewitnesses, so they just are unable
to make an arrest. And I keep parking back to the narrowing down of
the suspects, how it originally went down from fifty to eight, and then
it was narrowed down to three, and then ten years ago the authorities say,
well, we no longer believe that these streamn were responsible, and we
haven't heard anything new since then. We have no idea if other people are
being reinvestigated and because so little information has been released publicly, we know nothing
about these suspects, what their motives could have been, and we have no
idea where the investigation is right now. It's completely inactive, which is a
real shame. It just sounds like whoever did this probably did not plan what
they were doing. It could have been a spur of the moment thing and
they just got incredibly lucky that they were able to do it without being seen
and without leaving any forensic evidence behind. And who knows. We can hope
maybe this person has a conscience that one day from now they'll spill the beans
and confest and we can finally find out the truth. But for now,
Keith's family still has to live with the pain on not knowing what happened to
her, and I really do hope that they get answers someday. Robin,
do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now,
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for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy