Speaker 1: And he said five about five am, the babies.
Speaker 2: Up, Yeah, and she was crying so and uh, I
Speaker 2: was really surprised.
Speaker 1: That she wasn't there.
Speaker 3: Rockbridge Memorial State Park is a place of beauty nestled
Speaker 3: in the heart of Missouri. It's a stretch of wilderness
Speaker 3: where nature shows both its gentle and untamed sides. The
Speaker 3: park's grand dule is its namesake, Rockbridge, a towering natural
Speaker 3: limestone arch carved over thousands of years by water pressing
Speaker 3: through the stone around it. The land on folds like
Speaker 3: a labyrinth. More in two thousy two hundred acres of
Speaker 3: dense hardwood forest, winding trails, sinkhals caves, and the famous
Speaker 3: Stevil's Ice Box, a cavern where underground streams snake through
Speaker 3: Missouri's ancient coarse landscape. In early spring, when the frost
Speaker 3: finally loosens its grip, the forest floor awakens. Wild floors
Speaker 3: dot the trails with color, birds return, filling the canopy
Speaker 3: with songs. On the morning of March fifteenth, two thousand
Speaker 3: and twenty, a man named Stephen Roberts decided to take
Speaker 3: advantage of the good weather. He laysd up his hiking
Speaker 3: boots and headed out to the trails at Rockbridge Memorial.
Speaker 3: The forest was alive around him. The path was familiar,
Speaker 3: but as he walked, something unusual caught his attention. Just
Speaker 3: beyond the tree line, something sharp and rectangular broke the
Speaker 3: natural shape of bank and leaves. Curiosity tugged at him.
Speaker 3: He stepped off the trail and made his way through
Speaker 3: the undergrowth, but when he drew closer, he froze. On
Speaker 3: the ground, half covered by foliage, was a human skull.
Speaker 3: Mung Chiji Elige was born on the eighteenth of April
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one in China, during the nation's strict one
Speaker 3: child policy. Her parents Ki Ren and Shaolinji had only
Speaker 3: ever planned for one child, and mung Chi was their everything.
Speaker 3: Our mother would later recall, we only ever wanted one child.
Speaker 3: We wanted to give all of our love to this child.
Speaker 3: Mungchi was kind of daughter that most parents dreamed of.
Speaker 3: She was gentle, well behaved, but also lively and curious.
Speaker 3: Her parents placed a strong emphasis on education, and from
Speaker 3: an early age, Munchi thrived. By the time she was five,
Speaker 3: she was already practicing calligraphy and painting, carefully guided by
Speaker 3: her parents belief in cultivating hobbies. At seven, she added
Speaker 3: swimming and ping pong to her routine. English tutoring followed
Speaker 3: soon after, and by the time she was ten, she
Speaker 3: had taken up the guitar. Photography was another passion, one
Speaker 3: her father nurtured by making sure she always had the
Speaker 3: best cameras, but painting remained her true love. Her mother
Speaker 3: remembered proudly. We thought that the development of hobbies was
Speaker 3: important for the growth of Mungchi. It was clear from
Speaker 3: the start that Mungchi was remarkable. In two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: she was accepted into the prestigious East China University of
Speaker 3: Science and Technology in Shanghai. Three years later, an opportunity
Speaker 3: presented itself that we changed the course of her life forever.
Speaker 3: She was accepted into an exchange program in the United
Speaker 3: States and enrolled at the University of Missouri. There, Mungchi
Speaker 3: completed her undergraduate studies and went on to earn a
Speaker 3: master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She excelled at
Speaker 3: the point that one of her professors, who was impressed
Speaker 3: by her intelligence and dedication, hired her straight out of skill.
Speaker 3: The company was a biomaterials firm called Nonva and It
Speaker 3: was there within the sterile technical halls of Science and
Speaker 3: Innovation that Mungchi met Joseph Elich. Joseph had grown up
Speaker 3: in Kansas City and was studying engineering at the same
Speaker 3: university at No Nova. Mungchi was technically his supervisor, but
Speaker 3: soon enough professional boundaries blurred and the two started dating.
Speaker 3: Her friend Chui Jang remembered she didn't know why, but
Speaker 3: she was crazy about Joe. A year and a half
Speaker 3: into their relationship, Joseph proposed while they were hiking at
Speaker 3: Rockbridge Memorials step Park. Two weeks later, Munchi and Joseph
Speaker 3: were married. It was a whirlwind. Love was part of it, certainly,
Speaker 3: but so too with circumstances. Mung Chi's visa was set
Speaker 3: to expire, and marriage meant that she could stay in
Speaker 3: the United States and stay with Joseph. The couple moved
Speaker 3: into an apartment on Eastwood Drive. Just months into the marriage,
Speaker 3: mung Chi was offered a big job opportunity. It could
Speaker 3: have been a pivotal moment in her career, but then
Speaker 3: came unexpected news she was pregnant. At that time, mung
Speaker 3: Chi was the sole bread winner. Joseph had quit his
Speaker 3: job to finish school, and he was a senior mechanical
Speaker 3: engineering student with no steady income. But the decision was
Speaker 3: made Mung Chi would turn down the job and become
Speaker 3: a step at home mother. In October of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: their daughter Anna was born. In Chinese tradition, the first
Speaker 3: one hundred days after a baby's birth, at a sacred period,
Speaker 3: it's customary for the grandparents to come and stay, helping
Speaker 3: to care for both mother and child, enduring rest, protection
Speaker 3: and a smooth transition into new life. True to tradition,
Speaker 3: Mungchi's parents flew in from China to help their daughter
Speaker 3: and meet their granddaughter. For a time, life seemed stable,
Speaker 3: but beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form. Mung
Speaker 3: Chain Joseph was once dreamed of building a big family together.
Speaker 3: They spoke of three, maybe even five children, and imagined
Speaker 3: raising them in a house that blended both American and
Speaker 3: Chinese traditions. It was the kind of vision that many
Speaker 3: young couple share, a house filled with laughter, a mix
Speaker 3: of cultures, and the promise of a future built together.
Speaker 3: But after their daughter Anna was born, things began to shift.
Speaker 3: Mungchi loved her baby deeply, but the ache of homesickness
Speaker 3: grew strong her, especially after her parents returned to China.
Speaker 3: The apartment that had once felt like a new beginning
Speaker 3: now seemed almost isolating. Her lifeline to home became her
Speaker 3: daily phone call with her mother, ki Ren. Every day
Speaker 3: without fail, they spoke, sharing the ups and downs of motherhood,
Speaker 3: the quiet frustrations, and the joy of watching Anna grow.
Speaker 3: But then, on the ninth of October twenty and nineteen,
Speaker 3: the phone never rang. At first, ki Ran tried to
Speaker 3: brush away her unease. Maybe Mungchi was tired, maybe she
Speaker 3: was busy. But when ours passed with no word, she
Speaker 3: began to call again and again. Her daughter never picked up.
