Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
Speaker 1: not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: I had to look at what he did.
Speaker 4: I had to look at it with my own eyes,
Speaker 4: after putting everything I had in the finding her, And
Speaker 4: I promise you that everybody involved is going down. So
Speaker 4: I'm letting you know everybody who's involved in know something
Speaker 4: and didn't tell us is going to pay.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to season thirteen, episode three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty six of Sword and Scale, the show that reveals
Speaker 1: that the worst monsters are real. In late April of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, something wasn't right in Denmark, the Denmark
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, that is. That's when residents of this
Speaker 1: small town turned on their nightly news and learned about
Speaker 1: a troubling situation. A young mother of three had gone missing.
Speaker 5: Sonight, rising emotions in Bamberg County as investigators search for
Speaker 5: this missing mother of three.
Speaker 6: Something's not right because she wasn't the mother that just
Speaker 6: drops her kids off with anybody.
Speaker 5: This is twenty five year old Megan Bodiford. Investigators says
Speaker 5: she sent some concerning text messages to a friend last
Speaker 5: Thursday and she has not been seen since.
Speaker 1: Twenty five years old. Megan Bottiford was reported missing on
Speaker 1: April twenty sixth, twenty twenty four, by one of her
Speaker 1: closest friends, Grace Rindell. According to Grace, the last time
Speaker 1: she heard from Megan was through text messages. Megan had
Speaker 1: asked if she and her youngest baby could spend the
Speaker 1: night at Grace's house, which was something that wasn't out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary. Grace told her yes, and that she
Speaker 1: would leave the front door unlocked before going to bed
Speaker 1: so Megan could let herself in, just like she had
Speaker 1: done many times before.
Speaker 3: You had to follow up call with her.
Speaker 7: Nine abral fin fist that I called her I had
Speaker 7: take sleeping medication to he'll sleep the night, so I'd
Speaker 7: already taken it, so I told her I couldn't try
Speaker 7: just to get the baby come to me. So I
Speaker 7: got up and I unlocked my door, turned on the
Speaker 7: porch site and figured that she let her so thin
Speaker 7: as she's done some many times before.
Speaker 3: So okay, but she ever did.
Speaker 1: The next morning, when Grace woke up, she realized that
Speaker 1: Megan and her baby hadn't shown up. At first, she
Speaker 1: assumed Megan had simply changed her mind, But after repeated
Speaker 1: attempts to reach her when unanswered, that assumption started to
Speaker 1: feel a lot less certain, so Grace drove to Megan's
Speaker 1: house to check on her.
Speaker 7: Also the night that did call her missing, I went
Speaker 7: to her house.
Speaker 3: Question on that how'd you get in? Did you kick
Speaker 3: the door as signe you did?
Speaker 8: Yes, that's we're just trying to We're just trying to
Speaker 8: piece Everyone said you kicked the door.
Speaker 3: It was out of big deal.
Speaker 1: When Grace arrived at Meghan's home, there was no sign
Speaker 1: of Megan or her baby. At that point, she knew
Speaker 1: something was very wrong, so she went to the police
Speaker 1: and reported her missing. It didn't take long for this
Speaker 1: story of a missing mom to reach the local media.
Speaker 9: This home used to be full of life, but now
Speaker 9: it stands empty.
Speaker 6: April the eleventh, I heard from her, and I told
Speaker 6: her I loved her, and she told me she loved
Speaker 6: me too, forever and always, and then.
Speaker 9: Those were the last words. Megan bought Afford said to
Speaker 9: her cousin.
Speaker 6: She's very strong and resilient and beautiful. She's a wonderful
Speaker 6: mother and we need her home.
Speaker 9: The pain is hard to put into words for her family.
Speaker 9: But all they want is for Meghan to come home.
Speaker 9: It's my baby cousin.
Speaker 6: She got to come home to these babies.
Speaker 9: I need her home.
Speaker 7: I don't need her lost.
Speaker 1: As Meghan's family held on to hope that she would return,
Speaker 1: local authorities brought in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division,
Speaker 1: better known as SLED to assist with the investigation. Part
Speaker 1: of that assistants involved arresting someone close to Meghan, her
Speaker 1: twenty eight year old boyfriend, jareded Davis.
Speaker 9: A missing person's report says, due to prior call history,
Speaker 9: concern for the safety of a baby in the home,
Speaker 9: and her boyfriend having an active arrest warrant, deputies wanted
Speaker 9: to request SLED to assist in executing a search warrant
Speaker 9: and then arresting him on an outstanding.
Speaker 1: War Jarrett was the father of Megan's youngest child, and
Speaker 1: when officers arrived at his home to arrest him on
Speaker 1: an unrelated warrant, they found the baby unharmed, but there
Speaker 1: was still no sign of Megan. As her boyfriend, Jarrett
Speaker 1: was an obvious person of interest. It's always the boyfriend,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't just their relationship that drew attention. According
Speaker 1: to Megan's friend Grace, several of Jared's own friends said
Speaker 1: he wasn't acting like himself on the day Megan disappeared.
Speaker 1: Something about him seemed off.
Speaker 7: When Early and Danielle did show up at my house,
Speaker 7: they kept telling me that they were being Jared. They
Speaker 7: hung out Jared all day and he was being various
Speaker 7: sspcius if I'm not letting them go to Megan's house.
Speaker 10: To look for her.
Speaker 1: Naturally, after Jarrett was taken into custody, investigators sat down
Speaker 1: with him to talk about Megan and find out what
Speaker 1: he knew about her disappearance.
Speaker 3: Your first time is Jared, right, Jarrett j R?
Speaker 2: E T T all right.
Speaker 11: So the other day you were I got I spoke
Speaker 11: to you briefly, you already in the back of the
Speaker 11: police car, and we talked just a little bit and.
Speaker 3: Really just kind of following up.
Speaker 12: I know, I told you that we would, you know,
Speaker 12: keep you updated on what was going on, and that's
Speaker 12: what I'm.
Speaker 3: What I'm here to do.
Speaker 12: Since you are in custody, I have to read you
Speaker 12: your Miranda rights just because we're gonna call to you.
Speaker 1: Not long after this interview began, Jared became emotional. He
Speaker 1: broke down, frustrated that he was sitting in jail while
Speaker 1: his girlfriend was still missing. He wanted to know why
Speaker 1: he had been denied bail.
Speaker 11: Really, you know, now we're gonna now we've got to
Speaker 11: figure out how it happened.
Speaker 3: What happened? So I'm gonna trying to pick your brain
Speaker 3: a little bit more. I'll ask you what, well, why
Speaker 3: have you did that?
Speaker 2: What was my mind?
Speaker 3: And then well, I had no idea on that this
Speaker 3: was your previous charges or not charges?
Speaker 11: I don't know, So I wonder, yeah, I don't even
Speaker 11: know what you're.
Speaker 3: Can you tell I see, we don't even know what
Speaker 3: are you in jail? CVV? When did that occur? Over
Speaker 3: a month ago? Over a month after the Sheriff's office
Speaker 3: or the city, And that's what the charges.
Speaker 1: Jared had been arrested because of a prior incident of
Speaker 1: criminal domestic violence involving Megan, which was something that didn't
Speaker 1: exactly work in his favor now that she was missing.
Speaker 3: So I want to go back into detail the last
Speaker 3: time you saw Nagan? So what day was the last
Speaker 3: day you saw her? On? Thursday?
Speaker 12: That Thursday, Thursday night, Thursday night, okay, Thursday night. Probably
Speaker 12: not what times Thursday night you remember last seeing them?
Speaker 13: I don't remember, Tom, give me well, I was changing
Speaker 13: the baby, all right, it was it daylight was dark,
Speaker 13: and I was like, for fucking night, best with him?
Speaker 3: I don't know, so after midnight.
Speaker 12: So we're talking after midnight Thursday night going into Friday morning. Okay,
Speaker 12: tell me about the conversation. Tell me about what was
Speaker 12: going on between y'all two that day Thursday.
Speaker 1: Jer I claimed that the last time he saw Megan
Speaker 1: was the day she went missing. He said the two
Speaker 1: of them had spent the day together taking their baby
Speaker 1: to a baseball game. I'm not sure what kind of
Speaker 1: baby enjoys a baseball game, but uh whatever, let's continue
Speaker 1: explain that everything seemed normal, enjoyable even but after they
Speaker 1: returned home things changed. The two had sex and then
Speaker 1: an argument started being her.
