Speaker 1: Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join
Speaker 1: us as we dive into the deep end of the
Speaker 1: unexplainable world and try to piece together what happened. And
Speaker 1: you are listening to Locations Unknown. What's up, everybody, and
Speaker 1: welcome back to another episode of Locations Unknown. I'm your
Speaker 1: co host, and with me, as always is a guy
Speaker 1: who never gets information about bears wrong. Mike vander Bogart.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and he's our co host, Joe Rotto. He
Speaker 2: had a little what did I say? You just forgot
Speaker 2: your name?
Speaker 1: What did I say?
Speaker 2: She said, I'm the co host, and you know I
Speaker 2: was reading at the same time that I was talking.
Speaker 1: I screwed it up. But no.
Speaker 2: Thank you once again to all of our loyal listeners
Speaker 2: for tuning in. Just a couple of quick announcements here
Speaker 2: we I'd like to get to our Patreon supporters.
Speaker 1: Well, and we have to introduce our special guest. Andy's coming.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, studio Andy is back. Yeah. I should have
Speaker 1: We should have probably went over all this beforehand.
Speaker 2: But in the earlier days we probably would have just
Speaker 2: stopped and re recorded that.
Speaker 1: But not anymore. We'll just keep going roll to punches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is our third episode on Gwen Hasselquist. So
Speaker 2: Andy is back in the studio.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having Yeah, absolutely, so just whiskey comes out
Speaker 1: when you come back, so it's a fun time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just a quick shout out to our new Patreon supporters
Speaker 2: Samantha Porter, Christopher Styles, Angel Sorio, Indy Lindsey. And this
Speaker 2: was pretty funny as we were typing these into our
Speaker 2: show notes, Heather Johnson just supported the page.
Speaker 1: So thank you Heather for you're like a part of
Speaker 1: the show. Like we were prepping for the show, Mike's
Speaker 1: phone lit up and goes, oh, we just got a
Speaker 1: patron supporter. I'm like ad her to the list quick.
Speaker 2: Thank you, And, like we say every episode, if you
Speaker 2: want to call our phone number and leave a really
Speaker 2: funny voicemail or a mean voicemail or a review for us,
Speaker 2: just call two eight three nine one six nine three.
Speaker 1: Yep. Sure, write it on toilet walls and bathrooms everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: Call it. So this one's gonna be a little bit
Speaker 1: different because what we're gonna be doing is playing an
Speaker 1: interview that Mike and I already did about a week
Speaker 1: and a half ago. We interviewed Gwen Hasselquest's best friend.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be playing you that interview. We needed
Speaker 1: some time to cut out some of the things after
Speaker 1: we recorded it that you felt was either irrelevant or
Speaker 1: she didn't want aired. So we're gonna play that interview,
Speaker 1: and what we'll do is either come in and comment
Speaker 1: or just listen through certain parts. So we'll jump right
Speaker 1: into that, right and Mike and I did the interview
Speaker 1: for Andy. This is the first time he's hearing this,
Speaker 1: so he's pretty excited to find out what was going on.
Speaker 1: All Right, here we go to start. Could you just
Speaker 1: give us your name and your connection to Gwen.
Speaker 3: Okay, so my name is John and Gwen and I
Speaker 3: met in high school and we were friends for thirty years.
Speaker 3: So we met when we were fifteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, And was that high school in the gig Harbor area.
Speaker 3: No, Actually, we both went to high school in Ohio
Speaker 3: in a rail small town in Ohio called Conyat and
Speaker 3: we were both brand new students our sophomore year and
Speaker 3: happened to sit next to each other and just became
Speaker 3: fast friends really quickly.
Speaker 1: Throughout the years.
Speaker 2: How often would you say you would meet up like
Speaker 2: in person or at least talk to her if you
Speaker 2: phone or emailed.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: We after high school kind of went in separate directions.
Speaker 3: She moved out to Texas and was originally planning on
Speaker 3: going to nursing school out there. I stayed in Ohio
Speaker 3: and went to college there. So we sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: through the years, kind of lost track of each other
Speaker 3: and found each other again. And but we would talk
Speaker 3: to each other, you know, on holidays and if I
Speaker 3: would go. I had moved to California once I graduated
Speaker 3: from college. I moved to California, and when I would
Speaker 3: come back to visit my family, I would always go
Speaker 3: up to Cleveland because her family lived in Cleveland and
Speaker 3: that's kind of where she was based after she moved
Speaker 3: back from Texas, and so I would go and visit
Speaker 3: her in Cleveland when I when I came home to
Speaker 3: visit my family, she came to Virginia because then I
Speaker 3: moved to Virginia. She came to Virginia to see me
Speaker 3: a couple of times. But once like social media sort
Speaker 3: of took off and we were able to keep in touch,
Speaker 3: like through Facebook and you know, we text each other.
Speaker 3: It got a lot easier and I would say at
Speaker 3: least probably, you know, communicate in some way at least
Speaker 3: once a month. The last time I saw her was
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how much did you know about Eric? And
Speaker 1: when she got married to him? Were you close en?
Speaker 1: Did you go to the wedding? How did that all work?
Speaker 3: I did not go to the wedding. She lived with
Speaker 3: her parents for a little bit. Then she moved out
Speaker 3: from living with her parents and she moved into an apartment.
Speaker 3: I think she lived on the top floor and he
Speaker 3: lived on the bottom. Like they was like a two
Speaker 3: level apartment and she lived on top. And that's how
Speaker 3: they met each other. They were neighbors. I remember when
Speaker 3: she met him and she said, I met this guy
Speaker 3: and I really really like him then kind of I
Speaker 3: don't know how long it was after that that. Then
Speaker 3: they ended up getting married, but I don't think anybody
Speaker 3: was at their wedding. I think they went to Vegas
Speaker 3: and got married, just the two.
Speaker 2: Of them, gotcha. Okay, what year were they married in?
Speaker 2: I don't remember if we knew that or not.
Speaker 3: I do not know, actually, like fourteen or fifteen years ago, okay,
Speaker 3: because their oldest son is twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe based on messages in that group,
Speaker 2: the find Gwen group that their kids are actually in
Speaker 2: Wisconsin somewhere with family.
Speaker 3: They are. Yeah, they're in Wisconsin with his family.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, So what we did hear from some people,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to paraphrase just because I don't want
Speaker 1: to again give away information as asked not to that,
Speaker 1: I'll just say there were some issues in the relationship
Speaker 1: throughout the marriage that seemed to continue to get worse
Speaker 1: as that was happening. Is this something that gwenever reached
Speaker 1: out to to talk about or things that you knew
Speaker 1: that were going on that were something that would rob
Speaker 1: you the wrong way or make you think something was
Speaker 1: going on with their relationship.
Speaker 3: No, to be perfectly honest, I did not know anything
Speaker 3: about anything that was happening, you know, in a negative
Speaker 3: way between them. She never ever let on one time
Speaker 3: to me. Like I said, we met in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: We have a mutual friend that lives in Seattle, and
Speaker 3: so I went out to visit and she came from
Speaker 3: the Tacoma area up to Seattle to visit, and I
Speaker 3: hadn't I'd met Eric A couple of times, like maybe
Speaker 3: twice before that in Cleveland, and he seems perfectly fun
Speaker 3: and really nice and you know, friendly. And when I
Speaker 3: went out there in twenty sixteen and we met there,
Speaker 3: he was like a totally different person. He had joined
Speaker 3: the military and was I think playing in the military band,
Speaker 3: like in the army band. He looked totally different, like
Speaker 3: he's a thin, small kind of framed guy anyway, but
Speaker 3: he was like obsessively running, and so he said literally
Speaker 3: all he could talk about was running, about his fitness,
Speaker 3: about how he his nutrition and how fast he could
Speaker 3: run and how many miles he could run. And he
Speaker 3: actually even left the group we were all staying together,
Speaker 3: and he left her there with her kids and went
Speaker 3: running because he's like, I have to get my seventeen
Speaker 3: miles in today. And it was just like a really
Speaker 3: weird That was the first time of like what is
Speaker 3: with him? Like, he's really weird. And my other friend
Speaker 3: that we were visiting, as you to stay left, we
Speaker 3: both were like, what was that?
Speaker 1: Okay, so it was odd enough that like you both
Speaker 1: noticed it. There's something odd. It wasn't just oh I
Speaker 1: work out in the mornings, I'm going to go for
Speaker 1: a run. No, was it like trying to impress you
Speaker 1: or was it just like he was so deep into
Speaker 1: it like he needed to do it.
Speaker 3: Yes, like he was obsessed with it, Like he was
Speaker 3: completely obsessed with it. And she seemed a little bit
Speaker 3: off too, like sort of sad and sort of like
Speaker 3: she had had some medical issues. I know, you guys
Speaker 3: talked about the she had an autoimmune problem with that
Speaker 3: like affected her lungs, and so she was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, she was we were happy to
Speaker 3: all be together, but I think she was like feeling
Speaker 3: a little bit. She wasn't feeling great, and he was
Speaker 3: being super weird. But it was like enough that when
Speaker 3: they left, my friend and I were like, what just
Speaker 3: happened here? Like he's totally different.
Speaker 1: When was that, roughly compared to when she initially was missing?
Speaker 1: Was that a couple of years before then.
Speaker 3: Twenty sixteen I went to visit and then after that,
Speaker 3: like we still kept in touch after that, you know,
Speaker 3: and she had had like some kind of long problem
Speaker 3: that she had to have some kind of medical procedure
Speaker 3: maybe a year after that, and I remember her parents
Speaker 3: came out to take care of the kids because he
Speaker 3: was traveling or something, and she needs help taking care
Speaker 3: of the kids.
Speaker 2: Let's go a year out before she went missing and
Speaker 2: ultimately was found passed away. Were there Did you have
Speaker 2: any communications with her in that period that like final
Speaker 2: year that started to make you worry.
