Speaker 1: Hello, my friend.
Speaker 2: Hello, we are back for episode two of Are you
Speaker 2: ready for it?
Speaker 3: B Gay Solve Crime?
Speaker 1: That's it?
Speaker 4: Yes, And you know what's so crazy is like I
Speaker 4: didn't get it until I said it out loud and
Speaker 4: everybody else was like, duh, that's everywhere.
Speaker 2: So for those who may not know, it's a play
Speaker 2: off of Begay Do Crime. So that's like a a
Speaker 2: saying that's out there. As far as I don't know,
Speaker 2: i've seen any link T.
Speaker 1: Shirts and stuff, Yeah, well now I have them.
Speaker 3: So now Allie's educated.
Speaker 1: Educated on this pop culture that I've missed.
Speaker 2: Our goal here is to solve crime and tell stories
Speaker 2: of true crime. Really at the forefront of our desire
Speaker 2: to do this is the murder of Katie Janis that
Speaker 2: happened in Atlanta, where Ali and I both live.
Speaker 3: I'm in Atlanta native Ali. You've lived here for.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many years, twenty plus years. And
Speaker 2: Katie was a queer woman that lived in Atlanta that
Speaker 2: worked at some of the bars in midtown, very well
Speaker 2: known around the queer community. I do know that she
Speaker 2: was very private. That was something that I just read
Speaker 2: about her recently because I was kind of like, why
Speaker 2: are there not more people talking about this. From what
Speaker 2: I've I've read her, she was a private person, and
Speaker 2: you know, we want to respect that, but also I
Speaker 2: think that no matter how private you are.
Speaker 3: You deserve justice, absolutely crime to be solved.
Speaker 4: So and there really hasn't been much. You don't see
Speaker 4: interviews about this, You don't. It was sort of like
Speaker 4: it was big news, but everybody was scared where we.
Speaker 1: Live after it happened, but then nothing right.
Speaker 2: We want to kind of bring more attention to this
Speaker 2: case and also just kind of maybe help people to
Speaker 2: kind of think about some avenues that are possible. So
Speaker 2: you know, we're interviewing people to get their take and
Speaker 2: hopefully lead this down.
Speaker 3: The path of being resolved. So, Ali, would you like
Speaker 3: to introduce our guests that you.
Speaker 1: Leave for us?
Speaker 4: So we have Steph where to us here and she
Speaker 4: is a master police officer from Southwest Florida who also
Speaker 4: worked did detective work for multiple years in Florida. And
Speaker 4: I had a pretty lengthy conversation with Steph and realized
Speaker 4: she would add a lot more to this topic because
Speaker 4: you and I admittedly don't know a lot about detective work.
Speaker 2: And it's so I have a degree from like Dateline
Speaker 2: University exactly.
Speaker 4: And not only that, it's like it's so easy to
Speaker 4: cast stones.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that I said to
Speaker 1: Steph is like, this feel so easy, Like why didn't
Speaker 1: they do this? Tell me why? So I don't know it.
Speaker 4: Sometimes there's a lot of reasons why, and I think
Speaker 4: so to get a professional on feels like the right
Speaker 4: thing to do.
Speaker 3: So Seth, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5: Sure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: One of the things that immediately I think the biggest
Speaker 4: glaring thing about this crime is it was just so gruesome,
Speaker 4: Like it's not just like a murder that happens because
Speaker 4: you're robbing someone or you're This was a murder that
Speaker 4: took place at a very public, very popular park in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: and the crime scene included mutilation, it included It was
Speaker 4: so heinous of a crime that it kind of shook everybody.
Speaker 4: And so I think let's start there. Because one of
Speaker 4: the things you said to me that was really interesting
Speaker 4: was the mode of the killing was stabbing wounds. It
Speaker 4: was like, gosh, Melissa, fifty stab wounds. And one of
Speaker 4: the things Steph mentioned right away is the proxy that
Speaker 4: person must have had to her and her dog. So
Speaker 4: what I guess say more about that because I thought
Speaker 4: that was interesting.
Speaker 1: What you said.