Speaker 3: The next day, silence continued. Ki Ran reached out to
Speaker 3: Joseph directly, calling and texting, but he didn't respond either.
Speaker 3: Panic began to settle in desper She asked one of
Speaker 3: Munchi's friends to check on her. When that friend arrived
Speaker 3: at the Eastwood Drive apartment, Joseph was there alone with Anna.
Speaker 3: Munk Chi was nowhere to be found. Joseph told the
Speaker 3: friend that when he woke up on the morning of
Speaker 3: the ninth of October, his wife was simply gone. Despite
Speaker 3: his wife being missing. Joseph's demeanor was strange, calm, detached,
Speaker 3: even nonchalant. He ran confronted him over a video call,
Speaker 3: demanding he take action. She urged him to report her
Speaker 3: daughter missing. Joseph sent a few casual texts to friends
Speaker 3: asking if they had seen mun Chi. Eventually, he phoned
Speaker 3: three to one one, the non emergency line, to report
Speaker 3: his wife missing.
Speaker 4: Yesterday morning, I just woke up and then she was gone.
Speaker 4: You wasn't here the night before. I went to sleep
Speaker 4: with her at the thing, you know, we said at
Speaker 4: the same time, but whether it was just the next
Speaker 4: morning she was gone and HeLa her her wedding rings,
Speaker 4: and she left her phone and her car with her keys.
Speaker 4: I think her.
Speaker 3: After making the missing person's report, detectives arrived at Joseph
Speaker 3: and Mungchi's apartment. When they sat down with Joseph after
Speaker 3: the report, they asked him to explain what had happened.
Speaker 3: Joseph's story went like this. On the evening of October eighth,
Speaker 3: mung Chi had gone to bed, Joseph steed up in
Speaker 3: the living room, watching YouTube videos and playing video games
Speaker 3: at her On eleven thirty pm, he finally joined her
Speaker 3: she was in bed when he fell asleep. He said.
Speaker 3: At five am, their daughter Anna's cries woke him. He
Speaker 3: rolled over and noticed that mung Chi was no longer
Speaker 3: in bed. She wasn't in the apart either. Her keys
Speaker 3: were there, her phone was there, but Joseph didn't look
Speaker 3: for her. Instead, he climbed back into bed and fell
Speaker 3: asleep again. Three hours later, on his cries will come
Speaker 3: up once more. This time, Joseph said, he got up
Speaker 3: and fed her. He said it was the first time
Speaker 3: he had ever fed his daughter himself munk. She had
Speaker 3: been brast feeding, although she sometimes left bottles of expressed milk.
Speaker 3: Joseph explained that he simply mimicked what he had seen
Speaker 3: his wife do.
Speaker 1: And he said five about five am, the babies up. Yeah, yeah, baby,
Speaker 1: look up and she was crying.
Speaker 2: So I woke up, and I was really surprised that
Speaker 2: the munk she wasn't there.
Speaker 1: And then I went to get Anna.
Speaker 2: I kind of thought that Munchie might be in the
Speaker 2: room with Anna.
Speaker 1: But she wasn't, and started putting in it down. See
Speaker 1: by looking all the way the place of the career,
Speaker 1: she wasn't there. Her purse was.
Speaker 5: Gone, so I don't think she took us per what kind.
Speaker 1: Of her she have? It's how jess a fabric curse
Speaker 1: has what color?
Speaker 2: Black is a bass color and has like white stars,
Speaker 2: and inside the star it actually has red stripes, and
Speaker 2: I think has like a little blue corner.
Speaker 1: Like an American players. So that's all she All she
Speaker 1: took was her person. Yeah, and he said, says she's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I noticed her black nikes are missing, so I.
Speaker 1: Guess she must be wearing those.
Speaker 3: It was only then that Joseph noticed that munk Chi's
Speaker 3: car was still parked out side. Even so, he didn't search,
Speaker 3: she didn't call friends, and he didn't alert police. He
Speaker 3: said he thought that munk She might have gone on
Speaker 3: an errand or perhaps he speculated that she had even
Speaker 3: left him for another month. According to Joseph, while combing
Speaker 3: through her laptop after she vanished, he found journal anddrees
Speaker 3: in which she admitted to having an emotional affair with
Speaker 3: someone back in China.
Speaker 2: There is I actually found this earlier. It's like a
Speaker 2: journal tucolate document. It's just a word file and it
Speaker 2: talks about her I feeling like some secret love. She
Speaker 2: mentioned this guy's name and actually it turns out it's
Speaker 2: this guy right here. Yeah, I just I just messaged
Speaker 2: him earlier and he responded to me. But I think
Speaker 2: he's in China right now. But anyway, I think this
Speaker 2: is her secret love or something.
Speaker 1: It's probably back in China.
Speaker 2: I suppose I think he was here though, because he says,
Speaker 2: I'll be back in Shanghai tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'll be busy. I'll be in Shanghai for the for
Speaker 1: the next week or for the next few days. I'll
Speaker 1: be out of time. And I don't know when that was.
Speaker 1: It just says ten thirty three again.
Speaker 3: He recalled one line in particular, which read, it's sad
Speaker 3: though that I have no interest in my husband but.
Speaker 2: That but that she's married and she had bating and
Speaker 2: so she has to stop like doing this message in
Speaker 2: him there. I think, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know if she's seen this guy, but right so
Speaker 2: she might not even have met this dude, is what
Speaker 2: you're thinking.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I kind of think that she has because, like I
Speaker 2: said that, I think there's been about four times where
Speaker 2: she's gone out and she's been out for like an
Speaker 2: a reasonably long time a time. Yeah, pretty much, and
Speaker 2: then she always gives some weird excuse. The first, the
Speaker 2: weirdest time was she went out. She was walking out
Speaker 2: the door, who has And I asked her where she
Speaker 2: was going, and she said that she has to get
Speaker 2: something from her car. And it was about forty five
Speaker 2: minutes later she came back with the spoon that was
Speaker 2: in her car for like probably two years.
Speaker 1: I remember really spoon, Yeah, and she came back with
Speaker 1: that spoon.
Speaker 3: For detectives, none of this stot right. It was highly
Speaker 3: unusual for her husband to wait so long before reporting
Speaker 3: his wife missinggan to press harder. Had there been an
Speaker 3: argument before she disappeared? Joseph claimed no. Then, almost as
Speaker 3: an afterthought, he admitted they had what he described as
Speaker 3: a small fight about a week earlier. Nothing serious, he insisted,
Speaker 3: but he went on to paint a picture of a
Speaker 3: strained marriage. Intimacy had waned Mungchie, he said, had become withdrawn.