Speaker 3: Or so that's why I was going to say fast forward,
Speaker 3: like another I don't know, another year, maybe November of
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. Out of blue in November, like I get
Speaker 3: a phone call from her and she's like, hey, I
Speaker 3: need to talk to you. Okay, what's going on? And
Speaker 3: she says, well, Eric's drinking again and so and he's suicidal.
Speaker 3: She's like, Donnie has a gun and he's running around
Speaker 3: outside and every time I try to call the police,
Speaker 3: he says he's going to kill himself. And I was like, wait, whoa,
Speaker 3: whoa hold on? What does that mean? Drinking again? Like
Speaker 3: what you know?
Speaker 1: So this is the this is the first time that
Speaker 1: you're like aware that he had any issues at all.
Speaker 3: I had no idea. He has never one time mentioned it.
Speaker 3: I had no idea. So this was like a wait what?
Speaker 3: So she had been trying like to get him help,
Speaker 3: and every time she reachs out to you know, try
Speaker 3: to call somebody to help her. They would say nine
Speaker 3: one one, and anytime he said, you know that he
Speaker 3: thought that they were going to come to the house,
Speaker 3: he would take his son and go outside and tell
Speaker 3: her that you're doing this to me, I'm going to
Speaker 3: kill myself. And so there were weapons in their house,
Speaker 3: like loaded weapons in their house all the time. And
Speaker 3: by this time they had moved. So I don't know
Speaker 3: where they lived before, but I specifically remember that they
Speaker 3: moved to a place. She sent me pictures of it.
Speaker 3: This when when she purchased this hat, when they purchased
Speaker 3: this house, and it was like it's out in the
Speaker 3: middle of like in the middle of the woods and
Speaker 3: in order, it's completely surrounded by trees. You can't really
Speaker 3: see their neighbors. And I was like, wow, it's like
Speaker 3: very secluded. And she's like yeah, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: it is a little kind of far away from people.
Speaker 3: But you know, Eric kind of likes it that way.
Speaker 3: And it's like, Okay, that seems creepy, but okay, wouldn't
Speaker 3: be for me, but that's you know, And she was excited.
Speaker 3: She was like going to grow a garden, and she
Speaker 3: was like super excited about that. So she was like
Speaker 3: half or at least portraying it as you know, happy.
Speaker 3: But so when I got this phone call it in November,
Speaker 3: I was like, what in the.
Speaker 1: World did she explain, like what it might have been from,
Speaker 1: or she just kind of blindsided with you with this
Speaker 1: whole thing that you didn't know anything about.
Speaker 3: No, she just said, well, she said, he's been an
Speaker 3: alcoholic for years. This has been going on for a
Speaker 3: really long time. You know. She's like, I just never
Speaker 3: told anybody, and I've been, you know, trying really hard
Speaker 3: to hide it or keep it, you know, just in
Speaker 3: our family. So she's like, nobody really knows what's happening.
Speaker 3: She said, he won't he won't let me talk to
Speaker 3: my family. He won't let me talk to his family.
Speaker 3: I can't reach out and talk to people about it.
Speaker 3: I just got really scared for her, and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, what do you need? What what do you
Speaker 3: need me to do? She just said, I just need
Speaker 3: somebody to talk to.
Speaker 1: Okay. So she's like at her wits end. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've tried everything. I can't do this alone anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This definitely lines up with several other people we've talked
Speaker 2: to about him, and I believe he was even discharged
Speaker 2: from the Milllitary over skinking issues.
Speaker 3: Domestic violence kind of issues, Like I think there were
Speaker 3: a couple of times that he was physically abusive to her,
Speaker 3: but also like emotionally all the time. Yeah, and something
Speaker 3: about running. She said he stopped drinking for a while,
Speaker 3: but then he started like obsessively exercising. So when we
Speaker 3: saw him in that one time and he was like
Speaker 3: I Polly could talk about, is that was like his
Speaker 3: replacement behavior? She must there was some And she told
Speaker 3: me that he left the military because he didn't like it.
Speaker 3: And I was like, all right, I don't know anything
Speaker 3: about the military. Okay, I guess to do that.
Speaker 1: I don't think they let you do that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. It sounds like he replaced one
Speaker 1: addiction with another, So maybe he has that addictive personality.
Speaker 1: And we tried getting police records from November December time
Speaker 1: frame prior to her disappearance about specifically domestic abuse issues
Speaker 1: at the home, and we were at least still unable
Speaker 1: to get that through Floyer requests. So that's definitely corroborated
Speaker 1: from other people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I did not know anything that was
Speaker 3: happening until that moment. But I'm telling you that I
Speaker 3: hung up the phone. When I got off the phone,
Speaker 3: I said to my husband, this is going to be bad.
Speaker 3: I really am super scared for her. I just in
Speaker 3: my mind, I picture. I just had this vision of
Speaker 3: it being like a murder suicide. He's just going to
Speaker 3: kill her and he's going to kill his family. And
Speaker 3: I go, we're going to see this on the news.
Speaker 3: This is going to be terrible. And my husband's like,
Speaker 3: I mean, you're kind of overreacting though you think it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I just feel really very uncomfortable with this.
Speaker 3: This makes me very nervous. And I because she would
Speaker 3: not ever reach out to me to share that stuff
Speaker 3: with me unless she just felt like she couldn't handle
Speaker 3: it anymore. I know it had to have been really bad.
Speaker 3: So I like made it my mission to just I
Speaker 3: was going to connect with her like almost as many times,
Speaker 3: like every day, I want to hear from you, because
Speaker 3: if I don't hear from me, I'm going to assume
Speaker 3: that something bad has happened and that you know, and
Speaker 3: then I'm going to start calling people and it's going
Speaker 3: to get weird for you because people are going to
Speaker 3: start showing up at your house. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's I mean, that's being a good friend.
Speaker 1: I think most people would maybe go, Okay, it's not
Speaker 1: a big deal, it's none of my business. But so
Speaker 1: when so you started contacting her regularly, what were those
Speaker 1: calls like leading up to the incident.
Speaker 3: The funny part about that was every time she would
Speaker 3: call me was like in the car picking up her kids, okay,
Speaker 3: and then she'd be like, I got to go so
Speaker 3: she was getting home or he was like in the room,
Speaker 3: so she didn't talk in front of him or anywhere
Speaker 3: near him, or as soon as the kids got in
Speaker 3: the car, she got off the phone with me. But
Speaker 3: I texted her like all through the holidays, and she
Speaker 3: kind of made it sound like things were getting better.
Speaker 3: She was like, you know, it's been better. It's okay.
Speaker 3: Because I was thinking to myself like, oh gosh, Thanksgiving weekend,
Speaker 3: they're going to be home the whole weekend. That could
Speaker 3: be really bad, you know, And she was like, no,
Speaker 3: it seems better, and I was like okay. So time
Speaker 3: kind of went on and she first said things were
Speaker 3: getting better, so I'm kind of like, okay, is.
Speaker 1: She at that state where she would have been honest
Speaker 1: with you if they weren't.
Speaker 3: I don't know if she felt like it was getting better,
Speaker 3: because I didn't sort of like hear that ner that
Speaker 3: Like I didn't hear that like panic in her voice,
Speaker 3: okay anymore, you know, so she sort of made it
Speaker 3: sound like things were going better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you want to speculate, you can just say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm speculating here, but this is what I think based
Speaker 1: on because it's I'm sure you could tell if you
Speaker 1: knew her that long, you could probably tell, like a
Speaker 1: crack in the voice or the way she's talking if
Speaker 1: she's not being truthful.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just I mean, yeah, I felt like she
Speaker 3: was doing better because I kind of could feel myself
Speaker 3: like relaxing a little bit. Okay, maybe I just overreacted.
Speaker 3: Maybe this isn't you know, like maybe it was okay,
Speaker 3: but I still felt like I needed to talk to her.
Speaker 3: So for birthdays, the first week in March, I always
Speaker 3: text her on her birthday or call her every single
Speaker 3: year for thirty years. I sent her a message and
Speaker 3: I said, I hope you have a really you know,
Speaker 3: happy people year, you know, just sending me some birthday love,
Speaker 3: and she said, I've had a great day and I
Speaker 3: think this is going to be my best year yet. Okay,
Speaker 3: And I like when I think about that now, like
Speaker 3: I just like she really felt okay about how things
Speaker 3: were going, and she was like feeling really positive. You know,
Speaker 3: she had just kind of reconnected. I know, you guys
Speaker 3: talked about rekindling a family connection, and she had just
Speaker 3: reconnected with her stepsister, Dora. They had been kind of
Speaker 3: estranged for a long time, and she was super excited
Speaker 3: about seeing Dora and they had visited and were making
Speaker 3: plans to do things, and she was very excited, like
Speaker 3: she was, you know, she seemed really really happy.
Speaker 1: This is the March twenty twenty. Yeah, okay, this is.
Speaker 3: Like the March fifth is her birthday. So that was
Speaker 3: like I talked to her and then March I hadn't
Speaker 3: heard from her in a little bit, and it was
Speaker 3: March nineteenth. Actually I texted her at night because I
Speaker 3: was like, gosh, I haven't heard from her in a
Speaker 3: little while. And I just then and COVID stuff was
Speaker 3: happening all of a sudden. Yeah, and I'm a teacher,
Speaker 3: so pool got shut down and we were just all
Speaker 3: sitting here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was like fresh into lockdown because my birthday
Speaker 1: is March. My birthday is March nineteenth, and I remember
Speaker 1: I had planned, I had plans, and then we're like
Speaker 1: everything got shut down. Everyone was very nervous. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 3: So I sent her a message just so I was
Speaker 3: thinking about her, and there was like a lot of
Speaker 3: craziness happening, and so I sent her a message and
Speaker 3: I said, hey, everything okay, I haven't heard from you
Speaker 3: in a little while. And then I didn't hear back
Speaker 3: from her. I never heard so then like this, you know,
Speaker 3: the sequent went by and I'm kind of like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe I'll give her like a day or two more,
Speaker 3: you know what's going on. And I didn't hear a
Speaker 3: single thing until I got a phone call from Eric
Speaker 3: on March twenty fourth.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did that go.