Speaker 3: Station later at night, y'all you were her sex.
Speaker 12: Yeah, so things were okay at this point.
Speaker 2: Until the legatory to day.
Speaker 3: I didn't she want me a nothing there? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I didn't, and you didn't, and that's when she started
Speaker 2: getting up set.
Speaker 1: According to jareded, Megan became upset after they had sex.
Speaker 1: He claimed that he tried to calm her down.
Speaker 3: So she's mad, was cool out because she won't get pregnant,
Speaker 3: wants to know the baby. She want a boy or girl,
Speaker 3: wanted boy boy, any kind of At that point, she's mad.
Speaker 3: She thrown anything in the house.
Speaker 13: She like the usually if they could run a baby
Speaker 13: or like did the hold the baby, do his little
Speaker 13: baby shoot?
Speaker 14: He won't.
Speaker 3: You won't escalate that if you're holding the baby.
Speaker 13: Or she if I'm if I'm messing with the baby
Speaker 13: around the baby. What happened so well, whenever she was
Speaker 13: when she left, I.
Speaker 3: Was changing maybe everything and getting near the baby.
Speaker 11: So you got the baby close by everything everything's usually
Speaker 11: baby ain't close by.
Speaker 2: She might throw.
Speaker 3: Anything like that.
Speaker 1: Jared admitted that past arguments between him and Megan had
Speaker 1: become physical, but he insisted that it didn't happen the
Speaker 1: night she went missing. Instead, he claimed that after the argument,
Speaker 1: Megan simply left the house and he never saw her again.
Speaker 3: You her, that's matter before. Did any of that happen
Speaker 3: Thursday night? So there was nothing physical Thursday. It was
Speaker 3: just one of the ones that didn't heat.
Speaker 13: Really, it was just she was the one really upset.
Speaker 11: All right, How long after all this do you think
Speaker 11: it was when she before she left?
Speaker 3: How long do you think she stuck around the house?
Speaker 15: And because as she was as the bigger was going
Speaker 15: back before she was was.
Speaker 3: Where she left?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: And what did she tell you when she was leading?
Speaker 2: She said, she's leading the baby with me, since she
Speaker 2: always has a baby.
Speaker 16: Uh huh?
Speaker 13: Which she where she left? Like, I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 13: told other one this. I thought she was coming right back.
Speaker 3: Where you had she had been leaving. Where would you
Speaker 3: have thought she would have went?
Speaker 13: I thought she was just went he graces for a
Speaker 13: little bit, or came back, or he just left and
Speaker 13: came back, or I got so she didn't come back
Speaker 13: that night. That's why next morning when she ain't come
Speaker 13: to her baby more than contact her mama, as if
Speaker 13: she told her at all.
Speaker 1: Much of what Jared told the investigators appeared to check out.
Speaker 1: They confirmed that he and Megan had gone to a
Speaker 1: baseball game earlier that day, and that he had called
Speaker 1: Megan's mother the following morning asking about her. But something
Speaker 1: about his story just didn't sit right. By this point,
Speaker 1: investigators already learned that Megan was a devoted mother. If
Speaker 1: she had stormed out in anger, it seemed very unlikely
Speaker 1: that she would leave her baby behind. Still, while keeping
Speaker 1: Jarrett firmly on their radar, investigators started to consider another possibility.
Speaker 1: There was someone else who had been among the last
Speaker 1: to hear from Megan, her friend Grace.
Speaker 3: When did you report her?
Speaker 7: Listen, I'm not believing it was somewhere between six and
Speaker 7: seven pm?
Speaker 3: What I don't people if I asked you a lot?
Speaker 3: But why why did you wait?
Speaker 7: So one?
Speaker 3: That was tough question. Like I said, not judging you,
Speaker 3: No one's judging you.
Speaker 6: You know when I.
Speaker 7: Heard her on the phone, you know, we had a
Speaker 7: thing that excuse ever in danger to send me the
Speaker 7: address so I could send hope. Yeah, that's why I
Speaker 7: immediately called it when I saw that. And she's only
Speaker 7: non don't call just tinly.
Speaker 1: Grace claimed that when she woke up and realized Megan
Speaker 1: had never arrived, she went looking for eventually forcing her
Speaker 1: way into Megan's home to check on her. Yet, despite
Speaker 1: this urgency, it took nearly twenty four hours for Grace
Speaker 1: to go to the police and report her missing. If
Speaker 1: she was that concern, then why wait? There was also
Speaker 1: another detail Investigators couldn't ignore Grace and Megan's boyfriend, Jared
Speaker 1: had a romantic history.
Speaker 3: Did you have a relationship with Jared Davis?
Speaker 7: We That's actually how I met Megan was me and
Speaker 7: and jaredt had a brief, you know, kind of a
Speaker 7: one night stand, and when I saw him posting Megan,
Speaker 7: she investaged me, and you know, we talked about it
Speaker 7: and we decided to be best friends instead of fighting
Speaker 7: over somebody I didn't want to go.
Speaker 3: That's how our friendship started. Hit Singer close ever since,
Speaker 3: I hope I have ever touched.
Speaker 1: Grace claimed that there was no animosity between her and
Speaker 1: Megan over Jarrett, and based on how investigators handled that response,
Speaker 1: it seemed like they believed her. By this point, detectives
Speaker 1: had spoken with the last two people known to have
Speaker 1: contact with Megan before she disappeared, and they were no
Speaker 1: closer to understanding where she had gone or what had
Speaker 1: happened to her. Meanwhile, Megan's family, which included her three daughters,
Speaker 1: waited anxiously for answers and hope for Megan's safe return.
Speaker 9: Now, Meghan was a young mom. Her family tells me
Speaker 9: she has three young daughters that are waiting for their
Speaker 9: mom to come home. Her youngest daughter is only about
Speaker 9: four months old, and again, like I said, all her
Speaker 9: family wants is for her to come home so she
Speaker 9: can be a mom to those young daughters.
Speaker 1: On April thirtieth, five days after Megan was reported missing,
Speaker 1: investigators finally got a break in the case.
Speaker 9: All afternoon, the Bamberg County Sheriff's office has been in
Speaker 9: the woods right here, right off of the Barnwell excuse me, Highway. Now,
Speaker 9: we aren't sure what they were looking for exactly, but
Speaker 9: we did just get confirmed that they found a burned
Speaker 9: vehicle with human remains inside. We aren't sure who's those
Speaker 9: remains belonged to, but just a couple of miles down
Speaker 9: the road you can find Megan Vodaford's family holding on
Speaker 9: to hope that it was not her.
Speaker 1: Just a few miles from Jared's home, investigators made a
Speaker 1: horrific discovery on a desolate back road. They found a
Speaker 1: burned out vehicle with charred human remains inside.
Speaker 3: Still not one hundred some puzzles that is her. It's
Speaker 3: just possibility, like I said, vehicle found.
Speaker 12: Not even sure what kind of vehicle it was because
Speaker 12: it was burned, burn bad, and then there.
Speaker 3: Was evidence of a body being in there. So we
Speaker 3: haven't gotten the results back whether it was maybe or not.
Speaker 1: But given the condition of both the car and the body,
Speaker 1: investigators couldn't immediately confirm whether it belonged to Megan. An
Speaker 1: autopsy in DNA results were needed, but all signs pointed
Speaker 1: in the same direction. This was likely Megan bought Afford,
Speaker 1: after all, who else could it be? There was, however,
Speaker 1: one thing investigators were able to determine early on with
Speaker 1: some degree of certainty. The victim in the burned out
Speaker 1: car hadn't been killed inside the vehicle. They had been
Speaker 1: shot first and then placed there.
Speaker 3: That was placed in a driver's seat, was not putting.
Speaker 3: It was from driving. It was placed there.
Speaker 17: This body was placed there and then burned, place there
Speaker 17: and burned. She was dead before it was burned. She
Speaker 17: had already been killed. She was shot by a shot.
Speaker 2: In the soul.
Speaker 3: Somebody drove her out there, left her in the vehicle,
Speaker 3: set an on fire, and it burned, burned her body
Speaker 3: up and burned the vehicle up.
Speaker 1: Following the discovery of the burned car and the human remains,
Speaker 1: the investigation into Megan Bodifford only became more complicated as
Speaker 1: investigators dug deeper. The list of suspects continued to grow,
Speaker 1: and for a time, a chilling question loomed over the case.