Speaker 3: He admitted that it left him frustrated. The night before
Speaker 3: she disappeared, Joseph described giving her a massage. He told detectives,
Speaker 3: I was going kind of slow. I was trying to
Speaker 3: drag it out because I wanted to extend the amount
Speaker 3: of time that we were together doing something. He said
Speaker 3: that Mungchi seemed tense. She then told them she needed
Speaker 3: to be somewhere in the morning. Curious, Joseph pressed her,
Speaker 3: asking three separate times who she was meeting. Her response
Speaker 3: each time was the same me she wouldn't elaborate what
Speaker 3: Joseph I did the next day, the day he discovered
Speaker 3: his wife missing, only deep in detective suspicions. Instead of
Speaker 3: searching for Mungchi, he packed Anna into the car and
Speaker 3: took two long drives in mung Chi's vehicle. He wasn't
Speaker 3: looking for his wife, he said, he was looking for
Speaker 3: new hiking trails. He said to investigators, there's this big
Speaker 3: area that's all grain on Google Maps, and so I
Speaker 3: wanted to go and see if there were walking paths
Speaker 3: back there. His route wandered through Ashland, then back and
Speaker 3: forth to Guthrie before heading towards Columbia and Rockport. By
Speaker 3: his own account, he drove around aimlessly until around ten pm.
Speaker 3: Detective John Voss asked the obvious question, did you lock
Speaker 3: your door when you left the apartment. You've got her
Speaker 3: keys in her car, her phones in the house. She
Speaker 3: can't even call anybody, Joseph sammed. Caught off guard, he replied, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Police quickly went public with news of
Speaker 3: Mungchi's disappearance, appealing to the community for help. Missing person
Speaker 3: posters were circulated with her description a young Chinese woman
Speaker 3: with brown eyes and shoulder length black hair, often worn
Speaker 3: in a neat bun. She said somewhere between five foot
Speaker 3: one inch and five foot three inches, with both ears pierced.
Speaker 3: At first, investigators considered the possibility that Joseph's claim might
Speaker 3: be true, that mung Chi had left him for another man,
Speaker 3: perhaps even returned to China, but that theory crumbled almost immediately.
Speaker 3: All of her essentials were still in the apartment. Her phone,
Speaker 3: her iPod, her passport, even her clothing. Everything she would
Speaker 3: have needed to leave had simply been left behind. It
Speaker 3: was impossible to believe she had gone very far without them,
Speaker 3: and more importantly, Mungchi's one year old daughter, Anna was
Speaker 3: still at home. Those who knew her bath said that
Speaker 3: Anna was their entire world. The idea that she would
Speaker 3: abandon her child was unthinkable. As the search intensified, Joseph
Speaker 3: Alich made his first public appearance. He sat down with
Speaker 3: CBS affiliate KRCG and give his version of events.
Speaker 6: Talk to me about Menji is Menji, that's how you
Speaker 6: pronounced me.
Speaker 5: It's actually mung Chi and it has talne to it's mung.
Speaker 3: Chi looking Subdurity told the reporter he believed that mung
Speaker 3: Chi had left him for another mom.
Speaker 6: What do you think about the fact that she left
Speaker 6: behind for Wallee and everything, uh, while at her passport
Speaker 6: and her fond So that suffs very weird to me.
Speaker 6: I know she was talking to somebody else on the side,
Speaker 6: and I didn't know that until after she had left.
Speaker 6: But uh, you know, whatever, whatever she's doing, I just
Speaker 6: hope she's safe. And I really hope that she can,
Speaker 6: you know, find herself and come back to me and
Speaker 6: and and we can just have a big long talk
Speaker 6: and that's all we need, but we can work things out.
Speaker 6: I think she's she's just confused and maybe scared, and
Speaker 6: I don't know if she felt alone. But I just
Speaker 6: really want her to come back. And it does worry
Speaker 6: me she doesn't have any of that stuff. I just
Speaker 6: really yeah, I just hope that she's safe. I hope
Speaker 6: that she's with at least with somebody who cares for her,
Speaker 6: you know, enough to keep her safe.
Speaker 3: And came across is awkward, even smiling. Several times. He
Speaker 3: described her as a joting mother, but quickly turned the
Speaker 3: focus back to their martal problems.
Speaker 6: I have absolutely no idea where she might be. It's
Speaker 6: just all so strange. She just disappeared. I don't know.
Speaker 6: I just really don't know. She hasn't contacted anybody. She
Speaker 6: talked to her mom, I think probably two or three
Speaker 6: times every single day. The fact that she hasn't heard
Speaker 6: from her really worries me is very surprising. At it's
Speaker 6: just hard to think about what's going on.
Speaker 3: To Manny, Joseph sounded like a husband grasping for answers,
Speaker 3: but to detectives, his behavior seemed almost rehearsed, and his
Speaker 3: words raised more questions than they answered. Behind the scene,
Speaker 3: suspicion was already turning squarely in Joseph's direction. The first
Speaker 3: red flag was how little concern he seemed to show
Speaker 3: for his wife's disappearance. Detectives discovered that on the ninth
Speaker 3: of October, the very morning he claimed to have found
Speaker 3: her missing, Joseph texted his mother a birthday greeting in
Speaker 3: that message, he never mentioned that his wife was missing.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until the following day that he casually took
Speaker 3: over text. Halloween isn't just about costumes and can they
Speaker 3: It's about capturing those memories, and this year puzzle you
Speaker 3: hits the perfect way to turn your spooky season photos
Speaker 3: into a one of a kind keepsake. With their free
Speaker 3: design tool, creating a custom photo puzzle is wickedly easy.
Speaker 3: Choose from tons of Halloween themed templates, upload your favorite
Speaker 3: costume photos or creepy memories, and customize everything from the
Speaker 3: puzzle size to the box itself. They've got puzzles ranging
Speaker 3: from forty eight to two thousand pieces, perfect for a
Speaker 3: cozy autumn night in. But here's where it gets really cool.
Speaker 3: They're one thousand piece puzzles come in three sizes, including
Speaker 3: smart sordid. This clever system breaks your puzzle into forty
Speaker 3: boxes of twenty five pieces each, so you can piece
Speaker 3: together your Halloween memory section by section. Want to surprise someone,
Speaker 3: choose a box design that hides the final image. It's
Speaker 3: like unwrapping a mystery. Most orders arrive in about a
Speaker 3: week or less, with express shipping available, so there's still
Speaker 3: time to get yours before Halloween. Head to puzzle you
Speaker 3: dot com slash morbid. That's puzzle y o you dot
Speaker 3: com slash morbid and use code spooky at checkout to
Speaker 3: save twenty percent through the end of October. Turn your
Speaker 3: Halloween memories into something truly haunting at puzzle you dot
Speaker 3: com slash morbid. That same morning, Joseph also messaged to
Speaker 3: classmate saying he wouldn't be a school to work on
Speaker 3: a project. He offered no explanation. The next day, he
Speaker 3: followed up with another text, I'm kind of stuck at
Speaker 3: home and busy with my daughter again, not a single
Speaker 3: mention of his wife being missing. The investigators it was baffling.