Speaker 3: It's the middle of the day, right, my phone ring,
Speaker 3: and it's when she's calling from her phone and I
Speaker 3: get a text message that says, hey, Dawn, this is Eric.
Speaker 3: I just wanted you to know that the kids and
Speaker 3: I are okay, and we don't anything, but Gwen's gone
Speaker 3: and we're missing her so much, And I was like, what.
Speaker 1: Do you mean you didn't see any of the social
Speaker 1: media posts or anything prior to that?
Speaker 3: No, okay, no.
Speaker 2: With him break the news to one of her oldest
Speaker 2: best friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not friends with him. I had no idea
Speaker 3: what was happening. I had no and not see one
Speaker 3: single thing. I had no idea what was going on,
Speaker 3: And like, what what does that mean? And then he
Speaker 3: and then he puts his cell phone number, you can
Speaker 3: call me if you want.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really strange. It's like he's almost trying
Speaker 1: to get attention from you because like he knew you
Speaker 1: were close with her.
Speaker 3: I think he was looking through her phone and realized like, oh,
Speaker 3: oh gosh, she's been talking to Don all this time.
Speaker 3: John knows all of this stuff that has gone on.
Speaker 3: I'm really honestly in my I am speculating, but in
Speaker 3: my honest opinion, I think he realized, like, oh boy,
Speaker 3: I better get in touch with her because she is
Speaker 3: gonna she's going to want to know what's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and she knows a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was like an intimidation tactic? Almost?
Speaker 3: No. I wouldn't say that. I think I don't think
Speaker 3: I would really say that. I think he was trying
Speaker 3: to cover his bases, like he's trying to reach out
Speaker 3: to all the people that he knew that new stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, I got to hurry up and make sure
Speaker 3: that everybody knows I'm this good guy, this caring, loving husband,
Speaker 3: and I'm so sad and you know that. So it
Speaker 3: took me a long time to style the number. I
Speaker 3: called my other friends who lives in Seattle first, and
Speaker 3: I was like, what do I do? And she's like, before,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to call. I don't want to call him.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what this means. And so I
Speaker 3: finally get up the courage to call, and he was like,
Speaker 3: immediately as soon as I as soon as he could
Speaker 3: hear my voice started just fake crying. And I know
Speaker 3: for sure that he was not really crying. It was
Speaker 3: like the fakest sounding I've ever heard. And he was like,
Speaker 3: she did it. She just jumped off the bridge. She
Speaker 3: just did it. And I was like, what are you
Speaker 3: talking about? And he's like, she was mad at me
Speaker 3: because of COVID, because she had COVID and she just
Speaker 3: did it. And I was like, I don't even know
Speaker 3: what to say. I cannot even believe this is true.
Speaker 3: This is not There's no way. He asked me to
Speaker 3: FaceTime his kids, who I'd only met one time before,
Speaker 3: so I was like, I mean, okay, that seems like
Speaker 3: a weird request. But I was just like, okay, sure, whatever,
Speaker 3: I go. Are you hung by yourself? And he said yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm here by myself. And in the middle of this crying,
Speaker 3: I said why, you need to get in touch with
Speaker 3: your family and have your family and he immediately stops,
Speaker 3: his voice totally changes and he said, oh, I don't
Speaker 3: know if I can say this, but he said, my
Speaker 3: family are a whole I'm not talking to them, and
Speaker 3: then he went back to just completely crying again, like
Speaker 3: Fay crying. And I was like, Eric, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Sounds like I'm not a psychiatrist, but based on all
Speaker 2: of the comments we've heard from other people and the
Speaker 2: things he was posting on social media, kind of sounds
Speaker 2: like a sociopath.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was gonna say.
Speaker 2: The way that he can just turn emotion on and off,
Speaker 2: and just the lack of any kind of you know.
Speaker 1: Like extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like a lack of like if your wife
Speaker 2: had just jumped off a bridge when you're talking to
Speaker 2: law enforcement, you would be shattered and he like in
Speaker 2: the police report, just like a stone cold, like no emotion,
Speaker 2: which is bizarre. Normal people would be crying and well.
Speaker 1: I think even normal. Not not that you're not important
Speaker 1: in her life, but I'd feel like if it happened
Speaker 1: to my wife, I wouldn't be going down her list
Speaker 1: of close friends first right within it a.
Speaker 2: Couple of days, unless you unless you murdered her, and
Speaker 2: you're trying to.
Speaker 1: Well, just in general, you're gonna you're gonna be You're
Speaker 1: gonna be around family, You're gonna be around and like her,
Speaker 1: I would expect her friends would probably show up, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be going out of my way to reach
Speaker 1: out to those people as the only people I contacted. So,
Speaker 1: did you immed, like when you heard this, did you
Speaker 1: immediately think that it was something with him? Or just
Speaker 1: give us yes, I don't want to lead you. I
Speaker 1: don't want to lead you. Tell us how you felt
Speaker 1: when you got that call.
Speaker 3: I hung up the phone. I was like I knew it.
Speaker 3: I told my husband. I was like, I told you
Speaker 3: something was going to happen. I knew it. And I
Speaker 3: have never called the police in my entire life. I
Speaker 3: didn't even know how to call the police. I got
Speaker 3: on the phone and I spent the rest of the
Speaker 3: afternoon trying to call the gig Harbor Police department, and
Speaker 3: then I couldn't get anywhere because it wasn't gig Harbor.
Speaker 3: It was supposed it was like the Sheriff's department for
Speaker 3: Pierce County. So I mean, I spent all this time
Speaker 3: trying to get through to somebody, and I finally get
Speaker 3: like a lady and she's like, ma'am, are you trying
Speaker 3: to tell me that somebody murdered somebody. I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm trying to tell you, but
Speaker 3: something bad happened here. This is somebody needs to go
Speaker 3: and check this out. That was my immediate gut feeling.
Speaker 3: And I'm not a person who would call the police ever.
Speaker 3: And I immediately said, there's something this is not good.
Speaker 3: This is like something bad happen here, Like she did
Speaker 3: not do this, There's no way she did this, and
Speaker 3: this is I had not seen the video. I had
Speaker 3: not I didn't know anything about the the ring video.
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about anything. This is based on
Speaker 3: her phone calls to me and his phone call to me.
Speaker 3: That is it. And I was like, this is wrong.
Speaker 3: There's something wrong here. I happened to ask him because
Speaker 3: I knew she had been talking to her sister, and
Speaker 3: I just said to Eric, you know, I just need
Speaker 3: to understand really what's happening right now, Like you know,
Speaker 3: it's hard to understand what you're saying, and I just
Speaker 3: don't really get what's going on. So is it okay
Speaker 3: if I get in touch with her sister? Could you
Speaker 3: give me Dora's phone number? And he was like, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 3: So we hang up the phone. He texted me Dora's number.
Speaker 3: It took me a while to kind of get up
Speaker 3: the courage because I had literally met Dora like one
Speaker 3: time when I was fifteen, thirty years ago, and I
Speaker 3: was like, what are the chances that she's even gonna
Speaker 3: remember me? But I'm going to try it anyway. And
Speaker 3: so I reached out to Dora like, hey, you might
Speaker 3: not want to talk to me, and I totally understand,
Speaker 3: but I just am trying to understand what's going on,
Speaker 3: and she was so kind and called me back and
Speaker 3: we started talking and just in like probably fifteen minutes
Speaker 3: of me talking to her, I just said, Dora, I'm
Speaker 3: so sorry to ask me this, and I don't mean
Speaker 3: to offend you, but do you think that Eric has
Speaker 3: something to do with this? And she was like yes,
Speaker 3: I mean immediately, oh my gosh, yes. And then we
Speaker 3: just started like ooh, little bull talking about everything because
Speaker 3: we had so many like, so many pieces just don't
Speaker 3: fit together, so many things don't make sense.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the him getting remarried a couple months after
Speaker 2: his wife of fifteen years or whatever di is. We
Speaker 2: both thought originally were like, that's insane. I've never heard
Speaker 2: of that unless somebody killed their wife and had obviously
Speaker 2: had been dating her before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you called Dora, you're talking to her, you
Speaker 1: both come to the same conclusion that you feel like
Speaker 1: he's responsible. From that point on, when did you start
Speaker 1: finding out about all the weird after effect things that
Speaker 1: were going on. Did you start following him on social
Speaker 1: media and seeing those posts and things like that, Yeah.
Speaker 3: A little bit of that. Dora was there for a
Speaker 3: lot of it. She because he reached out to her
Speaker 3: kind of for sort of support, and Dora was like
Speaker 3: trying to help out, be there with the kids, and
Speaker 3: you know, she kind of was like, I mean, I
Speaker 3: feel like this is really he's really strange and there's
Speaker 3: really strange things happening, and I just don't relieve the kids,
Speaker 3: you know, with him the way that he's behaving. And
Speaker 3: she knows a lot about the stuff that happened. But
Speaker 3: literally he got me married. I mean, there was some
Speaker 3: other girl that he was supposed to be bringing to
Speaker 3: the United States, some other girl like from some I
Speaker 3: think it was like from a Spanish country of some sort,
Speaker 3: and then like at the last minute, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: he sent Dora a message and said, hey, I met someone,
Speaker 3: and she's like okay, and he's like, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: we went on a date. And she's like okay, I
Speaker 3: mean this is you know.
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's been like a month and you're okay,
Speaker 3: and then she's like I can't remember to her call him.