Speaker 1: What if Megan hadn't been killed by one person, but
Speaker 1: instead by a group of people she trusted. In late
Speaker 1: April of twenty twenty four, in Denmark, South Carolina, twenty
Speaker 1: five year old mother of three, Megan Botiford vanished, and
Speaker 1: the days that followed, investigators worked to piece together her
Speaker 1: last known movements, focusing on two people who had been
Speaker 1: in contact with her just before she disappeared. Her boyfriend
Speaker 1: Jared Davis and her close friend Grace Rindel. Both were questioned.
Speaker 1: Both denied involvement, and neither could explain where Megan had gone. Then,
Speaker 1: five days later, investigators discovered a burned out vehicle on
Speaker 1: a remote road with a burned corpse inside. But at
Speaker 1: that point one question remained, was this Megan?
Speaker 5: Our top stories now a family on edge waiting for
Speaker 5: autopsy results after the discovery of a burn vehicle with
Speaker 5: human remains inside, All of.
Speaker 9: This happening with one question on a lot of minds,
Speaker 9: Where is twenty five year old Meghan Bontiford. Nearly a
Speaker 9: week has passed since Meghan Bontiford's family laid eyes on her.
Speaker 9: They don't want to believe she's gone. All they want
Speaker 9: is for this young mom to come home. But for
Speaker 9: right now, it's the agonizing waiting game they are being
Speaker 9: forced to play.
Speaker 18: It's hard.
Speaker 3: It's really ar missed for so much.
Speaker 9: I agree, I can't describe it.
Speaker 5: I uh won't be outside the other day and just.
Speaker 16: Oh, I just said, Lord, I don't understand that this
Speaker 16: is hard.
Speaker 1: Well, Megan's family waited anxiously for the results of the autopsy.
Speaker 1: Megan's boyfriend, Jareded also waited as he sat in the
Speaker 1: jail cell on an unrelated warrant.
Speaker 19: Have you heard anything, niw just as lit news? What's
Speaker 19: been on the news? Body found? You say that was Megan?
Speaker 3: What's your tholves? If I will confirm you a vehicle was.
Speaker 12: Found that was burned with more than likely it doesn't
Speaker 12: appear there there was a body in it.
Speaker 3: I know stuff that I wanted.
Speaker 12: I wanted, Like I told you that day, if anything
Speaker 12: came up, I would be.
Speaker 3: I would come and tell you what.
Speaker 1: Investigators confirmed the news reports of a burned body Jarrett
Speaker 1: appeared genuinely shaken. His concern for Megan seemed real. About
Speaker 1: three days after the car and the body were discovered,
Speaker 1: the autopsy results came back and it was the outcome
Speaker 1: no one I'd been hoping for.
Speaker 9: April thirtieth, deputies from the Bamberg County Sheriff's Office discovered
Speaker 9: a burned vehicle here with possible human remains inside. Three
Speaker 9: days later, we now know those remains belonged to Meghan Afford,
Speaker 9: a young mom of three young daughters.
Speaker 1: Tragically, this was no longer a missing person case. It
Speaker 1: was now a homicide, and not just any homicide. Someone
Speaker 1: had shot a mother of three in the head, then
Speaker 1: loaded her body into a car and set it on fire,
Speaker 1: burning Megan beyond recognition.
Speaker 3: You know, we have arsenal experts that are out there
Speaker 3: that doing us for eighteen years.
Speaker 20: He said that was the worst body that he has
Speaker 20: ever seen in his life.
Speaker 3: He whoknew us for eighteen years.
Speaker 20: That body was burned so bad that in eighteen years,
Speaker 20: that is the worst body he has ever seen.
Speaker 3: Who would do that to Megan? Who would do that?
Speaker 3: It was personal? Whoever did it, it was personal. It
Speaker 3: wasn't something random it was personal.
Speaker 1: Investigators were left with the obvious question, who would have
Speaker 1: done this to Megan why. At first, there were only
Speaker 1: two possible suspects to consider, her boyfriend Jarrett and her
Speaker 1: close friend Grace, but that list didn't remain small for long.
Speaker 7: Danielle since she was actually talking about what happened to
Speaker 7: Megan before her body was overdiscovered, and he.
Speaker 3: Kind of wrote me the wrong way. How she was
Speaker 3: talking on it was sudday and her body she was served.
Speaker 7: She said that I bet Jerry shot her and set
Speaker 7: her and fired her car her both.
Speaker 1: As the investigation expanded, detectives became aware of a recent
Speaker 1: acquaintance of Megan's, a young woman named Danielle Simmons. Her
Speaker 1: name came up more than once, and according to several people,
Speaker 1: Danielle had been talking about Megan's body being burned days
Speaker 1: before the car and the remains were discovered.
Speaker 21: I just give him the thriller ride and I don't know,
Speaker 21: I don't know her like that, but she was talking
Speaker 21: about Magan happened, and she said, she knows your name,
Speaker 21: Danielle Simmons, And he was running her mouth before everything
Speaker 21: that came out on Facebook and all that where there's.
Speaker 5: No way you just go and shouldn't known what she knows.
Speaker 21: Maybe they need to look into her or look at
Speaker 21: her phone or something, because she might know more than
Speaker 21: what she's saying or.
Speaker 9: Has something to do with it.
Speaker 1: Once Danielle's name surfaced, investigators moved quickly. They tracked her
Speaker 1: down and brought her in for questioning.
Speaker 2: All Right, daniel what we're doing.
Speaker 3: We're investigating the case with Megan, and we've beat the
Speaker 3: bushes and talked a lot of folks.
Speaker 2: Your name's come up as having some information.
Speaker 14: Don't want to use stuff back in the corner or anything,
Speaker 14: but anything you've got is definitely important.
Speaker 3: Okay. If you happened to be there earlier or later
Speaker 3: or whatever, it's all important.
Speaker 14: So what I don't want you to do is to
Speaker 14: sit here and tell us story and did not be real,
Speaker 14: because then you will find yourself and I'll pick Okay.
Speaker 1: After advising Danielle that it was in her best interest
Speaker 1: to be honest, investigators got straight to the point, asking
Speaker 1: where she had been on the day that Megan went missing.
Speaker 3: Let's start with Thursday, with twenty fifth.
Speaker 22: We've seen I've seen her at two o'clock that afternoon.
Speaker 7: Like me and Irrow had went over there to work.
Speaker 3: On his throat. And when you say.
Speaker 22: Yeah, that's the last time I seen her. She was
Speaker 22: leaving from Jared's. Jared came out with falcon and was like,
Speaker 22: I mean we about to ride somewhere, and I was like, okay.
Speaker 22: They love And Megan comes out and sits on the
Speaker 22: porch while I was talking to her whatever, and she
Speaker 22: was telling me it.
Speaker 3: You know, she was tired, she was leaving.
Speaker 22: She was doing tired of putting his hands on her
Speaker 22: and stuff. And I was like, yeah, Jerad, he's knocked out.
Speaker 22: She said yeah, because he knocked me out night before
Speaker 22: or whatever.
Speaker 3: She says.
Speaker 22: She was going home and not tell Jerry where she
Speaker 22: was at, and I was like okay, and she got
Speaker 22: in her car.
Speaker 1: Danielle admitted that she had seen Megan at Jareded's house
Speaker 1: on the day she went missing. She claimed that Megan
Speaker 1: confided in her, saying she was tired of being abused
Speaker 1: by Jared, and when Jarrett left the house with a friend,
Speaker 1: Danielle said, Megan took the opportunity to leave. According to Danielle,
Speaker 1: Megan simply got into her car and drove off and
Speaker 1: she never saw her again.
Speaker 3: Jared Falcon came back.
Speaker 22: He was like, where's Megan And he was like, I said,
Speaker 22: oh no, She said she was leaving and he's seen
Speaker 22: them clothes herself and got mad. He grabbed a bag
Speaker 22: from she got in a car with Foutin and left.
Speaker 1: Danielle said that when Jarrett returned and realized Megan was gone,
Speaker 1: he and his friend Falcon. Yeah yeah, his name's Falcon.
Speaker 1: Let's continue. The two of them went out looking for her.
Speaker 1: She claimed she didn't go with them, but later that
Speaker 1: night she returned to Jared's house. Megan still wasn't there,
Speaker 1: but Jared was, Did you any time.
Speaker 2: Go back over to Jared's house that night?
Speaker 3: It was we did, but we just stopped by.
Speaker 2: Who was the jarlger?