Speaker 5: There's all different types of reasons why people will commit
Speaker 5: crimes or specifically homicides. I mean, there's crimes of passion,
Speaker 5: there's revenge, there's greed, there's flat out just mental illness
Speaker 5: where there's no rhyme or reason. So with the knife
Speaker 5: n knife attacks are more difficult just because you do
Speaker 5: have to get closer to that person. We have described
Speaker 5: them more in a more like intimate with knife stabbings
Speaker 5: because you know, you kind of have to look at
Speaker 5: the person while you're doing it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: Whereas if they had a firearm or you know, just
Speaker 5: shot them, they could do it from a distance. They
Speaker 5: don't have to get very close. And the number of
Speaker 5: times she was stabbed is super aggressive in overkill. So
Speaker 5: for me personally, it doesn't sound random, but it's possible.
Speaker 5: But for the amount of stab wounds, the fact that
Speaker 5: the dog was killed as well, the fact that something
Speaker 5: was carved into her, that sounds kind of personal to me.
Speaker 2: That's kind of how we've felt or it either personal
Speaker 2: or maybe some form of hate crime.
Speaker 5: Hate drives a lot of things as well.
Speaker 2: And we've also Ali and I have talked about too
Speaker 2: that you know, maybe she was, you know, walking through
Speaker 2: the park sometimes you see the same people. She might
Speaker 2: have been familiar with someone enough that they were able
Speaker 2: to get that close to her, just someone that she
Speaker 2: saw out and about kind of frequently.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, But to kill like the dog, like to me,
Speaker 4: like what always like haunts me is that to kill
Speaker 4: a pit ball and its owner. First of all, you've
Speaker 4: got to be so out of your mind because you're
Speaker 4: that's scary in of itself. But also they had time,
Speaker 4: it's like the minute, let's if they can killed the
Speaker 4: dog first, she would have been watching that and so
Speaker 4: essentially like she would have had I don't know, some
Speaker 4: moment to scream or some moment to nobody heard anything.
Speaker 4: If somebody is screaming at the park in that location,
Speaker 4: there is zero percent chance that nobody heard because it's
Speaker 4: there's people ever.
Speaker 3: Even at that time of night.
Speaker 1: And then at that time of.
Speaker 4: Night, or they killed her first. But if they killed
Speaker 4: her first, that dog would have been going that shit crazy.
Speaker 5: So it would have been very difficult to kill the dog, right.
Speaker 5: I think that maybe the dog was killed first. Who
Speaker 5: knows where this person was at the time. They could
Speaker 5: have been hiding in a bush, They could have been,
Speaker 5: like you said, somebody that she knew, and she just
Speaker 5: didn't think twice about it, and then they had enough
Speaker 5: time to do what they did.
Speaker 2: From what I've read, the dog actually did manage to
Speaker 2: bite the person. They were able to get like a
Speaker 2: small amount of DNA, but then I really haven't heard
Speaker 2: much from that further, So I kind of wonder or
Speaker 2: if like whatever DNA they found was just too minimal
Speaker 2: or it wasn't a match to anything, Like how does
Speaker 2: that kind of thing work.
Speaker 5: I'm not a forensic scientist or person that deals with DNA,
Speaker 5: and so I would assume that they maybe swabbed the
Speaker 5: dog's mouth, even if there's no blood in the dog's mouth.
Speaker 5: You know, if the dog sinks his teeth into human flesh,
Speaker 5: there's got to be some sort of remnants there to
Speaker 5: be able to get on a swab sample buckle swab. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And sometimes it's just it's not enough of a sample
Speaker 5: to have anything turn.
Speaker 2: Out as far as like the database goes like, how
Speaker 2: would that if there was enough, like is it? You know,
Speaker 2: it goes in those database, but it's only people that
Speaker 2: have like some kind of like criminal history that they're
Speaker 2: looking into.
Speaker 5: It's called CODIS Combined DNA Index System, So it's ran
Speaker 5: by the FBI. It's managed by the FBI, and basically
Speaker 5: they put everyone that has been an offender, arrested, or
Speaker 5: have legal files, they place them in this database. That's
Speaker 5: where you're gonna get your comparisons from. So if they're
Speaker 5: not in that system, then yeah, you're not gonna get
Speaker 5: a hit. You might be able to get some information
Speaker 5: from it, like the donor is mail's that's about the
Speaker 5: extent of it. You're not gonna get a ton.