Speaker 3: He was like he is married. Wait what? And honestly,
Speaker 3: what I think is that he needed he could. He
Speaker 3: can't function by himself, like Gwen. Gwen kept the crazy
Speaker 3: under control like she held in the crazy, so no
Speaker 3: one kind of knew what kind of person he really was,
Speaker 3: and he needed somebody to help manage his crazy. And
Speaker 3: so unfortunately this poor I honestly do I don't know
Speaker 3: this woman that he married, but I honestly do think
Speaker 3: she just I think she wanted to come to the
Speaker 3: United States. I think she thought, I'm going to marry
Speaker 3: this nice American guy. I don't think she realized that
Speaker 3: he was, you know, an alcoholic and a psychopath. And
Speaker 3: she they went back to Kenya because not too long
Speaker 3: after they got married, her father passed away, and they
Speaker 3: went back to Kenya, and when she tried to return
Speaker 3: to the United States, she was detained and was not
Speaker 3: allowed to come back into the United States because of
Speaker 3: some sort of according to them, it was like paper
Speaker 3: work that and she's not allowed back in the United
Speaker 3: States for another eighteen months, and I don't know how
Speaker 3: long it's spent. But that's when he started writing all
Speaker 3: those posts about how you know s the USA and
Speaker 3: you know, I'm getting out of this country or whatever.
Speaker 3: And honestly, he literally left his children. He signed over
Speaker 3: the he signed over his parental rights and left his
Speaker 3: children and went to Kenya. That's crazy to be with
Speaker 3: his Yeah, he's crazy, is what. You're right, He's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: And even the detective in the police report that we got,
Speaker 2: and I think you've probably seen that by now too,
Speaker 2: because Dora had it y. Yeah, he even mentions that
Speaker 2: things don't add up, like I don't have enough evidence
Speaker 2: to really convict him of something. And I'm here thinking
Speaker 2: there's people in jail that have been convicted on less evidence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just let somebody tell the story and then just
Speaker 3: be like, so what do you think here? Yeah, the
Speaker 3: hard part is everybody sees it. But at the moment,
Speaker 3: like in the moment when all this was happening, like
Speaker 3: the world was shut down. And the thing I remember
Speaker 3: about the detective, he's super nice, like when I talked
Speaker 3: to him on the phony, was really really nice. But
Speaker 3: he kept saying to us so farry and like really
Speaker 3: really bogged down. There's so much stuff to do, were
Speaker 3: so many cases, and he just made it sound like
Speaker 3: he just this is just more than he could kind
Speaker 3: of handle, you know, at the moment. And I get it,
Speaker 3: I understand, but I mean we emailed him. That's poor guy.
Speaker 3: Probably was like I need to change my email address
Speaker 3: because these women keep out of the peace. We emailed him,
Speaker 3: we called him and left messages, and he didn't He
Speaker 3: never responded ever. So we got one email that was like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're working on it, and then in August we got
Speaker 3: a final I'm really sorry for your loss, but it
Speaker 3: looks like it's a suicide case closed and that was
Speaker 3: the end of it. And that was like so heartbreaking
Speaker 3: because we all just knew that that's not really what
Speaker 3: was happening.
Speaker 1: My speculation at that time, I think you touched on
Speaker 1: a little bit, was this happened right at the height
Speaker 1: of COVID, and we got to try and put ourselves
Speaker 1: back in that mindset where nobody knew what was going on.
Speaker 1: It Still, it took us over a year to really
Speaker 1: get a grasp of how intense it was and what
Speaker 1: was really happening. But in that beginning, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of panic, a lot of confusion, and I feel
Speaker 1: like in normal peace time this would have probably been
Speaker 1: looked at a little bit closer than it was.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean we tried. I feel like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I tried. Getting the video surveillance footage from the Tacoma's
Speaker 2: Tacoma Narrow Bridge, and I was told that they the
Speaker 2: video gets deleted after a certain amount of time, which whatever,
Speaker 2: that's fine, But why didn't the detective pull this video?
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know the.
Speaker 2: Van potentially had Like even though that like homeless guy
Speaker 2: or who the drug addict or however was on the
Speaker 2: bridge that saw the van saw potentially another person in
Speaker 2: the van, Like we were like, what is the incentive
Speaker 2: for that guy to make that up?
Speaker 1: Well, and that's kind of kind of what stinks is
Speaker 1: every little bit of lead that would be kind of
Speaker 1: like the lynchpin in the entire case is always hinged
Speaker 1: on something that's not entirely trustworthy. So you have this
Speaker 1: individual who is inebriated, homeless says he may have seen
Speaker 1: two people in the van, but then he makes some
Speaker 1: other stuff up. So you almost have to kind of
Speaker 1: get in the mind to somebody who may be on
Speaker 1: drugs or inebriated. But that always stuck with me because
Speaker 1: I feel like when people lie to manipulate, they're gonna
Speaker 1: lie and manipulate in ways that will help them more
Speaker 1: so than other people. And I felt the detail of
Speaker 1: how many people were in the van is an innocuous
Speaker 1: detail that you don't really need to lie about, so
Speaker 1: why would you.
Speaker 3: It just it felt to me like they picked out
Speaker 3: and I'm not blaming them necessarily, but it just felt
Speaker 3: like they picked out all the stuff that makes that
Speaker 3: made it easy. I'll believe you when you say I
Speaker 3: saw her, but I don't believe you when you say
Speaker 3: there was another person there, like I mean, and I
Speaker 3: mean honestly, before I even knew that, I never saw
Speaker 3: the fleet before, before we even knew that, I had
Speaker 3: said to Dora or when we were talking about it,
Speaker 3: I said, that guy's a runner. Right how far away
Speaker 3: into the bridge? Dora even drove the road from her
Speaker 3: house to the bridge, okay, because we were talking about
Speaker 3: like how far away is that? Is that far enough
Speaker 3: that you could walk back to the And I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, if it's far enough, like he could run,
Speaker 3: I know how long. We even looked to see because
Speaker 3: he was bragging about how fast his miles were, and
Speaker 3: I said, well, I mean, I think he could probably
Speaker 3: make it back, and like, you know, not seo long.
Speaker 3: He according to him, he runs like a six minute mile.
Speaker 3: He could probably make it back pretty fast. And I
Speaker 3: mean if you're adrenaline pumping, you'll probably get back there
Speaker 3: pretty quick. Right.
Speaker 1: So if so he told you he did what seventeen
Speaker 1: miles when he's running, do you feel like he was
Speaker 1: exaggerating or is that something where you believe where he
Speaker 1: can actually do those types of distances at those speeds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he really is a long distance runner,
Speaker 3: and I think he really does run. I think he
Speaker 3: really does that.
Speaker 1: So did you and Dora, like you said she drove
Speaker 1: the route, did you have Yeah, did you like kind
Speaker 1: of think about it and speculate what it would have
Speaker 1: taken him to run back, like in time or his ability?
Speaker 2: There's only five miles away, I believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I don't know as flies, but you'd like
Speaker 1: I remember looking at the map and the road kind
Speaker 1: of looped around to get to the bridge.
Speaker 3: Well, Dora has a video of her driving from Gwen's
Speaker 3: house to the to the bridge. She has a video.
Speaker 3: I mean it's not it's not like an easy, quick
Speaker 3: little but I mean if you're an experienced runner, like
Speaker 3: you could run. I can't even understand. This is the
Speaker 3: other thing. Okay, when wore glasses, she was blinded about
Speaker 3: bout her glasses. How did she drive? You saw the
Speaker 3: video of what she looked like when she was leaving
Speaker 3: her house. How in the world is she going to
Speaker 3: get down this windy, dark, tree lined road. How is
Speaker 3: she getting from her house to this bridge? How is
Speaker 3: that happening? Like? How would you even She couldn't even
Speaker 3: put her key in her door? Like how do you
Speaker 3: even know, Oh, I'm now going to drive to this
Speaker 3: bridge that's fifteen minutes away or whatever it is, Like
Speaker 3: she couldn't even do put a key.
Speaker 1: In the speculation, at least what Eric's story was was
Speaker 1: she couldn't put the key in the door because she
Speaker 1: was inebriated, potentially on pills. Do you feel like was
Speaker 1: her vision really bad enough for that could have been
Speaker 1: a vision thing?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it could have been a mix
Speaker 3: of both. I know when I was listening and when
Speaker 3: I listened to the podcast again and they were saying, like,
Speaker 3: you know she had or we were talking about the
Speaker 3: ostocy or the toxicology and we were talking about how
Speaker 3: you know she had that drug in her system. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but we don't really ever know how many how many
Speaker 3: pills were in this bottle in the first place, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how much was in the bottle.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much was in her system. And
Speaker 3: remember she is only like one hundred pounds. She's like
Speaker 3: a teeny little person.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and someone else that we talked to also
Speaker 2: mentioned that, Okay, if she had taken a whole bottle
Speaker 2: of that medication again, she wouldn't have been able to
Speaker 2: drive all the way to the bridge without crash total
Speaker 2: in her car.
Speaker 3: Right right, I've made a connection with the neighbor that
Speaker 3: lives down the street from them, and she's like, it's
Speaker 3: hard to drive that street in the daylight, you know,
Speaker 3: when I have all my functions. She's like, there's no
Speaker 3: way you could drive down that street. And there's just
Speaker 3: like I don't know. It's just so frustrating.
Speaker 2: But it got me thinking to know, obviously, we would
Speaker 2: love We're going to keep trying to get a hold
Speaker 2: of that detective because I think it'd be great to
Speaker 2: talk to him about this case. But if it's still
Speaker 2: it's still I can't understand why that footage of the
Speaker 2: bridge wasn't pulled unless as a police department, like you
Speaker 2: were saying, the guy's overworked. They want to just get
Speaker 2: click cases closed. One way to make sure this doesn't
Speaker 2: turn into a murder investigation, is pulling evidence that would
Speaker 2: show that it was murdered. They know the footage gets
Speaker 2: deleted after so many days, and maybe they're just like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I bet he did murder her. But
Speaker 2: you know what, if we don't have this video footage,
Speaker 2: we can't bring him up on charges.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly believe that, okay? And also can I just say,
Speaker 3: can I just speculate again, just sure from talking to
Speaker 3: people that Gwen was stashing money around in different places,
Speaker 3: like different banks around the area. And I believe that
Speaker 3: if that is because she is planning on leaving. I
Speaker 3: don't know that for sure. That is pure speculation on
Speaker 3: my part, but she was putting money in places because
Speaker 3: she was planning on being able to, like I need
Speaker 3: to have money to survive, like when I get out
Speaker 3: of here.