Speaker 3: Nobody?
Speaker 2: Nobody there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay? On the car he was burning.
Speaker 1: According to Danielle, when she returned to Jared's house, she
Speaker 1: found him outside burning items in a fire pit. And
Speaker 1: somehow this didn't trigger any alarms. What adult? Two investigators
Speaker 1: that just didn't sit right? Shouldn't sit right with anyone,
Speaker 1: because despite seeing something like that, Danielle still she had
Speaker 1: no idea what happened to Megan.
Speaker 3: We already know a lot of stuff, so hear me out.
Speaker 3: You know, if you know something or if you've been
Speaker 3: told them something, you hear it's her or something, and
Speaker 3: you notasure your.
Speaker 14: Opportunity to be straight Thos, I haven't heard anything.
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea where where she went?
Speaker 3: That was your relationship with Meghan?
Speaker 22: I just metter, like you know, I didn't know where.
Speaker 3: What do you think happened to Megan? I really don't
Speaker 3: want really was partly you? Okay? Last year?
Speaker 2: It really wouldn't surprise her Jared would do so, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if you'd be able to.
Speaker 1: Danielle seemed reluctant to implicate jareded but when pressed, she
Speaker 1: admitted it wouldn't surprise her if he was responsible for
Speaker 1: Megan's death. In fact, she said that was the only
Speaker 1: explanation that made sense.
Speaker 2: James last one was seen her. How do you know that?
Speaker 22: Because I mean she left his house with the baby
Speaker 22: for him to have gotten I mean the baby was
Speaker 22: with him when he's seen him, so she had He
Speaker 22: hadn't have been the last person to see her.
Speaker 3: Because it is where to get babe? Where did he
Speaker 3: get baby from?
Speaker 1: Despite Danielle's insistence that she didn't know what happened to Megan,
Speaker 1: Investigators clearly weren't convinced as they continued to press her.
Speaker 3: Did anyone threaten.
Speaker 2: You at all?
Speaker 3: Want to say anything? No, no one threatened. You're caring
Speaker 3: about Oh, I didn't see her. Everybody hiking his I
Speaker 3: didn't see her after she left, she.
Speaker 1: I wish I didn't know If Danielle had any involvement
Speaker 1: in or knowledge of Megan's murder. She didn't admit it,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the interview, investigators were no
Speaker 1: close to finding answers. If anything, the case was becoming
Speaker 1: more complicated. Rumors started to spread, and with those rumors
Speaker 1: came more names, each one adding to a growing list
Speaker 1: of potential suspects, which is why web sleuths people on
Speaker 1: the Internet that try to solve crimes in between runs
Speaker 1: to Walmart should stay the fuck out of a case
Speaker 1: and mind their own goddamn business. They often make crimes
Speaker 1: harder to solve, not easier.
Speaker 3: The problem is we have to verify everything that people
Speaker 3: tell us.
Speaker 18: Right, so you know, we're still a lot of the
Speaker 18: problem is the rumor mill around town is crazy, and
Speaker 18: everyone thinks that everyone was evolved in it.
Speaker 1: Stuff, and eventually the rumors surrounding Megan's murder made their
Speaker 1: way into the local jail, where was being helped. Before long,
Speaker 1: another inmate, someone who actually knew Megan, asked to speak
Speaker 1: with investigators.
Speaker 8: All right, what's your first and last name, Sir, Cory,
Speaker 8: I got a request from you saying that you have
Speaker 8: some information on Magane's disappearance.
Speaker 23: Well, well, the sorrys I know Meghan from the streets
Speaker 23: and stuff.
Speaker 3: I know who she hangs out with.
Speaker 24: My actually seen her several days before I got locked up,
Speaker 24: which was in February.
Speaker 3: Who do you think is our suspect?
Speaker 23: Well, I mean, I don't like point fingers without without reasonable.
Speaker 24: Suspect, But I mean I knew that, I know who
Speaker 24: she she she used to hang out with.
Speaker 3: I know who she was real close to. That would
Speaker 3: be area Home. Why do you think she would do something?
Speaker 23: Well, I know I know in the past, she's had
Speaker 23: problems with her before. Like I said, if anything were
Speaker 23: to happen to Megan, I would think that Arianna would
Speaker 23: definitely know about it.
Speaker 3: Do you think she should do something to her? She's crazy,
Speaker 3: She's she's she's pretty crazy and mate.
Speaker 1: Corey pointed the finger at another friend of Megan's, a
Speaker 1: woman named Arianna, but when investigators followed up on that lead,
Speaker 1: it went nowhere. Still during the interview, Corey said something
Speaker 1: that did catch their attention. When asked what he'd heard
Speaker 1: inside the jail, he told them something that echoed what
Speaker 1: Danielle Simmons had already said.
Speaker 3: What are you been hearing here? Anything?
Speaker 22: Well?
Speaker 24: Dashly talking to somebody earlier who knows Megan too, hangs
Speaker 24: out with Meghan or used to anyways, And she said
Speaker 24: that she heard problems between.
Speaker 3: The two the boyfriend of the baby daddy, Jared, Jared
Speaker 3: or Jeriot, between Jered and him. They they are you
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 1: It was no secret that Jarrett had been abusive towards Megan.
Speaker 1: An interview after interview seemed to end the same way,
Speaker 1: with the person being questioned suggesting that more than likely
Speaker 1: Jarrett was responsible for this murder.
Speaker 3: What do you think I.
Speaker 8: Think jed in my head?
Speaker 2: I got too many of them. I think he might
Speaker 2: have put his hand on the wall the time, and
Speaker 2: he might I.
Speaker 3: Think he heard it heard he might have what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was saying, I don't know
Speaker 1: another name, investigators kept hearing was an unusual one, you know,
Speaker 1: the one Falcon Falcon Joiner, to be precise. Falcon was
Speaker 1: a young man who was close to Jared. They'd been friends,
Speaker 1: and he'd been with him on the night that Megan disappeared.
Speaker 8: Just kind of get me a rundown of what what
Speaker 8: you want to talking about here today?
Speaker 25: The audio of Falcon telling what went on this weekend
Speaker 25: with him and Jared and Meghan.
Speaker 3: So give me a gyss. Does he ever admit to anything?
Speaker 25: He admits picking, chicking, Jared up Jared Caughton, okay, and
Speaker 25: he came over and he was like, man, I'm gonna
Speaker 25: kill this ditch and all this, threw an axe in
Speaker 25: the back of Jared. Jared threw an axe in the
Speaker 25: back of So.
Speaker 3: He picked up jareded at Jared's trailer down the river.
Speaker 25: Okay, all right, and he threw an axe in the
Speaker 25: back of the truck. And he told Falcon, I give
Speaker 25: you forty dollars. You're going to aching anyway, Just run
Speaker 25: me the her house, drop me.
Speaker 3: Off at her house. And Falcon was like, bo, I
Speaker 3: don't know about that.
Speaker 25: You're like come on, I give you forty so o'clock
Speaker 25: and ended up.
Speaker 1: Taking Eventually, investigators started hearing that Falcon may have helped
Speaker 1: Jarrett carry out the murder, or at the very least,
Speaker 1: gave Jarrett a ride to the place where Megan was killed. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: Falcon was paid forty for that ride.
Speaker 25: After that, he said he finally pulled up.
Speaker 26: Again at Jared's house, said Jared was acting all weird
Speaker 26: Saturday Friday might say, Jared was acting all weird and shit,
Speaker 26: was acting crazy questions.
Speaker 25: And it was like you think she he was trying
Speaker 25: to put like she overdosed or some shit.
Speaker 3: I think she overdosed on something involved something.
Speaker 25: Like that, because she left me with the kids, said
Speaker 25: she was going out, Like how would that automatically be
Speaker 25: the first thing you're trying to.
Speaker 3: Throw out there unless you come up with the stores. Okay.
Speaker 3: Then Falcon's like, He're.
Speaker 25: Like, well, I honestly think Jared killed it, he said,
Speaker 25: because after that he was like, voter, the police gonna
Speaker 25: think I killed her, And Falcon was like, I don't
Speaker 25: even understand why he would even say that. But then Falcon,
Speaker 25: I feel like Falcon's involved in it. He's just trying
Speaker 25: to separate himself and make it seem like he did.
Speaker 3: Everything that he did.
Speaker 1: Like every other name that surfaced in this investigation, the
Speaker 1: detectives eventually tracked Falcon down question to him. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: had to, I couldn't help myself. Here's the real interview.