Speaker 1: Would it ever be like that?
Speaker 4: They would have said, we've got this little bit of DNA,
Speaker 4: We're gonna basically go into the park and the group
Speaker 4: of homeless people that live there or the regular people
Speaker 4: that are in the park, We're just gonna ask for
Speaker 4: DNA samples or is that like? Nobody's going to that
Speaker 4: extent even if they haven't have to be at You
Speaker 4: have to get a warrant.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you gotta get warrants for pretty much everything. It's
Speaker 5: it's just your safety blanket for us. Even if we
Speaker 5: had consent, we would still go the length of getting
Speaker 5: a warrant, just because we wanted to make sure that
Speaker 5: everything would be admissible in court later down the road.
Speaker 4: And it's like if someone had a dog bite, depending
Speaker 4: on how severe it is, that again seems like there
Speaker 4: would have been someone in Atlanta that would have been like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's weird, my friend has a dog bite.
Speaker 5: Yeah, or they went to the hospital, maybe to get
Speaker 5: it treated or you know, get a shot, but they
Speaker 5: might have the mindset up if I do that, it's
Speaker 5: got to be reported because in Florida, if you get
Speaker 5: bit by an animal, you have to go and you
Speaker 5: go to the hospital, get it treated.
Speaker 3: You have to do like a Raby's report or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Melissa, do you know the extent of the dog bite?
Speaker 2: Like, I don't, Okay, I mean, it could have been
Speaker 2: a nip, but I would I mean, I've been bitten
Speaker 2: by a Yorki and it broke my skin, you know,
Speaker 2: so I would imagine even if it wasn't knit by
Speaker 2: a pit bull, it's gonna do a little bit of damage,
Speaker 2: but maybe not to the extent that they needed medical treatment,
Speaker 2: or you know, they just treated it themselves and took
Speaker 2: the risk. But I think that kind of leads into
Speaker 2: the other part of like this in my eyes, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've watched too much Dexter, but
Speaker 2: it sounds like it's a very bloody crime scene and
Speaker 2: the person that did it the blood and the slipperiness
Speaker 2: of the blood and you end up cutting your own hand,
Speaker 2: but also just being completely covered, Like how does someone
Speaker 2: just walk away and not be noticed.
Speaker 4: Or even stripping off their clothes. I mean, there's just
Speaker 4: so much trail there.
Speaker 5: You compare the park to the size of the Central Park,
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 1: That's Atlanta's version of some park.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred and eighty nine acres, so there is
Speaker 2: a lot of like woods and stuff like that to
Speaker 2: kind of dunk in it out of. There's a pond
Speaker 2: in the middle that they could have They did drag
Speaker 2: the pond and search it. There weren't neither like murder
Speaker 2: weapons found, but I kind of wonder if like they
Speaker 2: could have even just gone and swam through the pond
Speaker 2: and gotten a lot of blood off of them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when you're in a park that has bushes and
Speaker 5: trees and little nooks and crannies that you can hide into,
Speaker 5: it's pretty easy to conceal yourself. I would think, especially
Speaker 5: if it's dark out.
Speaker 2: As a former investigator of these kind of crimes, like,
Speaker 2: how would you or your team, you know, what would
Speaker 2: you guys have done in that instance as far as
Speaker 2: like because one of the things that stood out to
Speaker 2: Ally and I is that they didn't really I mean,
Speaker 2: of course the crime scene was roped off, but the
Speaker 2: rest of the park, you know, like I would feel
Speaker 2: like that's like a gigantic crime scene.
Speaker 5: We would definitely rope off the immediate scene because you
Speaker 5: only get that scene once. As soon as you close it,
Speaker 5: that evidence is gone. You want to secure and preserve
Speaker 5: that area as best as you can. Would I close
Speaker 5: off the rest of the park probably, And then you know,
Speaker 5: once we process the immediate scene, then we start looking
Speaker 5: around that surrounding areas of the immediate scene, so it
Speaker 5: would be the rest of the park, and maybe have
Speaker 5: other officers kind of comb through sections of that park
Speaker 5: with canines or anything that can do like an article search.