Speaker 3: A spouse disappearing would normally spark panic phone calls, questions,
Speaker 3: frantic searches, but Joseph behaved as if nothing had changed
Speaker 3: at all. He later told detectives he avoided thinking about
Speaker 3: it because he had classwork to focus on. This was
Speaker 3: his last semester of skill, he explained, and he wanted
Speaker 3: to give attention to that and to his daughter Anna.
Speaker 3: The explanation rang hollow. Detective stuck deeper. They learned that
Speaker 3: Mungchi's marriage was far from happy friends and acquaintances painted
Speaker 3: a picture of a relationship that was weighed down by resentment, loneliness,
Speaker 3: and cultural clashes. One interview stood out. Daniel Culp, a
Speaker 3: former boyfriend of Mungchi, revealed that she had reached out
Speaker 3: to him in late August twenty nineteen, just weeks before
Speaker 3: she disappeared. She asked for information about a divorce attorney.
Speaker 3: It was a crucial detail. It meant that Mungchi hadn't
Speaker 3: simply disappeared into the night. She was actively considering leaving Joseph.
Speaker 3: Detectives called Joseph back in for another round of questioning.
Speaker 3: This time, their tone was sharper less accommodating.
Speaker 5: I get to relax at the same time.
Speaker 7: Wait a minute, you got to relax. Your wife is missing,
Speaker 7: You're now the sole caregiver of a one year old child,
Speaker 7: and you went on a relaxing drive. I gotta tell you,
Speaker 7: you know that strikes me as strange, and I don't
Speaker 7: think I'm alone in that. I think Alan here would
Speaker 7: probably agree with that. I think ninety nine out of
Speaker 7: one hundred people on the street would say that's not
Speaker 7: the time to relax. I mean, you haven't even told
Speaker 7: anybody I don't know where my wife is. Yeah, you got.
Speaker 7: I'm asking you to look at this from my standpoint, right, Yeah,
Speaker 7: because I have a job to do. My job is
Speaker 7: define mention, Right, I understand, for good or for bad,
Speaker 7: it's the finest. If she left on her own and
Speaker 7: she wants to stay gone, that's her right the boy,
Speaker 7: or she didn't. We got a whole different situation, doesn't we.
Speaker 7: If somebody did something to her, or if she accidentally
Speaker 7: did something to herself, we absolutely cannot stop until we
Speaker 7: find her. You understand that, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I want to hope you guy as much as I.
Speaker 7: Can, and I will not apologize for doing my job
Speaker 7: and asking to some questions. You understand that too, Right,
Speaker 7: did you kill your wife?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: I did not, But detectives weren't convinced. The pieces weren't
Speaker 3: fitting together, and Joseph Ellige was looking more and more
Speaker 3: like the only person who knew the truth. Detective suspicions
Speaker 3: of Joseph Villige were growing by the day. They obtained
Speaker 3: a search weren't for his cell phone, hoping it would
Speaker 3: shed light on his movements or his concern for his
Speaker 3: missing wife. Instead, what they found only deep in there
Speaker 3: on ease. On October ninth, Joseph made no attempt to
Speaker 3: contact anybody about his wife's whereabouts. Not a single call,
Speaker 3: not a single message. It wasn't until the next day,
Speaker 3: after mung Chi's mother, ky Wren, began sounding the alarm
Speaker 3: the joseh have reached out. He contacted his brother Richard,
Speaker 3: asking if he had seen her. Soon after, somebody identified
Speaker 3: as Deway messaged Joseph, offering suggestions on how to track
Speaker 3: mung Chi down, but Joseph's responses revealed little urgency. Just
Speaker 3: fifty minutes later, he texted Richard again, not about Munchi,
Speaker 3: but to ask if he wanted to play online games.
Speaker 3: He then replied to Deway, saying he contacted police and
Speaker 3: was exhausted. After that, Joseph got online and played video
Speaker 3: games with a relative while his wife was missing. He
Speaker 3: was gaming, But the most damning discoveries weren't about what
Speaker 3: Joseph didn't do. They were about what he had been
Speaker 3: doing on his phone. Detectives uncovered ours of secret recordings
Speaker 3: Joseph had made of his wife dan Ors in total
Speaker 3: in June of twenty nineteen. One recording captured him coldly
Speaker 3: saying I'm ready to be done talking to you forever.
Speaker 5: I don't like being married to you. I don't like
Speaker 5: living with you.
Speaker 3: Just a month later, another recording, I would like to
Speaker 3: discuss our relationship, and I'm kind of ready to discuss
Speaker 3: the end of it as well, Joseph Bluntley told mung
Speaker 3: Chi he wanted a divorce.
Speaker 6: I want to divorce you, okay. I want that to
Speaker 6: happen during this semester. I want it to happen soon,
Speaker 6: sooner or better, okay.
Speaker 3: In his own words, I'm open to joint custody of
Speaker 3: your staying in America. Anna is not leaving America. I
Speaker 3: can tell you that. He then mocked her, saying he
Speaker 3: didn't like being married to her, didn't like living with her,
Speaker 3: and was eager for the relationship to end. He even
Speaker 3: made fun of her appearance. In other moments, he veered
Speaker 3: into threats. He pressured her to operate with a quick
Speaker 3: and cheap divorce, warning that if she refused, he would
Speaker 3: tell the court she had been abusive to him.
Speaker 6: You find all those stories about men and or women
Speaker 6: rather spouse killed them whatever, because you weren't trying to
Speaker 6: live peacefully with me.
Speaker 8: You want me to do you want me to hurt somebody.
Speaker 3: He even threatened her immigration start us, telling her, should
Speaker 3: I mention in court that you're abusive to me? Should
Speaker 3: I ask him to deport you? In another recording, Joseph
Speaker 3: told Mungchi he would stop sponsoring her for citizenship, promising
Speaker 3: she would be deported while he stayed in America with Anna,
Speaker 3: you probably would.
Speaker 5: Get deported as mine. So I don't know. Are you
Speaker 5: gonna play nice? Are you gonna try and play good?
Speaker 6: Obviously I'm not gonna represent you to stay in America anymore.
Speaker 5: But Anna's not leaving America. I can't tell you that.
Speaker 3: Only months later, Mungchi vanished. The most disturbing evidence of
Speaker 3: all didn't come from Joseph's secret recordings. It came from
Speaker 3: Mungchi herself. She too had been quietly recording her husband
Speaker 3: since two thousand and eighteen, capturing the dark reality of
Speaker 3: life inside their home. On October twenty ninth, two thousand
Speaker 3: and eighteen, a year before her disappearance, Mungchi recorded nearly
Speaker 3: an r long rant. Joseph's voice thundered with anger as
Speaker 3: he said, what are you trying to do? Are you
Speaker 3: trying to make me go crazy? So that you can
Speaker 3: call police on me and take my fucking baby from me.