Speaker 27: Everybody calls me Falcon.
Speaker 3: My Falcon is my middle name. Falcon.
Speaker 4: All right, Falcon, we know everything that went on the
Speaker 4: other day.
Speaker 3: Everything.
Speaker 4: I know everything because people with consciences are talking, and
Speaker 4: your names in the middle of all and it's not
Speaker 4: matching up. Some of what you're what you told us
Speaker 4: is true, some of it isn't, and I can very
Speaker 4: I can prove it. You have you know more than
Speaker 4: you told me the other day.
Speaker 1: Investigators immediately took a hard line with Falcon, which made
Speaker 1: their theory pretty clear. They believe Jarrett had committed the
Speaker 1: murder and that Falcon had either helped him or at
Speaker 1: the very least knew some details about what had happened.
Speaker 27: Every bit of what I told you the other night
Speaker 27: is the truth as far as my time goes.
Speaker 4: No, I know your timeline, you know exactly what happened,
Speaker 4: we know exactly.
Speaker 27: What No, I know what I've heard happen. I mean,
Speaker 27: I've been told throughout.
Speaker 3: No, I know that he told I never talked.
Speaker 27: I swear I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: Despite the investigator's certainty, Falcon maintained that Jarrett never confided
Speaker 1: in him about killing Megan.
Speaker 27: At ten I believe it was ten fifty five. He
Speaker 27: started blowing me up, calling me, calling me, calling me.
Speaker 27: I never once answered that phone for him, not that
Speaker 27: night at all.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 27: I assume what he was trying to do was he
Speaker 27: wanted an alibi or he wanted somebody to be there
Speaker 27: to verify the Hey, I'm sitting here with the baby.
Speaker 27: You know, I don't know where Meghan is.
Speaker 1: Falcon claimed to be on the same page as the investigators.
Speaker 1: He had his suspicions about what Jarrett may have done,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know for sure what happened.
Speaker 27: I don't talk to him none that at all. All Right,
Speaker 27: Friday comes in. That's when he called me, and the
Speaker 27: first that's the first time I answered the phone. And
Speaker 27: I knew immediately that something you know, the way he
Speaker 27: was talking, I could hear it, hear in his voice.
Speaker 27: I said something right, you watch something something right? Something
Speaker 27: something is I don't know what he's doing. Something's that.
Speaker 1: Falcon also claimed that Jared had suddenly asked him to
Speaker 1: hide his firearms, one of which may have been the
Speaker 1: murder weapon, but Falcon refused, and.
Speaker 27: He goes, he's just sitting there and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 27: I should probably do something. He's guns shut just like that.
Speaker 27: And I said, I mean, aren't you a feling? Be honest,
Speaker 27: I swear to God on my kids, that's what I said.
Speaker 27: I said, aren't you a feeling? He goes, well, I
Speaker 27: mean I don't know. Technically, I don't know. And I said,
Speaker 27: I mean he looked at me like, hey, you'll take him.
Speaker 27: He never asked me, right, you know, he just kind
Speaker 27: of looked at me like, I should probably get Ready's
Speaker 27: guns in it. And I'm sitting there with the.
Speaker 3: Only all right.
Speaker 1: Similar to the other suspects investigators spoke with, Falcon's story
Speaker 1: seemed credible. He may have been just another person caught
Speaker 1: up in a rumor mill and someone who actually knew
Speaker 1: nothing about the murder.
Speaker 3: What have you heard?
Speaker 27: This is what I heard. The latest I heard today
Speaker 27: was when I talked to his sister. She called me
Speaker 27: this morning and said, did you hear how how she died.
Speaker 27: How you know how she died? And I said, well,
Speaker 27: I mean you, I mean, I've heard a lot of things.
Speaker 27: She said, well, I talked with Megan's mom today and
Speaker 27: she said, so, it's a pretty reliable source that he
Speaker 27: beat her to death, well, beat her unconscious, and that he,
Speaker 27: while she was unconscious, took her and loaded her up
Speaker 27: and wherever hell he went and did his thing, burned
Speaker 27: the car. And I was like, well, unconscious, you mean
Speaker 27: like she was alive in there, and she was like yeah,
Speaker 27: And I said, god damn.
Speaker 1: Even though Falcons seemed genuinely ignorant about the facts of
Speaker 1: the case, investigators made it clear that if he had
Speaker 1: any involvement with the murder or knowledge of it, they
Speaker 1: would find out.
Speaker 4: I had to look at what he did to her.
Speaker 4: I had to look at it with my own eyes,
Speaker 4: after putting everything I had into finding her. And I
Speaker 4: promise you that everybody involved is going down. So I'm
Speaker 4: letting you know. Everybody who's involved in know something and
Speaker 4: didn't tell us, it's going to pay.
Speaker 27: I've been trying to help all I can. But me
Speaker 27: and Meghan were friends, man, I mean, I'm gonna tell you, Oh,
Speaker 27: I'll show you my messages with her. You want to
Speaker 27: see him? How about how she was trying to you know,
Speaker 27: he was beating her ass.
Speaker 12: We know, we know all.
Speaker 27: I told her, I'll show it to you. I said, Man,
Speaker 27: he's not a good person. Megan, you get your kids
Speaker 27: to get.
Speaker 3: Out of here.
Speaker 27: Well, I would have been to motherfucker tried to burn
Speaker 27: my house down like he did yours. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 27: you know me and you still need together. I can
Speaker 27: show it to you. I ain't got none to high
Speaker 27: man as hit because I mean, I haven't done anything.
Speaker 27: I swear to God on everything.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 27: If y'all want to go look at my house and
Speaker 27: my my shed, anything around there, y'all welcome and go
Speaker 27: do it. I go widget, But it don't matter. Y'all
Speaker 27: want my phone, y'all want to you wanna take pictures, y'all,
Speaker 27: whatever y'all want to do, I'm willing to help you.
Speaker 27: I don't got nothing to hide, bro.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, yet wasn't an interview with a potential suspect that
Speaker 1: led investigators in the right direction. It was Megan herself
Speaker 1: and her final words to a friend.
Speaker 9: Megan was reported missing by a friend on Friday. Her
Speaker 9: friend repeated what was in the police report.
Speaker 6: So her friends have been sending me messages in where
Speaker 6: Megan is basically scared for her life. She said that
Speaker 6: her the child, her child's father had a gun and
Speaker 6: if nobody contacted in the next thirty minutes to send
Speaker 6: the police because he killed her. I have those messages screenshotted.
Speaker 6: Megan was basically began for help again.
Speaker 9: This missing person's report says she sent text messages on
Speaker 9: April twenty fifth to a friend saying if they didn't
Speaker 9: hear from her in thirty minutes, to call law enforcement,
Speaker 9: and that her boyfriend was going to kill her.
Speaker 1: In a text message to her friend Grace, Megan wrote
Speaker 1: the following, Jarrett's about to kill me. If you don't
Speaker 1: hear from me in thirty minutes, call the law. After
Speaker 1: receiving this text message, Grace asked Megan if she should
Speaker 1: call the police immediately. Megan told her no and instead
Speaker 1: asked if she and her baby could spend the night
Speaker 1: at Grace's house.
Speaker 7: And I asked if everything was okay, and she was
Speaker 7: crying and she said he was beating her. She wanted
Speaker 7: me to call it. Go ahead and call the police.
Speaker 7: She said no that she decidedly even get the baby
Speaker 7: and come to my house. And so I had take
Speaker 7: sleeping medication to he'll sleep the night. So I'd already
Speaker 7: taken it, so I told her I couldn't try to
Speaker 7: skip a baby come to me. So I got up
Speaker 7: and I unlocked my door and turned onto the porch
Speaker 7: site and figured that she let her so thin as
Speaker 7: she's done something types before, so okay.
Speaker 3: But she never did.
Speaker 1: Sadly, Megan and her baby never showed up at Grace's
Speaker 1: home that night, and the obvious assumption was that she
Speaker 1: never got the chance to actually go there. Jarrett probably
Speaker 1: stopped her, and when she resisted, he shot her, placing
Speaker 1: her body in her car, driving her to a desolate road,
Speaker 1: and setting it on fire. It was a theory that
Speaker 1: made sense, but investigators would still need proof, and as
Speaker 1: it turns out, they were about to get it, because
Speaker 1: nearly everything that happened that night was caught on camera.