Speaker 1: And did you hear that from her or from a
Speaker 1: source that you would deem credible?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did not hear that from her, Okay, I
Speaker 3: heard it from I got it from somebody. And then
Speaker 3: so I mean, it's expensive to get divorced. It's hard,
Speaker 3: you know, That's what it's going to cost you a
Speaker 3: lot of money. And you're going to have to pay
Speaker 3: you know, you'll have to pay it to support your kids.
Speaker 1: Outside of that, what you said before about he would
Speaker 1: march around outside with a gun, threatening her if she
Speaker 1: called the police. So it sounded like he had a
Speaker 1: control issue, and I'm almost wondering if she if again,
Speaker 1: we're going to go down the speculation path of I'm
Speaker 1: going to trust the information that you heard, because what
Speaker 1: we've been hearing from people that were close to her
Speaker 1: has pretty much turned out to be accurate. So let's
Speaker 1: assume she's storing money around town and planning to divorce.
Speaker 1: I almost wonder if it's possible she broke the news
Speaker 1: to him that night and he freaked out.
Speaker 3: It could definitely be the case. That could definitely be
Speaker 3: the case. She reached out to me for help for
Speaker 3: him when he was suicidal. I mean, so there's there's
Speaker 3: just no way in my mind that she would like
Speaker 3: she would not leave her kid with him. There is
Speaker 3: no way she would do that. There is no way
Speaker 3: she would not do that. She's a super smart person.
Speaker 3: She knows about drugs. She was in nursing, she knows
Speaker 3: about drugs and how drugs were Just no way that
Speaker 3: she would do that to herself, Like, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's the impression we've been getting from everyone that's known her,
Speaker 2: is there's no way she would commit suicide over something
Speaker 2: like COVID or anything, especially because she wouldn't want to
Speaker 2: leave her kids.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think outside of let's even if
Speaker 1: he wasn't had all these episodes, I still think I'm
Speaker 1: not a mother. My wife is. But a thing changes
Speaker 1: when you have children, and especially if you feel like
Speaker 1: there's a thread at home. I can't imagine her leaving that.
Speaker 1: And that's where I think the biggest because I always
Speaker 1: try and play devil's advocate. I always try and really
Speaker 1: step outside of my emotional prediction of what's happening. And
Speaker 1: I think the thing that threw me off the worst
Speaker 1: was and you said you listened to the podcast, the
Speaker 1: part where when the detective called him to basically tell
Speaker 1: him that they found the van, and when he said, no,
Speaker 1: the van's here, she's here, everything's fine, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it changed. I think that was like
Speaker 1: the biggest red flag ever, is he maybe lost control,
Speaker 1: did something and in the heat of the moment, is
Speaker 1: trying to cover it up, but is not thinking clearly
Speaker 1: yet and is saying things that are very damning that
Speaker 1: seem very damning to us. I think I made the
Speaker 1: comment that I'm basing it off of just watching detective shows,
Speaker 1: so that's not really a good indicator. But I kept
Speaker 1: throwing it back because I like to give people to
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt, and I keep throwing it back
Speaker 1: to that is obvious, but maybe not if you're a
Speaker 1: police department dealing with the initial weeks of COVID. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think our goal of talking with you, and we've
Speaker 2: got we're trying to get more interviews scheduled in the
Speaker 2: coming week, is eventually to get this case reopened. I
Speaker 2: think if enough pressure is brought onto the police department,
Speaker 2: the local government, that maybe some of the local news
Speaker 2: organizations start picking up this case.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: One of our recent episodes, the podcast called Luminal, got
Speaker 2: wind of this case and they're going to start talking
Speaker 2: about it on their podcast, and they're reaching out to
Speaker 2: other podcasters they know to try to and I told them,
Speaker 2: I said, spread spread the story far and wide, because
Speaker 2: the ultimate goal is to get the case reopening.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: I remember when we first started looking into it, we
Speaker 1: started speculating a little nervous about saying that, because you
Speaker 1: don't want to just randomly accuse. But I haven't talked
Speaker 1: to a single person yet who hasn't made it seem
Speaker 1: more and more clear that it's that it just keeps
Speaker 1: getting worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, Amanda, I think she probably reached
Speaker 3: out to too, was a friend of Gwen's in high school,
Speaker 3: and she sent your podcast actually to a couple of
Speaker 3: different reporters out one in Seattle area and one in
Speaker 3: the Tacoma area. I think so we've been just like
Speaker 3: listening because we're just like, I mean, we're you guys
Speaker 3: did the work like they don't. You don't even have
Speaker 3: to do anything, just listen. Just all you have to
Speaker 3: do is listen to it. She even put it at
Speaker 3: the bottom for you and one guy. One guy said oh, sorry,
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't listen to three hours or some
Speaker 3: of stuff, and was like, I mean, but you should.
Speaker 3: You should listen to it because you would not be
Speaker 3: able to shut it off.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one of those stories that you see
Speaker 2: on like Dateline, NBC or the first forty eight, or
Speaker 2: there's been murder cases that have had convictions with less evidence.
Speaker 1: I feel like I know, but I truly do.
Speaker 3: My poor family, it's so sick of hearing this, and
Speaker 3: they're so thankful that I'm talking to someone else about
Speaker 3: it because Okay, got it, Yeah, we got it.
Speaker 1: And that can be kind of maddening too. If it's
Speaker 1: if you feel like there's something there and you feel
Speaker 1: like nothing's being done about it, I can only imagine,
Speaker 1: and it's different, but we do all these cases. If
Speaker 1: you listen to their show, it's when family members go
Speaker 1: missing and people feel helpless, and that's kind of what
Speaker 1: we're getting when we talk to people, is this feeling
Speaker 1: of helplessness that they feel like there's something there but
Speaker 1: nothing's being done about it. So we need to make
Speaker 1: enough noise that at least it gets looked into at
Speaker 1: an official level. And I think this is going to
Speaker 1: do that. And I really hope that this will will
Speaker 1: kick off a lot of times when people are nervous,
Speaker 1: they need to see someone else step up and do it.
Speaker 1: And I really think that you doing this with us
Speaker 1: will be that tipping point, hopefully to have more people
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable reaching out and telling us their story
Speaker 1: and from their mouth, because I as much as I'll
Speaker 1: repeat what they say, I think it is more impactful
Speaker 1: and more powerful coming from the person who experienced it.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I hope you know I said the
Speaker 3: right thing. I was like, I just I just have
Speaker 3: been waiting to tell the story to somebody who you know,
Speaker 3: it's not my family and friends that kind of can't
Speaker 3: do anything to help. And I don't know which one
Speaker 3: of you said it, but one of you says, I
Speaker 3: really believe that he had something to do with it.
Speaker 3: But I will gladly listen if you can prove to
Speaker 3: me that he didn't.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we would even have him on the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said that in the podcast. If he calls in
Speaker 1: wants to talk to me, will I'm gonna grill him.
Speaker 1: If when he hears this, I will grill him and
Speaker 1: I will tell him, Hey, I think you did this.
Speaker 1: You need to convince me you didn't, and you need
Speaker 1: to do a damn good job because all the arrows
Speaker 1: point in the direction.
Speaker 3: Of you did it, and and that's exactly right. If
Speaker 3: you can prove to me that you didn't and this
Speaker 3: was you know, a legitimate you know, suicide. I'll send him,
Speaker 3: I'll send him a bouquet and say I'm sorry, but
Speaker 3: I cannot There's no there's It would take a lot
Speaker 3: for me to do my mind, it would.
Speaker 1: Take a lot.
Speaker 2: It's just we gotta get We just got to keep
Speaker 2: getting the word out there, get spreading the case message.
Speaker 2: And it's starting to happen now there's other podcasts that
Speaker 2: are talking about it, and I think it's I think
Speaker 2: this year, it's probably later in the year. It's really
Speaker 2: gonna the ball will start rolling, especially after our third episode.
Speaker 2: With all these interviews, we'll probably have to release some
Speaker 2: multi parts because it really wouldn't do it justice to obviously,
Speaker 2: will cut out the pieces that you don't want said.
Speaker 2: But I think your interview and I'm hopefully I'm talking
Speaker 2: to Dora tomorrow afternoon, he will have so much.
Speaker 3: Bess to tell you. She has so because she was
Speaker 3: literally right there when the police came and told him
Speaker 3: what happened, like he was right there. So she knows
Speaker 3: all that stuff. She knows everything. Okay, she is like
Speaker 3: a great person to talk to you. I appreciate you
Speaker 3: guys so much. I can't even tell you. It's like
Speaker 3: let's my heart rests a little because this has been
Speaker 3: super hard and so I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1: So Don, thank thank you very much for taking the time.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you for doing this. And let's hope we
Speaker 1: can blow this thing up and move that needle forward.
Speaker 1: So that was our full interview with Don and if
Speaker 1: for those watching, and we do encourage people just listening.
Speaker 1: We've been kind of flipping through Instagram posts, Google searches.
Speaker 1: The video they mentioned about Dora driving from their home
Speaker 1: to the bridge is still playing. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: one of the key things I want to discuss right
Speaker 1: away because I'm just thinking about it. So the theory, right.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Oh no, so we're watching this video, it's
Speaker 2: what are we ten minutes in now?
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's gotta be.
Speaker 2: And the original theory we have the ring doorbell video
Speaker 2: was that she was ineberated on pills and which is
Speaker 2: why she had a hard time getting your keys in
Speaker 2: the door, which then brought up the question of how
Speaker 2: was she able to drive her car to the bridge
Speaker 2: without totaling it or.
Speaker 1: And what we heard in that interview now Dawn said
Speaker 1: she was basically blind as a bat. With out her glasses,
Speaker 1: which she didn't have. So if let's assume both things
Speaker 1: are true, let's assume she took too many pills and
Speaker 1: didn't have her glasses. As we're watching this video, it's
Speaker 1: still going heavily forested turns, lots of turns, construction.
Speaker 2: No street lights on most of a lot of the roads.