Speaker 3: His fury spiraled and his threats escalated. Do you want
Speaker 3: me to fucking breakshit? Do you want me to hurt somebody?
Speaker 3: The source of that argument was her parents. After Anna
Speaker 3: was born, Mungchi's mother and father had traveled from China
Speaker 3: to help for the first one hundred days of the
Speaker 3: baby's life. Instead of gratitude, Joseph reacted with anger and hostility.
Speaker 3: I don't want your mom here. Your mom is causing problems.
Speaker 3: Your mom should fucking leave. Mungchi, who was exhausted and
Speaker 3: recovering from childbirth, pushed back. She told him that she
Speaker 3: needed her mother's help to care for herself and their baby.
Speaker 3: Her reply was calm and defiant. If I don't take
Speaker 3: care of my own body, my own health, it's not
Speaker 3: responsible for me of this family. But Joseph's hatred of
Speaker 3: her mother only deepened. He told her flatly, I don't
Speaker 3: like that woman, and I don't think you should either.
Speaker 3: He seemed particularly annoyed whenever they spoke Chinese in the home,
Speaker 3: accusing them of speaking behind his back. Eventually, Mungchi's father
Speaker 3: returned to China, but her mother, Kiren remained to help
Speaker 3: her daughter. That only fueled Joseph's anger. One afternoon, while
Speaker 3: kai Rehn was making dumplings for Joseph's birthday, a trivial
Speaker 3: dispute over a cutting board erupted into another rage filled rant.
Speaker 3: Joseph's voice thundered through the recording, don't do my cutting
Speaker 3: board like that. I'm telling you cutting board doesn't like that.
Speaker 3: The argument asked related until Joseph screamed at his wife
Speaker 3: that her mother needed to go. There's going to be
Speaker 3: fucking problems if she tries sting. I'm gonna make it
Speaker 3: fucking go away. Munchi tried to raise him with him,
Speaker 3: she told him he wasn't god, that he didn't understand.
Speaker 3: His response was chilling. I am a fucking god. I say, mom,
Speaker 3: don't stay here. She don't stay here. The rank grew uglier,
Speaker 3: with Joseph bleddling her as a woman, telling her she
Speaker 3: was incapable, that she was only impowered because of society,
Speaker 3: and then, perhaps most disturbingly, he launched into a bizarre monologue.
Speaker 3: You know how I conquer nature. I fucking kill it.
Speaker 3: I grab its head and break its fucking neck. That's
Speaker 3: how you conquer fucking nature. Through these recordings, the truth
Speaker 3: was undeniable. Munchi was living in a marriage marked by control, intimidation,
Speaker 3: and abuse, and Joseph Elige, who police now suspected far worse,
Speaker 3: seemed determined to assert power overhear at any cost. After
Speaker 3: that explosive argument about her mother, mung Chi did something desperate.
Speaker 3: She picked up the phone and called Joseph's mother, Jeane Gerringer.
Speaker 3: Jane lived two hours away, but she came immediately, hoping
Speaker 3: to mediate the situation. On a recording mung Chi made
Speaker 3: that night, she can be heard telling Jane, I have
Speaker 3: no choice. I had to call you. I'm sorry. He's
Speaker 3: gonna come back and just I don't know, unpredictable things
Speaker 3: are gonna happen. Jean told her daughter in law that
Speaker 3: she wasn't there to take sides, she was simply there
Speaker 3: to offer advice and guidance, but Joseph didn't back down,
Speaker 3: even with his own mother in the room.
Speaker 5: Join this smacker his beer down. You wanted to I
Speaker 5: have that? Yes, you can't. I'm not going ago there.
Speaker 3: The confrontation eventually killed, and Joseph even apologized, But despite
Speaker 3: tradition and despite munk Cheese please, he forced Ki Ran
Speaker 3: to return to China before the one hundred days of
Speaker 3: help were up. On October twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, just
Speaker 3: two weeks after Munkchie vanished, police escalated her case from
Speaker 3: a missing person to a criminal investigation. Detectives believed that
Speaker 3: Joseph Elige had killed his wife. They just needed enough
Speaker 3: evidence to prove it. That same day, officers arrived at
Speaker 3: Joseph's apartment. What they found raised immediate alarm. Joseph was
Speaker 3: outside in a car with his daughter Anna and his
Speaker 3: mother Jean. Their bags were packed. It looked like they
Speaker 3: were preparing to flee. Detectives arrested him on the spot.
Speaker 3: Jean spoke with an officer as her son was arrested.
Speaker 1: Were expecting this.
Speaker 3: At that point, detectives didn't yet have enough to charge
Speaker 3: Joseph with murder. Instead, they arrested him on child abuse
Speaker 3: and neglect charges. When detectives had sat down with Mungchi's mother,
Speaker 3: she revealed something deeply disturbing. She said that one night,
Speaker 3: Mungchie had noticed bruises on Anna's botocks. When she confronted
Speaker 3: Joseph about them, he initially denied knowing how they got there,
Speaker 3: but when Mungchi threatened to take their daughter to the hospital,
Speaker 3: his story changed. Joseph admitted that one night, Anna wouldn't
Speaker 3: stop crying. In his words, he pinched her. Munchie didn't
Speaker 3: report it to police because Joseph swore it would never
Speaker 3: happen again, but Ki Ran had proof. She sowed detectives
Speaker 3: a photograph her daughter had taken of the bruises. When
Speaker 3: they searched Mungche's iPad, they found the same images, along
Speaker 3: with others. Some were too small to see clearly, as
Speaker 3: though the full size originals had been deleted on her laptop.
Speaker 3: Investigators found even more disturbing evidence, full sized photos and
Speaker 3: videos of Anna's injuries that were saved from her iPhone
Speaker 3: back up. One of the photographs matched exactly the one
Speaker 3: that Munchi had sent her mother. With this evidence, prosecutors
Speaker 3: increased the charges. Joseph was now facing first degree child
Speaker 3: in dangerment. His bond was set at half a million dollars. Jean,
Speaker 3: his mother, was given custody of Anna. When questioned, Joseph
Speaker 3: admitted to causing the bruises, but insisted they only came
Speaker 3: from a pinch. Medical experts disagreed the injuries were consistent
Speaker 3: with being struck, not pinched. With Joseph behind bars, detectives
Speaker 3: executed a search warrant on the couple's apartment. Inside they
Speaker 3: found a bag that belonged to Joseph. Stuffed inside were
Speaker 3: written notes, statements almost identical to the ones he had
Speaker 3: given investigators that were also hand written reminders to himself.