Speaker 5: You know, articles include guns and knives and clothes, and
Speaker 5: just go through that just to see if anything could
Speaker 5: be found. And then if nothing comes comes about, then yeah,
Speaker 5: you open up up the majority of the park. But
Speaker 5: I think that would have been a good idea at least,
Speaker 5: you know, check that box.
Speaker 4: I don't even remember there being like that is now
Speaker 4: that you mentioned it, the canine thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, canines could have.
Speaker 4: Found a lot of evidence blood. So I mean, isn't
Speaker 4: that like one of the main things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I don't.
Speaker 4: I remember jogging very soon after that crime, and I
Speaker 4: could see where it was taped off. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: how little they were. It wasn't a big area roped off.
Speaker 4: It was a tiny area roped off. But it's like
Speaker 4: if they had done it like a canine, I don't
Speaker 4: remember seeing canines.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were there and I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they could have.
Speaker 2: They probably would have done that immediately after, right like
Speaker 2: before sunrise.
Speaker 5: You know, just rope off the entire park, have officers
Speaker 5: whatever entrances are available, and just say that parts closed
Speaker 5: at this yeah time.
Speaker 2: I mean, they could have done that, you know, immediately
Speaker 2: after and then then like let's you know, open the
Speaker 2: park back up. But it was just between those hours
Speaker 2: that we know of that it was open like the
Speaker 2: next morning. But I also wondered too if like waiting
Speaker 2: until the sun came up and doing another sweep with daylight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that would have been beneficial as well.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things that we've kind of
Speaker 2: been told by a couple people is that, you know,
Speaker 2: Atlanta's it's not the safest city on the planet, but
Speaker 2: we feel relatively safe. I've been in Pimont Park hundreds
Speaker 2: of times. I lived across the street, like literally across
Speaker 2: the street from there for a couple of years. I
Speaker 2: have a condo now that's like a few blocks away.
Speaker 2: I've never felt unsafe in that park, but I mean,
Speaker 2: we were scared there for a little while, and like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, people have kind.
Speaker 5: Of dropped it.
Speaker 2: And I know that the police department's busy in itself
Speaker 2: with a million other things.
Speaker 3: But to me, I'm like, this seems like a really
Speaker 3: scary crime.
Speaker 2: Why isn't it. It doesn't feel prioritized. I guess it's
Speaker 2: my ultimate point here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sort of all asking you the question, because I
Speaker 4: this is something you and I talked about, is do
Speaker 4: you feel like like one of our friends that's a
Speaker 4: police officer here. She said, unless there's a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure from family or the community, they sort of there's
Speaker 4: too many so they don't really prioritize it unless it's
Speaker 4: on TV and pressure and we got to do this,
Speaker 4: and I'm curious, like, I think, what the question I
Speaker 4: asked you is do they You said they keep working
Speaker 4: on cold cases, but like in this case, her family
Speaker 4: didn't live here. The part I think everybody in the
Speaker 4: immediate vicinity was kind of I don't know, what would
Speaker 4: you say. Maybe they were so sad they just wanted
Speaker 4: it to be over and didn't. It didn't feel like
Speaker 4: after two weeks went by, there was any pressure at all,
Speaker 4: Like I don't I remember it just being all right,
Speaker 4: I guess we're all going back to the park like
Speaker 4: it's done.
Speaker 1: That was how I felt.
Speaker 4: How do they prioritize these cases when after two weeks
Speaker 4: it's not solved.
Speaker 5: Well, every agency is different, you know, we spoke about mine.
Speaker 5: We have five detectives. When a homicide occurs, we drop
Speaker 5: everything else that we're working and we it's all hands
Speaker 5: on deck towards working that homicide and trying to close
Speaker 5: it out. We don't have the call volume life Atlanta
Speaker 5: HEDI does. So I don't know the extent of how
Speaker 5: many homicides they have a year, but maybe they just
Speaker 5: don't have the luxury of being able to work one
Speaker 5: super super long, especially if they're if their leads are
Speaker 5: running dry and it's starting to go cold, and you
Speaker 5: mentioned pressure. Pressure does it helps? I mean, especially when
Speaker 5: you try to go to the news and things like that,
Speaker 5: and you know, police departments don't want to look bad,
Speaker 5: so pressure does help. But I think with Atlanta and
Speaker 5: their amount of call volume, it just sounds like they
Speaker 5: were running out of leads.