Speaker 2: So you got to assume it's dark because it was
Speaker 2: at night, middle of the night. It would just be
Speaker 2: a miracle if you could make this drive without glasses,
Speaker 2: if you're basically.
Speaker 1: Legally blind without them.
Speaker 2: And aeberated on what kind of pills were those again
Speaker 2: and show are they like sleeping pills or.
Speaker 4: No benzodiazepines, so like a xanax type pill for depression.
Speaker 1: Once again, the go right into the mic. Okay, there
Speaker 1: you go.
Speaker 4: The police report does not mention the toxicology came back
Speaker 4: is having these inner system, but we have no idea
Speaker 4: how many were consumed, the amount of the benzo azepines
Speaker 4: in our system, And just watching this video, it is
Speaker 4: a difficult drive sober, and it's hard to believe that
Speaker 4: you could do this inebriated or lacking vision.
Speaker 1: Now I agree, it's a mix of like deep forested roads.
Speaker 1: It's a mix of highway the turns. Now, this was
Speaker 1: a little bit after but the construction on that bridge
Speaker 1: was probably still going on. That's speculation now because this
Speaker 1: is obviously after the fact, but it's pretty close to
Speaker 1: the incident when this is also happening. That this is
Speaker 1: the film that Dora had filmed, so this is too
Speaker 1: construction doesn't start and finish that quick, right, they seem
Speaker 1: to be pretty much in it. And then Andy, you
Speaker 1: host the question in the middle of when we were
Speaker 1: watching this as it passed, It's like, there's a bridge, right, Like,
Speaker 1: why if you're gonna go do something like that, why
Speaker 1: go to that one?
Speaker 2: And my next question is if she took all those
Speaker 2: pills presumable basically to kill herself with pills, why would
Speaker 2: you then go and drive somewhere to then ump off
Speaker 2: a bridge?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, who does?
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert in this area of like psychology
Speaker 2: or anything, but you know, I don't know that you
Speaker 2: hear about people trying multiple forms of suicide in one attempt.
Speaker 1: It's possible that I don't see the why part.
Speaker 2: I'm with you, obviously, I mean, that's just another thing
Speaker 2: that just doesn't make sense what we're you gonna say, Andy, I.
Speaker 4: Just wanted to back up a little bit. So this
Speaker 4: is the first time that I've heard the interview, and
Speaker 4: I think context is key to all this. So we're
Speaker 4: watching this video right now, and it's obviously a difficult drive,
Speaker 4: but I see that it's posted from May twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: So we're looking at this and there's already questions about like,
Speaker 4: how could she make this drive? Why are we recording
Speaker 4: this video? Looking at what this drive entails, and it
Speaker 4: really signifies what we've been talking about the whole time,
Speaker 4: that not everything adds up in this case. The story
Speaker 4: doesn't seem to make sense, and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: questions out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I made the point of the
Speaker 2: video from the bridge. Why wasn't that pulled by the detective?
Speaker 2: And I honestly think that I don't think they were
Speaker 2: on purpose doing that, but I think they probably did
Speaker 2: it because they didn't want this to turn into a
Speaker 2: full blown investigation. They you know, let's rule it a suicide,
Speaker 2: clothes that be done with it. COVID's going on, could
Speaker 2: be the Black plague. We don't know what this is.
Speaker 2: Let's just close this case, get it over with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't think they realized. I really don't
Speaker 1: think they realized she jumped off the bridge right away
Speaker 1: if you think about it, because they weren't really looking
Speaker 1: in the water at all. It was not until somebody
Speaker 1: else called in the body at the port or where
Speaker 1: they found it that it became that. But because they're
Speaker 1: dealing with the word of that potentially homeless inebriated gentleman
Speaker 1: who said he might have saw one person who gave
Speaker 1: him the van, there might have been two people in
Speaker 1: the car, so they probably even know what they were
Speaker 1: dealing with.
Speaker 2: That video would have been live and available to get
Speaker 2: be pulled by lawn for I think for sixty or
Speaker 2: ninety days, so there's no excuse why thirty days.
Speaker 1: Later they didn't. That is like your big crux just
Speaker 1: bucks me, because no it does. There would be no
Speaker 1: not wrong. I just that that there would be no
Speaker 1: way for him to get off that bridge. He would
Speaker 1: have he would be caught on video, yeah, running running, Yeah, at.
Speaker 2: Two in the morning or whenever this was in the morning.
Speaker 2: That is very damning evidence based on all of the
Speaker 2: other statements that he made about how she left on
Speaker 2: her own and this and that, like that would be
Speaker 2: you're the lawyer here, but that would pre significant evidence.
Speaker 2: If they had video of him running off the bridge.
Speaker 4: I think that would be.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, I don't think you have to be a lawyer
Speaker 1: to know that one running away from the scene of
Speaker 1: a crime. Yes, when you said you weren't there.
Speaker 4: And this is some of the value from Down's interviews.
Speaker 4: She was here during all this, right, she was an
Speaker 4: active part of what's going on. And she said she
Speaker 4: had communications with the detective. And we came to this
Speaker 4: case years after the fact, and we're speculating. We all
Speaker 4: know what it was like in the immediate aftermath of COVID,
Speaker 4: but she had conversations with the detective and everything was
Speaker 4: shut down. It was crazy. They were bogged down in
Speaker 4: work and it just doesn't seem like something that's tied
Speaker 4: up tied up very well from a police investigation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we speculated that in the other episodes of.
Speaker 2: Here's here'd be a camera going through a toll booth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like you would clearly see who'd be driving the car. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: And if Don if Gwen was really in migrated Dollar toll,
Speaker 2: Holy Cow or.
Speaker 1: Blind, you would see eric driving the car or like her,
Speaker 1: not only your ability to get there, pay the toll,
Speaker 1: not crash into the stuff. You know, those tolls they
Speaker 1: narrow so you can't get around them.
Speaker 2: And you don't, so riddle me this. They looked like
Speaker 2: a toll booth was had an attendant, right, well, go back.
Speaker 1: We have the power of reverse.
Speaker 2: So this is another thing. If I was a detective,
Speaker 2: I would have done.
Speaker 1: Far enough. Here you go.
Speaker 2: So maybe it's like an Illinois there's booths. Now there's booths,
Speaker 2: so you've gotta maybe they're.
Speaker 1: Cook you know, here we go. I can do this.
Speaker 1: Let's see if she's talking talks to somebody. Yep, she's
Speaker 1: talking to a person. So yeah, are these are these
Speaker 1: toll booths manned in the early morning? I mute that
Speaker 1: so sorry.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So if there was a tollbooth operator working at the
Speaker 2: time and this woman pulls up completely hammered out of
Speaker 2: her mind, yeah, and can't see he can't see some pills,
Speaker 2: don't you think they would have mentioned something or would
Speaker 2: have called the policemen like, hey, this lady, because they
Speaker 2: would probably just assume she's drunk, or.
Speaker 1: More importantly, hey, last night a van got appear in
Speaker 1: something like did you see this van? Who worked last night?
Speaker 1: Interview those individuals? Did you see this car come through?
Speaker 1: Were there are two people in it? Was there one
Speaker 1: person that they seem inebriated?
Speaker 2: They're probably trained, or at least told if you see
Speaker 2: somebody that's drunk come through the toll booth, call the
Speaker 2: police because they're going to scoop him up for drunk driving.
Speaker 2: That seems pretty reasonable. Now, if someone else was driving
Speaker 2: the van and Gwen was just in it, perfectly normal situation,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't think anything else. So that would be another area.
Speaker 2: If I was a detective, I would have gone and
Speaker 2: asked who was on shift last night.
Speaker 1: Work in the toll booth?
Speaker 2: Did you see anything strange come through at this time?
Speaker 2: That seems very basic detective work.
Speaker 4: And I think one thing to note here, and Joey
Speaker 4: brought it up while we were playing the interview, is
Speaker 4: that we had been operating under this assumption that she
Speaker 4: took a bottle of pills and drove to the bridge.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: We saw this video that came from I think it
Speaker 4: was a Facebook post from Eric, But the only thing
Speaker 4: we have confirming that is the police report, which does
Speaker 4: not speak to the amount of the bids of diazepines
Speaker 4: in her system. And now we know that she wasn't
Speaker 4: able to see if she was leaving without her glasses,
Speaker 4: she might have not been intoxicated at under pills at all. Right,
Speaker 4: So we need to peel these layers.
Speaker 1: And it's absolutely a possibility where.
Speaker 4: One that maybe her inability to fit the key in
Speaker 4: the lock and kind of swaying is vision issues and
Speaker 4: not intoxication, not some sort of a suicide attempt.
Speaker 1: Well, and if she got in a fight with her husband,
Speaker 1: not only vision issues. She's upset, so you go outside,
Speaker 1: if she's been crying, she can't see dous everglasses, she's
Speaker 1: just in a whatever. And I think what's important is
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't see in Everyone says this, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give anything away because we do have
Speaker 1: Doras interview that we're gonna do next. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot more information in that one that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: not introduce just because it's not the right time. But
Speaker 1: why would she pull the trigger on doing this to herself? Now?
Speaker 1: What occurred? Because everything we've been hearing from her friend
Speaker 1: is that things were getting better, things were looking up,
Speaker 1: everything was getting better, she loved her kids, she would
Speaker 1: never leave her kids. All those positive things that we're
Speaker 1: hearing about happen right before the this incident. Usually when
Speaker 1: people do something like that, there's a slow decline or
Speaker 1: they've been in a mental state for a long period
Speaker 1: of time and they finally just do it. Everything points
Speaker 1: in the direction that she was going the opposite direction
Speaker 1: in a good way, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, based on this interview and the other interviews we
Speaker 2: have obviously done that we haven't released yet, and comments
Speaker 2: and messages with people, I do not get the impression
Speaker 2: at all that Gwen was in a suicidal state before
Speaker 2: her death. That's that's based on close friends, family, her
Speaker 2: social media posts, just everything about her does not lead
Speaker 2: me to think that. And a lot of times on
Speaker 2: our other episodes we say that and we don't really
Speaker 2: We don't really know their personal life.