Speaker 1: In late April of twenty twenty four, Megan Bodiford vanished.
Speaker 1: Days later, Her body was found inside a burned car
Speaker 1: on a remote road. The investigators questioned that was closest
Speaker 1: to her, and as the case unfolded, more names began
Speaker 1: to surface, each one adding to a growing list of
Speaker 1: potential suspects. But even as the list grew, all roads
Speaker 1: continued to lead back to one person, boyfriend Jarrett Davis.
Speaker 28: Megan Bonttiford was last heard from on Thursday, April of
Speaker 28: twenty fifth, when she texted a friend that she feared
Speaker 28: that Davis was going to kill her. Days later, human
Speaker 28: remains were discovered in a burnt car not far from
Speaker 28: where the couple stayed.
Speaker 29: The Bamberg County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant at
Speaker 29: the couple's residence on Saturday and took Davis into custody
Speaker 29: on an active domestic violence arrest. Warren Bonttiford was nowhere
Speaker 29: to be found, but her four month old baby was
Speaker 29: there unharmed.
Speaker 1: After his arrest, Jarrett was questioned and he denied any
Speaker 1: involvement in Megan's disappearance. He claimed the two had gotten
Speaker 1: into an argument and that Megan simply left, leaving their
Speaker 1: baby behind. As ridiculous as that sounds.
Speaker 3: On Thursday night, when you got home.
Speaker 12: From baseball and the stores and stuff to Meg had sex,
Speaker 12: she got mad.
Speaker 13: She left you pack anything or her Carl state payful.
Speaker 13: Oh really, yeah, of course she had clothes and all
Speaker 13: that he had always in her car, so she could
Speaker 13: leave on the car at.
Speaker 3: Any point in time.
Speaker 1: After Jarrett laid out his version of events, investigators quickly
Speaker 1: began poking holes in his story, starting with the text
Speaker 1: Megan had sent Grace warning that Jarrett was going to
Speaker 1: kill her.
Speaker 12: We ended up getting some text messages that Megan sent
Speaker 12: some of her friends.
Speaker 3: What in the world do you think that's about? She
Speaker 3: was very with everything. I don't know.
Speaker 12: So at any point you have a gun to her head,
Speaker 12: tell her gun?
Speaker 2: Oh no, but no, no, I ain't got a gun. No,
Speaker 2: I don't have a gun.
Speaker 1: Jarrett tried to explain away Megan's text message as her
Speaker 1: being over dramatic. He insisted he didn't have a gun
Speaker 1: and couldn't have shot her even if he wanted to.
Speaker 1: What a strange thing to say, But Jared had a
Speaker 1: big problem. Investigators had already gone through his phone and
Speaker 1: on it was a fitness app when that tracked his
Speaker 1: movements on the night of the murder. What a dumb ass.
Speaker 20: I'm good at tracking people on their phones and looking
Speaker 20: at health data, and that tells a lot about what
Speaker 20: someone does.
Speaker 3: And we got your health data for you that night, so.
Speaker 11: Around ten VMAs got you're doing a lot of.
Speaker 3: Walking from ten to to I mean for a good
Speaker 3: solid hour back.
Speaker 30: I mean a lot of walking where we're looking at
Speaker 30: over over a mile and a half of the distance covered,
Speaker 30: Like not just you're.
Speaker 3: Not just making circles in the yard, but a lot
Speaker 3: of walking, like you walk down the road and things
Speaker 3: like that. Where where would you have been going at
Speaker 3: that point?
Speaker 2: Walking where from the shed to the house?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that ain't yet.
Speaker 20: Here's the thing I went I went through your health
Speaker 20: data for the whole day and analyzed it, and I
Speaker 20: can see, you know, the short distance stuff like that.
Speaker 20: These are massive movements significantly. This is not like you
Speaker 20: just walking to and from the shed, or even walking.
Speaker 3: To and from your parents partly. This is like massive
Speaker 3: amounts of walking.
Speaker 1: Based on the data in Jared's phone, investigators had pieced
Speaker 1: together a clear picture of what happened. They believe Jarrett
Speaker 1: had driven Megan to a burn site, set the car
Speaker 1: on fire, and then walked back to his house.
Speaker 3: What do I want to know?
Speaker 11: I mean, I feel like there's more to it that
Speaker 11: you're just not telling us, and I just want to
Speaker 11: know something else happened between you and me.
Speaker 3: She knew anything to you. This is our.
Speaker 2: I told other people lives. I mean, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: how everything is to heaven that night.
Speaker 3: I got it.
Speaker 11: And I feel like you've told me a good bit
Speaker 11: to be like, we're leaving out a little bit of
Speaker 11: key details because during some of this, this is all
Speaker 11: this walking was from ten pm ish to.
Speaker 3: A little after eleven. I don't think Megan's at the
Speaker 3: house at that time. I think Megan's aren't gone.
Speaker 11: It looks like you.
Speaker 3: Were walking back from uh turn rail Road and back
Speaker 3: to your house. You know where Turnar rail Road is?
Speaker 13: Yes, where they feeling I mean trying to say, I
Speaker 13: went to putting Megan there and I didn't.
Speaker 19: I'm putting you there because I believe we have some
Speaker 19: We have some coordinates that that puts you at turn
Speaker 19: rail Road.
Speaker 1: GPS phone data placed Jarrett at the burn site on
Speaker 1: the night Megan went missing, and yet he denied ever
Speaker 1: being there or ever hurting her.
Speaker 8: So we have your GPS data showing you there. We
Speaker 8: also have pinpoint data that.
Speaker 3: Shows you were there. And then conveniently, when those dots
Speaker 3: are plotted.
Speaker 8: I have your activity going the same distance from Turmoway Road.
Speaker 3: Back to your house like on flip.
Speaker 8: So, I mean, we're not stupid, and we know what happened,
Speaker 8: but this is your time to just tell.
Speaker 3: Us what happened, Explain why, what happened to make this happen.
Speaker 3: Listening something happened that night. She might have just pissed
Speaker 3: you off, driving you out like that. Here's a thing.
Speaker 3: We know what happened.
Speaker 2: We know what happened because I didn't do anything too.
Speaker 1: Despite irrefutable evidence placing him at the scene, Jared insisted
Speaker 1: he had not hurt Megan. Obviously, investigators weren't buying it.
Speaker 3: Data doesn't lie. And that's that's kind of where I'm at.
Speaker 8: So I think we're at the point where you know,
Speaker 8: we know something happened. Now you just you want your
Speaker 8: story to sick, but it's just not sticking. And that's
Speaker 8: what happened. This is what I mean, here's the thing
Speaker 8: that we all we all know something happened. We just
Speaker 8: need to move on from that and figure out what
Speaker 8: happened and why.
Speaker 3: So we can understand what happened. And she's going to
Speaker 3: figure this out.
Speaker 15: Nothing happened between me, between me and her another that
Speaker 15: was she left, was she left and I was changing baby.
Speaker 15: She was well alive, she was kicking, breathing, mad, she
Speaker 15: was still alive.
Speaker 3: She injured, hurt. I mean, I'm a rocket scientist.
Speaker 8: But everything that I have here from you, from your phone,
Speaker 8: from your activity, everything from what people are saying, is
Speaker 8: all adding up that conveniently, where her car is found
Speaker 8: burnt is matching up with your location on the map specifically,
Speaker 8: And then y'all's phones are together.
Speaker 3: How is all of this just conveniently adding up? But
Speaker 3: then you're something didn't happen, you know, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, dude, Well we'll be together the whole time.
Speaker 1: Throughout this interview, Jarrett continued to deny any involvement as
Speaker 1: investigators kept pressing him for the truth. They eventually reminded
Speaker 1: him that one day he would have to explain his
Speaker 1: obviously made up story to the child he shared with Megan.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna tell your baby one day that you walked.
Speaker 27: From Turnway Road where this didn't, where this was happened.
Speaker 3: Back to your house convenient I don't know why you're
Speaker 3: holding onto the story.
Speaker 2: Holding there's nothing I'm hold.
Speaker 3: Known to things there. There's no question, there's no question
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't do anything to make it that night at all.
Speaker 3: Did something happened to her before No, she left, she
Speaker 3: was fine. Did something accidentally happened. No, there's nothing that
Speaker 3: happened there, something happened.
Speaker 2: Nothing happened between me and Meghan. Nothing happened.
Speaker 3: It's happened between her and somebody else that you know about. No. Okay, Jared,
Speaker 3: there's you're not there's more to it, and you're just not.