Speaker 1: But do you ever run out of leads?
Speaker 4: Like it's almost like your leads never dry up if
Speaker 4: you do every single stone. But I wonder like, at
Speaker 4: what point are they just like this is low, Like
Speaker 4: we're not going to work on this anymore, because it's
Speaker 4: probably fruitless.
Speaker 5: They would just have to think outside the box. Leads
Speaker 5: can run dry, for sure, That's why cases go cold.
Speaker 4: One thing stuff said to me on our pre call
Speaker 4: was just but a cell phone is a journal of
Speaker 4: the what happened. And I say more about that because
Speaker 4: I think that's so true with everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, your life is there, Oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, everybody puts everything out there. We can say if
Speaker 5: we do a forensic download on a phone, if that
Speaker 5: person had social media, we can do a warrant for that,
Speaker 5: whether it's Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, we can look at all
Speaker 5: of their logs for that. We can look at all
Speaker 5: their previous photos, we can look at their most recent communications,
Speaker 5: their text message threads. Who they were talking to within
Speaker 5: the last twenty four to forty eight hours of their life.
Speaker 5: You know, you want to try to build that, try
Speaker 5: to figure out what their life looked like prior to
Speaker 5: their murder, at least twenty four to forty eight hours.
Speaker 5: We do the same thing with suicides. We want to
Speaker 5: try to figure out where they were mentally, who they
Speaker 5: were talking to. I remember I had a case where
Speaker 5: it was said it was a female and it was
Speaker 5: an accidental hanging. It was all captured on her phone.
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
Speaker 5: So you know, with homicides you have to work it
Speaker 5: is it a homicide, is it an accident or is
Speaker 5: it a suicide? And you have to kind of roll
Speaker 5: which one it is. So this case was fairly easy
Speaker 5: for me to solve because I found everything on her phone.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: I had another homicide case where we were able to
Speaker 5: pol the phone logs from the victim and we're seeing
Speaker 5: like just phone numbers maybe from the last twenty four
Speaker 5: hours to forty eight hours, and we had a spreadsheet
Speaker 5: of the phone numbers and we went through each phone
Speaker 5: number trying to figure out who it belonged to, who
Speaker 5: the service was, and we were able to figure out
Speaker 5: a person of interest and seeing that he was in
Speaker 5: communication with his killer.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so.
Speaker 5: A ton of a ton of information that is in that.
Speaker 4: Phone, which it makes me, like you think, certainly they
Speaker 4: went through her phone that, yeah.
Speaker 5: I would give The first things I would do is
Speaker 5: do a forensic download on her phone.
Speaker 4: And it is such a blurry line between like to
Speaker 4: your point, like the person it seemingly wasn't had some
Speaker 4: kind of intimacy with her to get that close with
Speaker 4: her and her pet with no noise being made, but
Speaker 4: also mental illness like you said, where it's just completely
Speaker 4: fucking random, like you just lose your head and do
Speaker 4: something crazy, But there is some overlap there like obviously
Speaker 4: the person even in a crime of passion or if
Speaker 4: you get close enough, you're mentally ill, so I can
Speaker 4: see where like there's no it's hard to like give
Speaker 4: a profile to somebody because it's just so many things.
Speaker 5: One end, it could be this person was a complete
Speaker 5: psychopath and had no empathy and was completely mentally ill.
Speaker 5: And sometimes with mentally ill people, you could look at
Speaker 5: them the wrong way and they just you know, they
Speaker 5: snap right. But there's no real logic behind their actions,
Speaker 5: whereas if you take somebody that's just suffering from like
Speaker 5: revenge or there's more a methodical plan, there's more, there's
Speaker 5: still logic behind it. They're just so overwhelmed with that
Speaker 5: emotion that it takes him to an extreme length.
Speaker 3: Like the crime of passion thing.