Speaker 3: One note instructed refer to mung Chi in the present tents,
Speaker 3: not the past tense. And then detectives discovered something, And
Speaker 3: then detectives discovered something darker. Another page was titled simply Grievances.
Speaker 3: Underneath Joseph had listed all the reasons he hated his wife.
Speaker 3: One said, mung Chi is toxic and I thoroughly believe
Speaker 3: she enjoys poisoning other people. It was a disturbing window
Speaker 3: into Joseph's mindset and the detectives. It was one more
Speaker 3: sign pointing to a calculated, controlling man who may have
Speaker 3: already silenced his wife forever. As the investigation pressed forward,
Speaker 3: another battle began, this one over the custody of Anna.
Speaker 3: At the time, Anna was living with Joseph's mother, Jane,
Speaker 3: but Mungchi's parents had flown all the way from China
Speaker 3: to Missouri, determined to care for their granddaughter. They argued
Speaker 3: that it was in Anna's best interest to live with
Speaker 3: them and that it was exactly what Mungchi would have wanted.
Speaker 3: In a statement, their attorney wrote, Jane Elige continues to
Speaker 3: withhold information from Mungchi's parents and failed to inform them
Speaker 3: of the pending case for guardianship of their granddaughter. There
Speaker 3: was also the troubling detail that when Joseph was arrested,
Speaker 3: bags were packed and Jane was right there with him
Speaker 3: in the car, seemingly preparing to flee with Anna. In
Speaker 3: the end, both sides reached an agreement shared custody between
Speaker 3: Jane and Mungchi's parents and a no contact order between
Speaker 3: Joseph and his daughter. Meanwhile, the search for Mungji pressed forward.
Speaker 3: Detectives turned their attention to Joseph's movements in the days
Speaker 3: after she disappeared. He had given a detail the count
Speaker 3: of where he claimed he had driven, telling police he
Speaker 3: was out looking for hiking trails, but cell phone data
Speaker 3: told a different story. Yes, his phone had pinged off
Speaker 3: tars in the areas he had mentioned, but then it
Speaker 3: deviated instead of heading home after Rockport. His phone data
Speaker 3: showed him traveling west towards Boonville and later to the
Speaker 3: area of Highway forty one and the Lemine River. He
Speaker 3: said in that area for roughly forty five minutes before
Speaker 3: turning back east and heading home. The detectives the detour
Speaker 3: was damming, Joseph never being to these locations before, and
Speaker 3: both areas sat directly on the Missouri River, perfect places
Speaker 3: they feared for a body to be dumped and swept away.
Speaker 3: Investigators quickly deployed cadaver dogs to the Lemine River near
Speaker 3: Highway forty one. The dogs hid on the scent of
Speaker 3: human decomposition in the water. Divers were called in, but
Speaker 3: the task was nearly impossible. Visibility was poor debris clogged
Speaker 3: the river. The next day, detectives brought in heavy machinery,
Speaker 3: using a boom truck and dredging bucket to remove logs
Speaker 3: and flood debris before sending divers back in. Still there
Speaker 3: was no sign of mung chi. With deer hunting season beginning,
Speaker 3: detectives turned to the community. They urged hunters and landowners
Speaker 3: to check their trail cameras for any suspicious activity from
Speaker 3: October eighth to October eleventh. By December, the search was
Speaker 3: still sandered on the river. Detectives were convinced that Joseph
Speaker 3: had killed his wife and left her there. They explained
Speaker 3: the grim reality. A body can think if it's weighted
Speaker 3: or if water fills the lungs, but its decomposition sets
Speaker 3: in gases build up, causing the body to resurface currents,
Speaker 3: though can move at Milestone Stream, investigators focus their efforts
Speaker 3: on the easternmost bridge, piling underhead Yghway forty one, just
Speaker 3: north of Interstate seventies exit ninety eighth. But no matter
Speaker 3: how hard they searched, they couldn't find mung Chi and
Speaker 3: in the meantime, Joseph's legal trouble escalated. He was already
Speaker 3: facing trial for child abuse and in dangerment. In January,
Speaker 3: his attorney, John O'Connor requested that the trial be moved,
Speaker 3: claiming substantial media buzz would prevent the fair hearing. Judge
Speaker 3: Brock Jacobs denied the move, but allowed for an outside
Speaker 3: jury to be brought in, and then just a month later,
Speaker 3: in February, prosecutors made their move. Even without a body,
Speaker 3: Joseph Ellige was officially charged with murder. Detectives believed that
Speaker 3: Joseph had suffocated or strangled mung Chi, possibly while giving
Speaker 3: her a massage. There was no blood, no sign of
Speaker 3: a violent struggle, and no defensive wounds on Joseph himself.
Speaker 3: The motive, they speculated, was simple and disturbing. He simply
Speaker 3: didn't want to go through with the divorce. Joseph Ellige
Speaker 3: pleaded not guilty. In Abril, detectives announced a new tactic.
Speaker 3: They were building a levee into the Lemine River to
Speaker 3: aid in the search for mung Ches's body. For weeks,
Speaker 3: crews inched forward, mud sucked at boots, spring rains clawed
Speaker 3: back their progress. Still they kept going. They searched all
Speaker 3: the way up until December. Then came the announcement that
Speaker 3: nobody wanted to hear. The river search was being called
Speaker 3: off online, the legal machinery was grinding forward. Prosecution and
Speaker 3: defense teams were busy preparing for the upcoming trial. Prosecutors
Speaker 3: knew that the road ahead would be steep without a
Speaker 3: body nobody, convictions are notoriously difficult. Without remains, you can't
Speaker 3: prove cause or even manner of death. Time of death
Speaker 3: is gaswork. Physical evidence is scarce. Defense attorneys can argue
Speaker 3: reasonable doubt at every turn. Maybe the person left voluntary,
Speaker 3: maybe they had an accident elsewhere. Maybe there's simply not
Speaker 3: enough proof someone is dead, let alone murdered. In those cases,
Speaker 3: the state lives and dies on circumstantial evidence, timelines, behavior,
Speaker 3: and motive. Then on the twenty fifth of March, everything changed.
Speaker 3: A man named Stephen Roberts was hiking in an isolated
Speaker 3: area off South rock Quarry Road in Rockbridge Memorial State Park,
Speaker 3: not far from the trail where Joseph had once proposed
Speaker 3: to mung chi. The woods there are quiet, the kind
Speaker 3: of quiet that makes small things stand out. While hiking,
Speaker 3: a rectangular object caught Stephen's eye, out of place among
Speaker 3: roots and leaves. He moved closer. It was a purse,
Speaker 3: and then he spotted something else, a human skull faiths
Speaker 3: down in the earth. Stephen immediately called police. Within ours
Speaker 3: the isolated trail wasn't i anymore. Detectives, crime scene investigators,
Speaker 3: and evidence technicians converged on the site. As they carefully
Speaker 3: combed the area, they found more human remains near the skull.