Speaker 7: It is not.
Speaker 1: As this interview came to an end, investigators laid out
Speaker 1: pretty much every bit of evidence that proved Jarrett's killed,
Speaker 1: but he never confessed.
Speaker 3: The last anyone heard from Meghan was nine fifty And
Speaker 3: then we have your story and what what what was
Speaker 3: that mess that was said at nine fifty and what
Speaker 3: it said? I know what it said. Do you know
Speaker 3: what that said? Yeah? I had a gun and I.
Speaker 2: Was gonna kill her.
Speaker 3: If you don't hear from all Law ninety. Jarret's about
Speaker 3: to kill me.
Speaker 8: If you don't hear from me in thirty minutes, call
Speaker 8: a law six forty two against Branch Road.
Speaker 3: And then at ten o'clock. We have you in that
Speaker 3: area where vehicles now.
Speaker 2: Jared, what happened?
Speaker 15: Nothing happened I saw, honest, gonna shoot. Nothing happened between
Speaker 15: me and Meghan.
Speaker 3: Jay.
Speaker 20: We've talked to everyone. Your story does not match anyone else's.
Speaker 20: You're including some very key points pretty much the time
Speaker 20: when Megan was killed.
Speaker 19: How.
Speaker 3: You're leaving that port out.
Speaker 2: I didn't kill her, That's what y'all don't understand. I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't kill her.
Speaker 3: What happened? How did she die? I don't know. Why
Speaker 3: would she tell someone.
Speaker 2: You're about to kill her and then she died that night?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 12: Everything points to you. So the only thing we can
Speaker 12: do is get an understanding on why.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it. Though that's a thing. I don't
Speaker 3: want to be me so bad, and I don't. I
Speaker 3: just want I want it to be whoever did it.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. The problem is a solved pointing towards you.
Speaker 1: Investigators wrapped up the interview and sent Jarrett back to
Speaker 1: his cell, but less than twenty four hours later, after
Speaker 1: Stuart in there and realizing how obvious it all was,
Speaker 1: he asked to speak with them again. When this follow
Speaker 1: up interview started, Jared seems ready to confess, so you
Speaker 1: can get out.
Speaker 2: Of the house, kind of tell me what happens.
Speaker 3: I'm just still arguing.
Speaker 13: And when we left that night to go up to
Speaker 13: a guess station, she was still love okay.
Speaker 3: When I turned around, we went into the house.
Speaker 2: We were still lived out there by the corse, and
Speaker 2: I had a thirty.
Speaker 14: Eight okay, And whenever we was arguing, I was go
Speaker 14: to shoot myself.
Speaker 2: And then we was.
Speaker 3: Argued, she grabbed it.
Speaker 2: When she grabbed it, she foded to her, so what
Speaker 2: about me, and just let it.
Speaker 3: It went off? Okay. When it went off, it was
Speaker 3: just as I understand. Well, I told you know the NFL,
Speaker 3: I sawth happen. Yeah, I thought it.
Speaker 15: It wasn't like I tried to kill her or not
Speaker 15: living when she grabbed it, afforded her just it.
Speaker 3: Just went off, okay.
Speaker 2: And then there was so much books she had had Poles.
Speaker 1: Jarrett changed his story. He now claimed that during an argument,
Speaker 1: he pulled out a gun while Megan was sitting in
Speaker 1: her car. According to him, Megan grabbed it, turned it
Speaker 1: on herself, and while it was still in his hand
Speaker 1: with his finger on the trigger. It went off.
Speaker 3: You're standing in the side or car.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and you got a gun.
Speaker 3: How do you have a gun?
Speaker 2: I said, told up his hands. Okay, you told me
Speaker 2: you and we we were talking and just kneeling back.
Speaker 3: For seats to grab it and poor hers?
Speaker 2: What about nothing? Seriously? What about me?
Speaker 3: And then it just went off.
Speaker 2: And went Well, has she threatened to shoot yourself or anything?
Speaker 2: Harm yourself?
Speaker 27: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I was just trying to get to leave.
Speaker 1: Essentially, Jarrett's story was this, his girlfriend shot herself with
Speaker 1: the gun he was holding. He claimed that after this happened,
Speaker 1: he initially intended to take Megan to a hospital, but
Speaker 1: somehow he didn't. He didn't He decided it was a
Speaker 1: lost cause because she was already dead. So instead, you know,
Speaker 1: why not burn the car down with her body inside? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense, Jared, Yeah, fuck, where what did you do?
Speaker 14: I grabbed her and I started yelling, and there was
Speaker 14: someone's blood and check the poles, and she had poles.
Speaker 14: Went to go take her to the hospital. But she's
Speaker 14: a right, she's already going all right? Did you take
Speaker 14: her out of the driver's seat? Her ring the bush?
Speaker 14: How'd you take her to the hospital?
Speaker 3: I just scowed it over. You just kind of slid her,
Speaker 3: slid inside her. Yeah, okay, where was the baby at
Speaker 3: the end? Did you lead the baby home? Panicky? Or
Speaker 3: did you know the divisions? Are you going to see
Speaker 3: from let's going earlier?
Speaker 2: I got she's she hadn't even taken the baby out
Speaker 2: of the sea.
Speaker 14: In the car.
Speaker 1: Good Horrifically, Jarrett claimed that when Megan shot herself in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat, their baby was in the backseat of
Speaker 1: the car. Surprisingly, investigators didn't push back on this story.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they didn't need to. Between what Jarrett told them
Speaker 1: and their evidence, they had more than enough to charge
Speaker 1: him with murder. Let a jury sort it all out.
Speaker 9: Arrest warrants from Sled' say Davis shot and murdered Meghan
Speaker 9: on April twenty fifth in the Gents Branch Road area. Afterwards,
Speaker 9: he set her car on fire with her inside.
Speaker 29: I obtained a copy of that search warrant Thursday. It
Speaker 29: says the Sheriff's office seized an iPhone, multiple security cameras,
Speaker 29: a laptop, and a baby monitor, all the hopes that
Speaker 29: those items and video evidence could provide some clue as
Speaker 29: to what happened to Bontiford.
Speaker 1: As part of Jarrett's arrest and accompanying search warrant, deputies
Speaker 1: see several things from his property, including footage from his
Speaker 1: deer cams. If you're not familiar, a deer cam is
Speaker 1: basically just a surveillance camera meant for observing wildlife, but
Speaker 1: in this case, it captured something else entirely. It recorded
Speaker 1: much of what happened on the day Megan was killed.
Speaker 1: And then yet another interview, investigators confronted Jarrett with what
Speaker 1: the footage revealed.
Speaker 10: Been working on this onside, and I appreciate you manning
Speaker 10: and telling us what you did. Tell us, we just
Speaker 10: got a couple inconsistencies we need to clear up.
Speaker 31: When you told us don't match. You want to just
Speaker 31: get it off your chests and tell us what really happened.
Speaker 31: I can show you the video.
Speaker 2: What I mean.
Speaker 31: I would you chasing her down, dragging her lifeless body
Speaker 31: back to the car, phoneling, trying to get it in
Speaker 31: the car.
Speaker 3: You can shoot it in the car, like you said.
Speaker 1: The footage showed a violent confrontation between Jarrett and Megan. Then,
Speaker 1: at around ten PM, Jarrett chased her off camera with
Speaker 1: a gun in his hand. Minutes later, he reappeared, dragging
Speaker 1: Megan's lifeless body across the yard, struggling to lift it
Speaker 1: into her vehicle. Then covered in blood, he drove away
Speaker 1: with her body. A short time later, Jarrett returned and
Speaker 1: started burning clothes and washing blood from the ground.
Speaker 3: One time, what really happened? Well, the gun did ice
Speaker 3: in to go off? I didn't. That wasn't that was
Speaker 3: nice that anes was nxecent. He chased her down with
Speaker 3: the gun.
Speaker 31: I mean she knew you had that gun because she
Speaker 31: come out to the door, saw the gun and took off, running.
Speaker 3: Ahead of keys.
Speaker 2: She's wanted to neighbor's house.
Speaker 1: Once again, Jarrett t to spend this story as an accident,
Speaker 1: But come on, who's gonna buy that? People that are dumb?
Speaker 1: I think you're dumb too, Jarrett is living proof.
Speaker 2: Well warn back. She was yelling and I was was
Speaker 2: warming back, and then I turned to her and I just.