Speaker 2: To me, that doesn't it would not be this brutal
Speaker 2: I don't know, or maybe like someone would use a
Speaker 2: gun in that case. To me, it's just like, wow,
Speaker 2: that sounds like something a serial killer would do. But
Speaker 2: again that's also like all the datelines and scary movies
Speaker 2: and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But also it's like you never know.
Speaker 2: It could Like there was a serial killer in fairly
Speaker 2: recent years, this guy named Israel Keys. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if you're familiar with that case, but he had kill
Speaker 2: kits like buried around the country, like legit buckets that
Speaker 2: he buried underground and just had in certain areas. If
Speaker 2: he decided that he wanted to go to this area
Speaker 2: kill somebody and then gone.
Speaker 3: I know, it's wild.
Speaker 2: But I also feel like, you know, the day and
Speaker 2: age of like serial killers getting away with stuff like
Speaker 2: that is long gone. There's so many cameras and DNA
Speaker 2: and all those things. But at the same time, this
Speaker 2: crime is like, well, the cameras weren't great or they
Speaker 2: weren't working, and there wasn't any DNA like that we
Speaker 2: can use.
Speaker 5: Although that's a thing that was interesting to me that
Speaker 5: who knows, maybe the killer knew that maybe the killer
Speaker 5: works for the park or something, you know, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe they knew the cameras weren't working, maybe they knew
Speaker 5: the exact spot to do it at or the best
Speaker 5: path to take as soon as it was done to
Speaker 5: where they wouldn't be seen.
Speaker 4: There were cameras in the city around in the you know,
Speaker 4: adjacent restaurants and bars. And then also the risk taking involved,
Speaker 4: Like if you're somebody who's a serial killer, I don't know,
Speaker 4: is do you get off on like doing it in
Speaker 4: a way that's like I might get caught. It feels
Speaker 4: like you would more, Okay, some people do, because, like,
Speaker 4: to me, the riskiness, they picked one of the most
Speaker 4: popular entrances to that entire park.
Speaker 1: To me, it's like, I don't it's that feels so risky.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, there's even a specific unit with the
Speaker 5: FBI that does that. They profile behavioral profilers, and that's
Speaker 5: how they came up with the term serial killer. I
Speaker 5: don't know if you ever there was actual show Mindhunters.
Speaker 5: I think it was called Okay, they go into that
Speaker 5: how that unit, that behavioral unit was formed. So it's just, yeah,
Speaker 5: some of these psychopaths they get off on the risk
Speaker 5: or they get off on the actual killing, and it's
Speaker 5: all psyche related and what drives them. So you just
Speaker 5: never you just never know.
Speaker 2: Well, and also I'm thinking sitting here thinking too, just
Speaker 2: like the BTK killer Dennis Rader, he was like a
Speaker 2: boy scout leader like this dad, you know, a very
Speaker 2: normal life and was doing all this weirdo shit and
Speaker 2: got away with it for years.
Speaker 5: But they tend to do the same thing. So I
Speaker 5: would say that would raise a flag for me if
Speaker 5: it was a serial killer. Have there been any other
Speaker 5: homicides in a similar way with similar things carved into
Speaker 5: the skin?
Speaker 3: And yeah, well.
Speaker 2: That kind of leads into one of the speculations that
Speaker 2: I had, which I don't know how much this checks out. Like.
Speaker 3: I haven't done a whole.
Speaker 2: Deep dive on this, but it does seem kind of
Speaker 2: similar to the Idaho four case in that brutal stabbing,
Speaker 2: random and the one of the guy victim in that
Speaker 2: case had something carved on him.
Speaker 3: I can't remember.
Speaker 4: Wait really yeah in Idaho, m I didn't even remember that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, I know he did the killings, I
Speaker 1: just didn't don't.
Speaker 2: I know he was in Pennsylvania, That's where his parents lived,
Speaker 2: you know, like could he have been in Atlanta time?
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 2: But again that's all like massive speculation, but it does
Speaker 2: seem like a little similar. I've always kind of felt
Speaker 2: like the Idaho four case wasn't wasn't necessarily his first
Speaker 2: time doing that, because I feel like the first time
Speaker 2: you're doing something like that, you're not going to like
Speaker 2: leave shit behind.