Speaker 1: We don't have this much insight in it.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of insight into Gwen's final few
Speaker 2: years before her death, and I don't think she was
Speaker 2: in a suicidal state. I think maybe I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: say I think.
Speaker 1: It's possible, But all the indicators point to highly unlikely.
Speaker 1: I think it's possible where someone can do that, and
Speaker 1: it's odd, it seems out of the blue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I think Dawn mentioned too about
Speaker 2: how Eric seemed to be able to turn emotions on
Speaker 2: and off in a drop of a hat. We've got
Speaker 2: all of these crazy events going on in the past
Speaker 2: where he's waving guns around saying that he's going to
Speaker 2: kill himself. Yeah, and I think you factor that in.
Speaker 2: I think you factor in the video of her not
Speaker 2: being able to get the key in the door. Then
Speaker 2: you look at this video the drive to the bridge
Speaker 2: and the toll booth.
Speaker 1: I just it's a long drive. I don't think for
Speaker 1: a long distance runner doable. I don't think she was driving.
Speaker 1: Now that i'm it's gotten that very difficult.
Speaker 2: I think something either happened to Gwen at her home
Speaker 2: and she was transported to the bridge, or she got
Speaker 2: a ride from someone else to the bridge and then
Speaker 2: something happened on the bridge. That's why it's so frustrating.
Speaker 2: We don't have any of the video footage from the bridge,
Speaker 2: we don't have statements from the tollbooth operators. Don made
Speaker 2: a great point about how they believed that homeless guy
Speaker 2: about the fact that Gwen was there, but then they
Speaker 2: don't care about the fact he said there was also
Speaker 2: possibly someone else in the car.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: How I mean, it's almost like they were trying to
Speaker 2: not collect evidence.
Speaker 1: You're really on that, You're really on that they want
Speaker 1: to close the case train.
Speaker 2: I mean, why else would you not do some of
Speaker 2: this basic detective work.
Speaker 1: I see. That's I'm nicer than you on this one.
Speaker 1: I'm not nice in other things. I think COVID fuck.
Speaker 1: I think because again I try and put myself that
Speaker 1: we are in because if I'm recalling properly, like Washington
Speaker 1: State was like it was like the first few cases
Speaker 1: were coming out of there, people were panicking. And this
Speaker 1: is where I became less anxious about it as we
Speaker 1: went on after they found out like, oh, if you're
Speaker 1: healthy and young, still dangerous, but way better. In those
Speaker 1: early days, it's like, Okay, the first month or two, oh,
Speaker 1: it was like nobody knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew how like it was at that point, It's
Speaker 1: seem like mortality rate was like fifty percent, like something crazy.
Speaker 1: That's what it felt like. So you have these police
Speaker 1: officers that they're people too. We're gonna go like, there's
Speaker 1: a body floating their cars on the bridge. The only
Speaker 1: witness we have is one guy. Want the husband's at home.
Speaker 1: It looks like a suicide if you're not digging into
Speaker 1: it like we did, and if you're in the beginning
Speaker 1: of COVID, there's a lot bigger stuff going. They're probably
Speaker 1: getting calls all the time from people freaking out. True,
Speaker 1: So if I'm going to give them the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt, this looks clear cut if you don't dig
Speaker 1: into it. She took pills. She looked upset on a
Speaker 1: video left. The husband seems a little quirky if you're
Speaker 1: just taking initial statements. Okay, he's home. I called there,
Speaker 1: he said he was there. There's a van, a weird
Speaker 1: homeless guy said she saw a lady fall off the bridge.
Speaker 1: There might have been another person, and then the bodies
Speaker 1: in the water. We guess what, right there, all that information, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sounds like a suicide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we have the benefit of being able to
Speaker 2: focus all of our time and effort this case exactly.
Speaker 2: They're focusing on lots of different murders and awards.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't COVID. Yeah, maybe they would have dug
Speaker 1: in this deep. Maybe it wasn't they didn't have so
Speaker 1: much going on. But with that going on, I want
Speaker 1: to give them the benefit of the doubt and say
Speaker 1: it was probably chaotic.
Speaker 4: Well, and another thing to think about here is that
Speaker 4: we have the benefit of what happened after her death
Speaker 4: and after they had ruled this a suicide, and we
Speaker 4: look back through the social media posts and saw his
Speaker 4: posts on I'm looking for a woman. I feel like
Speaker 4: a man standing on one leg in the marriage. Three
Speaker 4: months after while they were investigating this, none of that
Speaker 4: had happened yet, so we are backed into this seems
Speaker 4: a little suspicious. But another thing that's interesting to me
Speaker 4: from this interview with Down is she has the same
Speaker 4: suspicion moving forward and long term friends with Gwynn. We
Speaker 4: all have friends from high school that we're very close
Speaker 4: with but have moved apart and communicate those couple of
Speaker 4: times a year. And if one of your friends texts
Speaker 4: you and says, this is going to be my best
Speaker 4: year yet, and then the next thing you hear is
Speaker 4: that they've committed suicide, that's red flags across the place.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, That's a great point because it's not like
Speaker 1: she wasn't being one hundred percent honest with her the
Speaker 1: entire time before that message. Because there are friends you
Speaker 1: have that are maybe good friends, but more superficial, you're
Speaker 1: not going to come to them with your dark stuff,
Speaker 1: the things that you need help with. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: talking to her well prior to this about the dark stuff.
Speaker 1: She was talking to her through her worst times. And
Speaker 1: to your point, she messages like, oh my gosh, it's
Speaker 1: getting good. We got the new house, we're in a
Speaker 1: wooded area. It's going to be the best year ever.
Speaker 1: And that's when she does it, because it should have
Speaker 1: been in October or November or when we heard that
Speaker 1: there's domestic stuff. That was the deepest, darkest part. That's
Speaker 1: when someone who's actually going to do suicide probably would
Speaker 1: do it when they're at their lowest, and she was
Speaker 1: coming out of that. And that's what doesn't add up.
Speaker 4: The other red flag that jumped out first time listening
Speaker 4: to this interview, and this is news I think across
Speaker 4: the board, is that Dawn had heard that Gwenn was
Speaker 4: moving money around, that she was putting money in different banks,
Speaker 4: and the speculation is well, we don't know, and we
Speaker 4: don't want to speculate, right, but that's another way.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a lawyer, you shouldn't. I can. I'll
Speaker 1: speculate all the way. Well, and she did say and
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. I think that is fair to
Speaker 1: put the disclaimer on. And she even mentioned it she
Speaker 1: heard at third party, so Gwen didn't tell her she
Speaker 1: was doing it, but she said she heard it from
Speaker 1: someone who's a credible source. So let's assume again now
Speaker 1: we're speculating, but that's someone who is a close friend
Speaker 1: to Gwen in gig Harbor, potentially, somebody that's close enough
Speaker 1: to know that maybe it's a credible source of If
Speaker 1: she's hiding money places, it's because she's fearing something or
Speaker 1: she's gonna make a move. Again, if you're going to
Speaker 1: commit suicide, why would you hide money away from potentially
Speaker 1: getting to your children or the people that might need
Speaker 1: to use that.
Speaker 2: To And it's a little strange. I believe she mentioned
Speaker 2: that there was speculation that she was maybe planning on
Speaker 2: leaving Eric and around this time, and sure enough she
Speaker 2: ends up pat dead from suicide.
Speaker 1: That also seems a little coincidental. Yeah, did she announce
Speaker 1: it that night or say you know what, this marriage
Speaker 1: is over. We're done, and he lost it and he's
Speaker 1: a control freak. I think we've learned that he wants control.
Speaker 1: I think a control freak.
Speaker 2: Obviously we know about the drinking issues, and obviously there
Speaker 2: appears to be some mental health problems with the waving
Speaker 2: the gun around and all that.
Speaker 1: If it was a normal individual and their wife.
Speaker 2: Told him they're leaving him, I wouldn't assume and then
Speaker 2: something happened to him and they died, and none of
Speaker 2: this other stuff had happened. I would probably just like
Speaker 2: as just a sad coincidence that she told him that
Speaker 2: she was leaving and then passed away. But when all
Speaker 2: of this other stuff happens and then there's speculation that
Speaker 2: she was about to leave him and then she ends
Speaker 2: up dead, that seems very strange to me. And again,
Speaker 2: if I was a detective, I would probably dig into
Speaker 2: that more. But this is after the fact. I don't
Speaker 2: know what it would take to reopen a case. And
Speaker 2: obviously you can't like stuff on social media like you can't.
Speaker 2: It's got to be like what do they say, like
Speaker 2: the smoking gun or the bloody knife?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm sure there's lots of detectives that
Speaker 1: are just like really furious at everything we're saying about
Speaker 1: this type of stuff. But the reality is.
Speaker 2: We're coming at it from just a normal citizen who
Speaker 2: is taking in all the facts, and it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: None of it makes sense why it wasn't investigated further
Speaker 2: other than the only caveat is we had this crazy
Speaker 2: thing called COVID going on yep, which is a very
Speaker 2: plausible reason why things happen the way they did.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I always have to put myself
Speaker 1: in the mindset of right at the beginning, because we
Speaker 1: look at it and the.
Speaker 2: Detective come on and explain his reasoning for why these
Speaker 2: various things didn't happen, like why didn't the tolbooth people
Speaker 2: get talked to?
Speaker 1: Why wasn't the video pulled? There may be very explain it.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they didn't have toll both people because of COVID.
Speaker 1: Maybe they just left it open. Yeah, maybe I would
Speaker 1: like Yeah, I mean i'd like to know if.
Speaker 2: There'd still be video foot Yes, yeah, I mean we
Speaker 2: could probably call this. I've told both people this time
Speaker 2: the dot and I've run through toll booths in Chicago,
Speaker 2: and you get a letter in the mail with your
Speaker 2: a picture of you in your car with your license
Speaker 2: plate saying like you didn't pay the toll you're supposed
Speaker 2: to pay those Yeah, I paid it eventually.