Speaker 3: Some bones were missing, including the right arm and right leg.
Speaker 3: Inside the purse, they found mung cheese, driver's license, her
Speaker 3: credit and bank cards. The remains were transported to the
Speaker 3: Medical Examiner's office. DNA testing confirmed what detectives already knew
Speaker 3: they had just found mung Chi. At the lab, the
Speaker 3: bones were analyzed. A portion of her fourth rib was fractured.
Speaker 3: Another portion of that rib was missing on the left side.
Speaker 3: Ribs four through six showed complete fractures near the spine.
Speaker 3: The sequence of brakes mattered, the pathologists believed they were
Speaker 3: not likely caused by animals scattering remains. Instead, he concluded
Speaker 3: that they were consistent with blunt force trauma. It was devastating,
Speaker 3: but it brought a measure of clarity and for Mungchi's family,
Speaker 3: a difficult kind of peace. That Attorney Amy Saladay released
Speaker 3: a statement that read, in part, as parents of a
Speaker 3: missing child, they always hoped for their daughter's return and
Speaker 3: for this to be a bad dream. At the same time,
Speaker 3: they have wanted answers about what happened to Mungchi, and
Speaker 3: this information now gives them some closure and a body
Speaker 3: so that a funeral can be planned for some time
Speaker 3: in the future. The murder trial of Joseph ellige began
Speaker 3: on the second of November twenty twenty one. During opening statements,
Speaker 3: Joseph's defense attorney Scott Rosenblum, called Mungchi's death a tragic accident.
Speaker 3: For the first time, their full theory emerged. He said
Speaker 3: that during an argument, which was sparked by Joseph's belief
Speaker 3: that Mungchie was having an affair, she pushed him. He
Speaker 3: shoved her back, she fell and hit her head. According
Speaker 3: to Joseph, she got up and went to bed and
Speaker 3: he found her dad there the next morning. The defense
Speaker 3: attributed her death to a subjural hamatoma, a build up
Speaker 3: of blood on the brain. Prosecutor Don Knight refuted this.
Speaker 3: He told the jury that Joseph had abused Munkchi throughout
Speaker 3: their marriage, and that Joseph and his mother had worked
Speaker 3: in tandem to keep Munchi compliant to make sure she
Speaker 3: did what Joseph wanted.
Speaker 9: Everything in this case is going to be the munk
Speaker 9: She was a great mother. She loved Anna with everything
Speaker 9: she had after she gave birth to Anna, the defendant,
Speaker 9: You're going to hear multiple recordings where the defendant would
Speaker 9: threaten her and abuse her, call her names things, like
Speaker 9: this and this one on for about a year, all
Speaker 9: the way up until the time the defendant killed Munshie
Speaker 9: on October eighth of twenty nineteen, when Anna was one
Speaker 9: year old.
Speaker 3: He played a recording in which Joseph criticized Mungchi for
Speaker 3: eating like a pig, sworet her repeatedly and belittled her mother.
Speaker 3: At one point, Joseph had asked, do you want me
Speaker 3: to leave? I'll leave and never come back. I'm not happy.
Speaker 3: Here on the recording, Munchie could be heard sobbing. Night
Speaker 3: then told the jury the defendant thought that the hierarchy
Speaker 3: of human beings was where men were always superior to women.
Speaker 3: He told the jury about the gravances list found on
Speaker 3: Joseph's notes and the script he drafted about what to
Speaker 3: say to detectives. Testimony then began. Jurors listened to nine
Speaker 3: hours of audio recordings between Joseph and Mungchi from the
Speaker 3: ten months before she disappeared. The couple had often given
Speaker 3: each other massages as a way to be intimate, but
Speaker 3: even those moments had become rare and, by Joseph's own
Speaker 3: words in one recording, unsatisfying to him. Then came the
Speaker 3: technical evidence. Self phone data plotted Joseph's movements after munk
Speaker 3: Chie vanished maps that placed him in the area of
Speaker 3: South Rock Quarry Road, the very place where her remains
Speaker 3: would later be found. It had rained on the day
Speaker 3: he drove out there. Investigators searched the apartment on the
Speaker 3: seventeenth of October. Police photographed muddy boots and collected them
Speaker 3: as evidence. A trial, Will Randall of the Missouri Highway
Speaker 3: Patrol Crime Lab testified that soil from those boots was
Speaker 3: similar to soil at the site where Munchie's body was found.
Speaker 3: Another expert testified that juniper needles recovered from the boots
Speaker 3: and from the gravesite were also a match. Patholo just
Speaker 3: Keith Norton told the jury he couldn't establish a precise
Speaker 3: time of death due to the passage of time and
Speaker 3: the condition of the remains, but he confirmed that her
Speaker 3: death was caused by another person. He also said it
Speaker 3: was highly unlikely that the pattern of broken ribs had
Speaker 3: come from a simple fall. On the ninth of November,
Speaker 3: the court room fell silent as Joseph Ellige took to
Speaker 3: the stand. He described a turbulent relationship. He said that
Speaker 3: he and mung Chi communicated differently because of their backgrounds
Speaker 3: and cultures, claiming he spoke in metaphors she didn't understand,
Speaker 3: while she raised unrelated past events During arguments that spiraled,
Speaker 3: He told the jury he sometimes perceived misunderstandings as attacks
Speaker 3: because it was difficult to understand each other. He spoke
Speaker 3: about the period when Mungchi's parents came from China to
Speaker 3: help with the baby. I felt very isolated and like
Speaker 3: I was being pushed out of my own home. By
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, he said, he'd begun contemplating divorce. Their intimacy
Speaker 3: had dwindled, and in October, he claimed he discovered Mungchi
Speaker 3: had been having an emotional affair with a man in
Speaker 3: China on wee chat. They argued on the it of
Speaker 3: October twenty to nineteen, he said, and.
Speaker 10: She pushed me once or twice, and before I pushed
Speaker 10: her back.
Speaker 8: Well, you say you pushed her back? Was it just
Speaker 8: a gentle push?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: It was it was hard.
Speaker 8: How hard tell the jury how hard you pushed her back?
Speaker 5: It was very hard. I was. Do you remember she
Speaker 5: ran into like the kitchen counter.
Speaker 8: And when she hit the kitchen counter, did you know
Speaker 8: whether she was hurt.
Speaker 5: She kind of like screamed about it.
Speaker 8: Did she come back at you?
Speaker 5: Yes, she did very quickly.
Speaker 8: Very quickly. So this is happening in what a blink
Speaker 8: of an eye?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 8: Were you choreographing it? Were you figuring out every move?
Speaker 8: Or was it just happening in the blink of an eye?
Speaker 5: It was just happening.
Speaker 8: And when she was hit on the counter and she
Speaker 8: came at you again, what was your reaction?
Speaker 10: I pushed her again, hard hard, I believen harder. She
Speaker 10: fell down here, her hit anything, she fell, she.