Speaker 13: I wouldn't put my hands up and just went to
Speaker 13: I really wanted to grab a face to love to Joelle,
Speaker 13: and you went off.
Speaker 3: How long have it figured it?
Speaker 2: Back?
Speaker 3: Well? To me, A instantly make no sounds and it's
Speaker 3: just such an overside comment.
Speaker 1: Of course, if Jarrett's story were true, and that's a
Speaker 1: big if, he would still have to explain why he
Speaker 1: went to such lengths to hide the evidence.
Speaker 31: Why don't you call us, let's hear it honestly if
Speaker 31: it's an accident, I mean, I mean at all, honestly
Speaker 31: those scared change your close on the how many times?
Speaker 31: None of the black c masks and black clothes? What
Speaker 31: was I that for to get back to the house
Speaker 31: and people not recognize you? And you still want to
Speaker 31: say that you just listen close and didn't use an
Speaker 31: accelerment because mind you said Urson.
Speaker 3: This completed their report and the findings of the vehicle
Speaker 3: in the ground and everything else. So what did juice
Speaker 3: to set the fire?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: Well, between the phone data, the camera footage, the autopsy,
Speaker 1: and the Arson report, Jared's story had fallen apart. But
Speaker 1: one important question remained. Was anyone else involved? And did
Speaker 1: jareded have help covering it up?
Speaker 14: Now after you get back, and does Ierlin and then
Speaker 14: Daniel come over there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Really all that's true? Until that's true, do you
Speaker 2: tail anybody?
Speaker 1: I Eventually, investigators determined that the rumors of others being
Speaker 1: involved in Megan's death were just that rumors. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of them on the internet. People have nothing better
Speaker 1: to do these days. It seems they never.
Speaker 7: Found out if there was anybody else.
Speaker 3: Involved, So you know that the message is still open.
Speaker 3: All I can say is that you know, with everything
Speaker 3: that we have ran down, we have albis and everyone.
Speaker 3: I don't believe anyone else outstanding.
Speaker 18: I think everyone involved is in custody, has been charged
Speaker 18: unless we find some evidence that proves, you know, someone
Speaker 18: else is involved. But there is nothing that is indicating
Speaker 18: and like you know, people have thrown out Falcon.
Speaker 3: Joiner, all these other people.
Speaker 19: You know.
Speaker 20: I have ran down everyone's whereabouts, everything like that, and
Speaker 20: no one is showing to be involved as of right now.
Speaker 3: I did not have any evidence of anyone else came involved.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, investigators concluded that Jarrett had acted alone, and he
Speaker 1: ended up facing the consequences of his actions alone as well.
Speaker 9: First six, a Bamberg County man is charged with the
Speaker 9: murder of his girlfriend, a twenty five or mother of three,
Speaker 9: who was reported missing last week after sending an ominous
Speaker 9: text to a friend.
Speaker 28: Jared Davis is facing multiple charges, including murder and desecration
Speaker 28: of human remains.
Speaker 29: Megan Bodiford, a Bamberg County mother of three, vanishes after
Speaker 29: texting a friend that she worried her boyfriend may kill her.
Speaker 29: Eight days after sending that text, The boyfriend, Jared Davis,
Speaker 29: is now being charged with her murder. A restaurant's alleged
Speaker 29: that Davis shot and killed Bondiford last Thursday night, and
Speaker 29: then set her car on fire while she was inside.
Speaker 29: Human remains were found in a burnt car days later
Speaker 29: along a dirt road beneath some utility polls. That discovery
Speaker 29: less than two miles from Bondiford's last known location on
Speaker 29: Against Branch Road.
Speaker 1: Jarrett did not take the case to trial. He pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty to murder, possession of a firearm during a violent crime, arson,
Speaker 1: and desecration of human remains. He was sentenced to forty
Speaker 1: three years in prison and could potentially be released in
Speaker 1: his early seventies. That is unless some retroactive law passed
Speaker 1: by some bleeding heart in the future changes that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's a sentence that just doesn't feel like enough, especially
Speaker 1: when you consider that Megan's three daughters will grow up
Speaker 1: without their mother. For Megan's family, this was a measure
Speaker 1: of justice, but certainly not an adequate one. It just
Speaker 1: wasn't enough because in their eyes, what happened to Megan
Speaker 1: should never happen at all. They believe Jarrett was responsible,
Speaker 1: but they also believe this could have been prevented if
Speaker 1: the system had done its job.
Speaker 16: We're tired of it. We're tired of beery and our
Speaker 16: kids and our friends kids, and it's time for the
Speaker 16: law to do their job. If the laws better do
Speaker 16: their job, because this community is fayed up.
Speaker 1: The murder of Megan Botifford is especially frustrating because her
Speaker 1: abusive and idiot loser boyfriend shouldn't have been a free
Speaker 1: man in the first place. At the time of the murder.
Speaker 1: There was an active warrant out for his arrest, and
Speaker 1: it's not like he was hiding. He was sitting there
Speaker 1: at home, drinking beers and watching Netflix. I assume the
Speaker 1: very place where Megan would later be killed. Would it
Speaker 1: have taken much effort to send a police officer down
Speaker 1: there to pick them up, or were they having assail
Speaker 1: at Dunkin Donuts that day?
Speaker 29: Another warrant accuses Davis of illegally possessing a shotgun based
Speaker 29: on his prior criminal history as a convicted felon, and
Speaker 29: he would have been blocked the way that he.
Speaker 3: Was supposed to be the first time. Maybe he wouldn't
Speaker 3: ahead even got in a chance.
Speaker 2: To get this far with her.
Speaker 1: Plus the many warning signs were there. Megan had reached
Speaker 1: out for help more than once she reported the abuse.
Speaker 1: She made it known that she was afraid even contacting
Speaker 1: Jarrett's probation officer in an effort to get someone to
Speaker 1: step in, A probation officer who should have lost their
Speaker 1: fucking job, I might add, but the system is the system,
Speaker 1: and nothing changed, of course, other than you getting an
Speaker 1: hour of so called entertainment today. It's frustrating. I wish
Speaker 1: I never had to make this episode. I wish I
Speaker 1: never had content to make this entire podcast. That would
Speaker 1: be a happy day.
Speaker 29: In my book, Stephanie Nickens, Bodiford's cousin, says she feels
Speaker 29: like law enforcement failed in its duty to protect Bodiford.
Speaker 21: It could it definitely could have my cousin.
Speaker 3: Maybe she caused his She called all these multiple times
Speaker 3: is different occasions where she reached.
Speaker 27: Out her head.
Speaker 32: Nick And says that she hopes Boterford will be remembered
Speaker 32: for how she lived and not her tragic death. Her
Speaker 32: cousin says that she had a beautiful soul and was
Speaker 32: a wonderful mother.
Speaker 1: This murder wasn't a mystery, not really. It was the
Speaker 1: end of something that had been building for a long time.
Speaker 1: All of the warning signs were there, stamped and certified
Speaker 1: by the local authorities, I might add, reports were made.
Speaker 1: The fear was real, and still nothing stopped it. Can
Speaker 1: we stop telling men to do better and start voting
Speaker 1: better to put assholes like this in a cage and
Speaker 1: throw away the key. That would be good. That would
Speaker 1: be real good. Prison overcrowding my ass will build more.
Speaker 1: We have the technology. Jarret Davis pulled the trigger, he
Speaker 1: dragged the body, he set it on fire. All of
Speaker 1: this is true. But he didn't get there in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: He was given time, he was given opportunity and space
Speaker 1: to escalate, and by the time anyone stepped in, it
Speaker 1: was already too late. Megan tried to get help. She
Speaker 1: told people she was in danger. She said he was
Speaker 1: going to kill her, and in the end.
Speaker 2: She was right.
Speaker 1: That does it for this episode of Swordan's scale. If
Speaker 1: you are a victim of domestic violence.
Speaker 3: Do not wait.
Speaker 1: Call one eight hundred seven ninety nine seven two three three.
Speaker 1: That's one eight hundred seven ninety nine seven two three three.
Speaker 1: Or you can text the word begin to eight eight
Speaker 1: seven eight eight again text the word begin to eight
Speaker 1: eight seven eight eight. Please stay safe. Well, that does
Speaker 1: it for yet another one another episode of Sword and Scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're always here. You can always count on us to
Speaker 1: come back and deliver more true crime entertainment for you. Now,
Speaker 1: can we count on you also to help us do that?
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