Speaker 4: But I think this all highlights the importance of what
Speaker 4: you guys are doing right here, because we have the
Speaker 4: police report and we know the steps that they went through,
Speaker 4: and we're looking back right hindsight's twenty twenty obviously, but
Speaker 4: now we have Dawn's interview. I know you have more
Speaker 4: exciting information to come out that you've been able to
Speaker 4: on Earth, and we're looking at this story from a
Speaker 4: different light that just wasn't present in April in May
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty, when when this investigation was going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think again, thank you to down down
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 1: We're still in contact with her.
Speaker 2: That every The thing that the confines all of these
Speaker 2: people together is they want justice. Y'all really love don
Speaker 2: or Gwen, and they all feel like we do. They're
Speaker 2: just shocked that this happened and nothing happened afterwards, like
Speaker 2: no one Well.
Speaker 1: And we're not even related, but I think we I mean, Andy,
Speaker 1: you brought this to me on a whim because you
Speaker 1: became kind of obsessed with it because of what you saw,
Speaker 1: and you're not related, so it's as so you can
Speaker 1: only imagine how these people who care about her, like
Speaker 1: directly feel family members are feel like they feel like
Speaker 1: something needs to be done, something's not happening. So we've
Speaker 1: been getting the overwhelming response of they're so glad this
Speaker 1: is happening now don mentioned it. She's like, I can't
Speaker 1: tell my own family anymore because she's been talking about
Speaker 1: it for two years. Yeah, and I've felt helpless before,
Speaker 1: and that is that can eat away at you like crazy.
Speaker 1: So that's to us. We look at as if we
Speaker 1: can use this platform to really shine light on this,
Speaker 1: catapult this to the front, and potentially get more news
Speaker 1: outlets and I'll involved.
Speaker 2: The end goal is to get the investigation reopened. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean just want a second look at it. I
Speaker 2: throw it out to the listeners. We have a lot
Speaker 2: of people listening to the show now, which is awesome.
Speaker 2: Out of all those people, if you know people that
Speaker 2: are in news media or whatever, this is a this
Speaker 2: could be a big story because it is potentially a
Speaker 2: murder that is going completely unsolved.
Speaker 1: As a result of COVID. Like I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: as mean as Mike is. I'm just gonna say it.
Speaker 1: It was a very convenient time for all of this
Speaker 1: stuff to happen. And if you're gonna get away with
Speaker 1: a crime, that was the time to do it, when
Speaker 1: the entire world was disheveled. That's, to me, is like
Speaker 1: what a lucky opportunity to have something where someone might
Speaker 1: not look as closely because of everything else that's going
Speaker 1: And I'm not being mean to I know, at least
Speaker 1: I'm giving you a hard time. No, I'm just bringing
Speaker 1: up valid questions I have.
Speaker 2: If I was a close family member, I would have
Speaker 2: asked those exact same things, like, all right, did you
Speaker 2: talk to the tolbooth operators?
Speaker 1: No? Okay? Why not? Did you pull the video from
Speaker 1: the bridge? No? Okay? Why not?
Speaker 2: Did you investigate further once you learned of all the
Speaker 2: other things that happened around Gwen in the last couple
Speaker 2: of years?
Speaker 1: Okay? Why not?
Speaker 2: Like I would ask those questions if I was a
Speaker 2: close family member, and I'd be really mad if they
Speaker 2: didn't dig deeper into that.
Speaker 4: And I think you have a good point, Mike. So
Speaker 4: when we I think the first episode, maybe even the
Speaker 4: second episode, we were looking at this. We had Gwen's
Speaker 4: obituary and no family was mentioned. And now we have
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit of reasoning for why there was
Speaker 4: no family mentioned. And our speculation was, Hey, maybe no
Speaker 4: one's putting pressure to get answers to these questions. Now
Speaker 4: we know they were, and it was mentioned in the
Speaker 4: police report, and you guys are digging up the answers
Speaker 4: to the questions.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah. And he speculated just a tiny bit at
Speaker 1: the end and just said, I've informed any family to
Speaker 1: bring any information forward. And maybe as a detective, he's
Speaker 1: got rules that he has to bye by. He can't
Speaker 1: just go around and do the speculating that we might
Speaker 1: be able to because we're a podcast show. He's got
Speaker 1: to have hard evidence, and everything is just shy of
Speaker 1: that hard evidence. Okay, I got kind of a witness.
Speaker 1: It's a homeless guy who's completely inebriated.
Speaker 2: And most police departments are taxed to the max on
Speaker 2: case loads, and they don't have the time without COVID.
Speaker 2: Without COVID, they don't have the time or resources to
Speaker 2: dig back into old cases they've closed. Especially this isn't
Speaker 2: like a murder case that they closed because they couldn't
Speaker 2: find a killer. They closed a suicide, so they don't
Speaker 2: have the resource. There has to probably be very like
Speaker 2: a smoking gun to get them to reopen.
Speaker 1: I think, on its surface level, it looks like a suicide.
Speaker 1: If I'm being fair, it's we found the body. Toxicology
Speaker 1: shows benzodiazepines in the system. Granted we didn't see how much.
Speaker 1: But you have the witness saying, ah, a slave crusher
Speaker 1: fan and gave me the keys. And then I saw
Speaker 1: a shadow fall off the bridge on its face right
Speaker 1: then and there. Hey, I'm sorry, it sounds and looks
Speaker 1: like a suicide. I've got COVID to go deal with.
Speaker 1: I've got two hundred other calls of people panicking. I'm
Speaker 1: worried for my life, my own family. They are human,
Speaker 1: after all. And if we're looking down the barrel of
Speaker 1: what looks like a huge worldwide plague, what's the mindset
Speaker 1: the detective? He could He's probably a good dude. He
Speaker 1: probably is a good detective. But again, holy cow, is
Speaker 1: everyone gonna die? I need to beat my family. This
Speaker 1: looks like a suicide. I'm going home.
Speaker 2: And maybe they didn't want to interview all these people
Speaker 2: because of risk of getting COVID. Absolutely, like you know what.
Speaker 1: The less contact. Remember they were letting people get away
Speaker 1: with speeding. They were the officers I'm friends with were
Speaker 1: told not to pull cars over. That's why the guy
Speaker 1: broke the cannonball run record.
Speaker 4: I think with the change in protocol, right, there's.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, they said just don't engage. Don't like because
Speaker 1: everyone didn't know what was gonna happen. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think with all that said, I think if there's
Speaker 2: even a ten percent chance that a murderer is walking
Speaker 2: the streets, you can't just let that go.
Speaker 1: That's why we're near mic. Yeah, I don't know. Very interesting.
Speaker 1: If you have any closing Andy.
Speaker 4: No, I think you've hit it all on the head
Speaker 4: and honestly, I think that this is very encouraging. I
Speaker 4: know that Dawn reached out to you. You've been in
Speaker 4: contact with more people, and really what's happening is the
Speaker 4: questions are being answered. You guys are getting there and
Speaker 4: any light that shed on this is positive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well I agree with Andy. Yes, I do you
Speaker 1: think we're doing a good job?
Speaker 2: And if there's any other people at host podcast True
Speaker 2: Crime podcast listening. Reach out to us if you want
Speaker 2: to talk and if you truly didn't do it, we
Speaker 2: want to get to the bottom of that too and
Speaker 2: clear all speculation.
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely, I will say as a teaser going forward,
Speaker 1: we have another interview coming up with Dora's stepsister. No,
Speaker 1: with Dora, Oh yeah, with Gwen's stepsister. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: getting all the name. It's down Dora. It's so close,
Speaker 1: but there's even different information, more information. That interview was
Speaker 1: almost two hours, and then we did remove some things
Speaker 1: that she was not comfortable with, so it's gonna end
Speaker 1: up being about just the interview piece about an hour
Speaker 1: forty five and hour fifty. Will be planning to record
Speaker 1: that one next. We're gonna let this one sit for
Speaker 1: a while and get people's feedback. We're hoping that the
Speaker 1: other people that either interviewed with us or express interests
Speaker 1: that were worried about doing it will bring forward some
Speaker 1: of that information because outside of these two interviews, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's even more information that these two people didn't have
Speaker 1: that those people are not comfortable sharing. And we've always
Speaker 1: stood by our word. We're sitting on this stuff. If
Speaker 1: they never wanted out there. It's gonna go to the
Speaker 1: grave with Mike and I and Andy because we're not
Speaker 1: gonna sell anybody out. But we hope that this gets
Speaker 1: more people interested in sharing their story information they have.
Speaker 1: What were we gonna say, Mike, Oh, I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say, we have.
Speaker 2: I think we've got ten more people lined up to interview.
Speaker 1: Oh really, Yeah, that's even more than what I thought.
Speaker 1: Holy cow. Yeah, there's a lot of people coming out
Speaker 1: and what's really not shocking to me but almost reinforcing
Speaker 1: it is and I have to think of a way
Speaker 1: to say it to not reveal anything. People who you
Speaker 1: people who contacted us, who just based on who they
Speaker 1: were in the relationship to Eric. I thought we're gonna
Speaker 1: be a finally good counterpoint to everything we've been saying.
Speaker 1: And I have not gotten that out of any of
Speaker 1: them yet. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is universally across the spectrum of various people, friends, family, coworkers,
Speaker 2: whoever they are. They've all come to the same conclusion
Speaker 2: we have, which where in life when you talk to
Speaker 2: dozens of people across the country from different where.
Speaker 1: In life nowadays do you see consensus and.
Speaker 2: Census where yet different ages, different genders, different jobs, different
Speaker 2: relationships with the people we are talking about. Everyone has
Speaker 2: come to the same conclusion that does not happen anymore.
Speaker 1: It does not know. Thanks again for tuning into our show.
Speaker 1: We appreciate all of you for listening and sharing locations
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Speaker 1: to watch the video. The entire time we were recording
Speaker 1: this show, while the interview is happening, I was throwing
Speaker 1: up images, videos, or things that were relevant to the case.
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