Speaker 6: Fell in the kitchen, and she her head hit with
Speaker 6: a big bug.
Speaker 5: I felt it.
Speaker 3: According to Joseph, Mungchi went to bed and when he
Speaker 3: woke the next morning, she was dead. He admitted he
Speaker 3: put her body in the trunk of the car and
Speaker 3: waited almost two days before driving to Rockbridge stay at
Speaker 3: Park with their daughter. There, he said he dug a
Speaker 3: grave and buried her. Prosecutor Knight challenged that version directly.
Speaker 3: He suggested that Joseph had killed Mungchi while giving her
Speaker 3: a massage, an intimate routine turned lethal. He asked, do
Speaker 3: you want to tell the jury how you really killed
Speaker 3: your wife?
Speaker 5: Joe.
Speaker 3: He revealed that urine was fond on the bed sheets,
Speaker 3: noting that people often urinate while being killed by asphyxiation.
Speaker 9: Did you hit her with a toolbox real hard, come
Speaker 9: down straight on that back.
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 9: Did you maybe stand up on top of her it
Speaker 9: chunk on top of her back?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 5: Did you suffocate her? No?
Speaker 9: Did just strangle her a cause of her urinates on
Speaker 9: the bed?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 9: You admitted there was urine on that bed, correct, Yes,
Speaker 9: you killed.
Speaker 5: Her on that bed of your honor overruled No.
Speaker 3: The defense floated an alternative explanation, the wild animals could
Speaker 3: have broken muncheese ribs after death. The prosecution conjured with
Speaker 3: the pathologist's assessment the sequence and location of the fractures
Speaker 3: were far more consistent with force applied by a person
Speaker 3: than with post mortem animal activity. With thought, the two
Speaker 3: competing narratives stood in stark relief. A fatal fall after
Speaker 3: a shove or deliberate killing carried out in the privacy
Speaker 3: of a home where fear and control had been documented
Speaker 3: for months. The trial drew to a close, and with
Speaker 3: it came the final words from both sides. Prosecutor Dan
Speaker 3: Knight stood before the jury and described Joseph ellige as
Speaker 3: nothing less than a stone cold killer. He reminded them
Speaker 3: of the damning audio recordings they had listened to throughout
Speaker 3: the trial, in which Joseph belittled, insulted, and threatened his
Speaker 3: wife over and over again. And I told the jury
Speaker 3: that these tapes revealed the true character of Joseph, a
Speaker 3: man who sought to control mung Chi and who ultimately
Speaker 3: silenced her forever. He urged them to hold him accountable,
Speaker 3: to find him guilty of firstgree murder. The defense, however,
Speaker 3: tried to paint a different picture. Joseph's attorney, Scott Rosenblum,
Speaker 3: acknowledged that his client was awkward, that he made dumb decisions,
Speaker 3: and that his actions in the day after Mungchi's disappearance
Speaker 3: were deeply sen suspicious, but he insisted that Joseph never
Speaker 3: in's handed to kill his wife. He argued that what
Speaker 3: happened wasn't murder but a tragic accident, and that Joseph's
Speaker 3: flaws as a husband didn't make him a killer. When
Speaker 3: the jury retired to deliberate, there was a heavy tension
Speaker 3: in the courtroom, or stracked on almost seven in total
Speaker 3: before the word finally came back that the jury had
Speaker 3: reached a verdict. The verdict was then read aloud, guilty
Speaker 3: of second degree murder. He was acquitted of the more
Speaker 3: serious charge of first degree murder. The jury then recommended
Speaker 3: a maximum sentence of twenty eight years in prison, and
Speaker 3: while the final decision would rest with the judge, the
Speaker 3: sentence couldn't exceed the jury's recommendation. On the seventh of
Speaker 3: January twenty twenty two, everybody returned to court for sentencing.
Speaker 3: Monky's parents weren't there, but her friend Louise Hall invited
Speaker 3: a victim impact statement.
Speaker 11: I still can't hear her, loving her voice, her lovely face,
Speaker 11: Like still can see that. So this is really pample
Speaker 11: to me. He want us to kind of play with us,
Speaker 11: He told us when she was gone, because she was
Speaker 11: a bad mother, she left her baby away. He wanted
Speaker 11: us to think Moncei is.
Speaker 8: A bad person.
Speaker 11: So this really hurt us a lot, and especially what
Speaker 11: he did to Mons.
Speaker 3: The judge then handed down the maximum punishment alloud, twenty
Speaker 3: eight years behind bars. It was a number that felt
Speaker 3: both heavy and to some insufficient. Outside the courtroom, Monchi's family,
Speaker 3: represented by their attorney, Amy Saladay spoke to the wedding
Speaker 3: cameras her husband received one year for every year of
Speaker 3: her life. This doesn't bring her back, It doesn't mean
Speaker 3: the nightmare of waking up every day and not being
Speaker 3: able to talk or see your child go away. But
Speaker 3: it is justice in terms of what the American court
Speaker 3: system can provide. In February of twenty twenty two, Joseph
Speaker 3: Ellich returned to court to resolve the remaining charges against him.
Speaker 3: He pleaded guilty to child abuse and endangerment stemming from
Speaker 3: the injuries he had inflicted on his daughter Anna. The
Speaker 3: judge ordered him to serve an additional ten years on
Speaker 3: top of his twenty eight year sentence for Munchie's murder.
Speaker 3: The case marked the end of a long chapter for
Speaker 3: prosecutor Dan Knight, who had guided the investigation and trial
Speaker 3: from the earliest days of Munchie's disappearance. On the fourth
Speaker 3: of June twenty twenty two, just months after the trial concluded,
Speaker 3: news broke that night had been found dead in his home.
Speaker 3: He had taken his own life. Well that is it
Speaker 3: for this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so
Speaker 3: much for listening, and I'd like to say a massive
Speaker 3: thank you to my newest supporters up on petron Kalia, Rebecca, Chris, Justin,
Speaker 3: and Kelly. You're support upon their seriously goes such a
Speaker 3: long way and I am eternally grateful. In exchange for
Speaker 3: your support, I upload add free and early release episodes
Speaker 3: of Morbidology, and I also upload behind the scenes which
Speaker 3: includes bonus audio videos and case files. This episode actually
Speaker 3: has a whole bunch of bonus videos into the investigation
Speaker 3: that I received via a freedom of information request, so
Speaker 3: head on over there if you're interested. I also upload
Speaker 3: both episodes of Morbidology plus that aren't on the regular
Speaker 3: podcast platforms, and these are also available on Apple subscriptions
Speaker 3: as well. Remember to check as out at morbidology dot
Speaker 3: com for more information about this episode and to read
Speaker 3: some true Grime articles. Until next time, take care of yourselves,
Speaker 3: stay safe, and have an amazing week.