Speaker 5: Well you know how he got caught because he actually
Speaker 5: did leave something.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: That to me says like he's a little bit too
Speaker 2: comfortable in that moment, not keeping track of like one
Speaker 2: of the few items that he has on him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think he was nervous. I don't think
Speaker 5: he's he's he killed before, you know, he was what
Speaker 5: a criminology major or something like that. Yeah, trying to
Speaker 5: bring it to life everything that he's learned and trying
Speaker 5: to see if he could actually get away with murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But yeah, he messed up. He made a mistake.
Speaker 2: But I just feel like the first time that you're
Speaker 2: doing that, are you really going after four people at once?
Speaker 2: Or do you start first with a random, random person
Speaker 2: in the park.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think he knew that there was going
Speaker 5: to be four people in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. I think I've read that as well.
Speaker 4: So and he gives like in cell vibes like the
Speaker 4: kid who just never got the girl.
Speaker 1: He's like pissed off.
Speaker 3: But so does this crime in some ways to me.
Speaker 3: You know, like there's a lot of people that have
Speaker 3: a lot of.
Speaker 2: Hate towards lesbian women, men that feel that way, they
Speaker 2: feel intimidated by them or a little angry, you know
Speaker 2: that they quote want to be a man. You ever,
Speaker 2: I've heard before like why why do lesbians want to
Speaker 2: be men?
Speaker 3: Why do they dress like men? All those things?
Speaker 2: And you know that in cell mindset of like this
Speaker 2: is being taken from.
Speaker 4: Me, right, and maybe just was like waiting for some
Speaker 4: gay person to come across the path.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that murder was something else. A lot of questions there,
Speaker 5: A lot of questions there. You have to taper down
Speaker 5: through further investigation and evidence and see where that points
Speaker 5: to you. Witness statements, you know, whatever evidence was collected,
Speaker 5: have it processed? You what comes back?
Speaker 1: And even the person that they heard on the nine
Speaker 1: one one call. I remember there being some joggers that
Speaker 1: they looked for.
Speaker 4: They put the jogger up on the news and said,
Speaker 4: does anyone recognize this person? They are not a suspect.
Speaker 4: We just want to talk to them about what they
Speaker 4: saw that night. And I remember that, but I don't
Speaker 4: remember the person on the nine one one call ever
Speaker 4: being interviewed. I feel like that's an obvious interview. Do
Speaker 4: you remember that, Melissa, like anything about that person you
Speaker 4: hear on that.
Speaker 2: I don't, But I mean I would think that something
Speaker 2: like that would be like top of mind.
Speaker 1: I would have thought the park was closed.
Speaker 4: And it's like I'm getting to a place of like
Speaker 4: maybe I don't know, like it's almost like things just
Speaker 4: were left unchecked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure that person was questioned.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that like that seems like, you know, my
Speaker 2: eleven year old would think that.
Speaker 1: My eleven year old would have said closed the park.
Speaker 4: Although do they stuff maybe you know how they say
Speaker 4: like criminals come back to the scene, Like I was thinking,
Speaker 4: trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, like
Speaker 4: maybe they left the park open to assess who shows up.
Speaker 1: That feels like a long shot, I mean, because I.
Speaker 5: Still would have processed the rest of the park.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was all over. I mean, my dirty tennis
Speaker 1: shoes all over.
Speaker 5: So did you know what had happened?
Speaker 1: Ally I knew, yeah pretty soon after.
Speaker 3: And you're like, let me go job over there.
Speaker 4: No, I wasn't like, let me go jog over but
Speaker 4: I was curious. Yeah, like it was so devastating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And again I mean just the location that happened is
Speaker 2: just because when I first heard it happened, I was like, man,
Speaker 2: that must have been somewhere like deep in the park, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, secluded, but it's it's really close to the
Speaker 2: street and very open part.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it sounded risky to do it. And you know,
Speaker 5: who knows if she was dragged. I dealt with the dogs.
Speaker 5: She was dragged, But you could tell that from the
Speaker 5: scene as well. You know, I just don't know what
Speaker 5: Atlanta found. I don't know what's in that file, but
Speaker 5: obviously it's it hasn't been.
Speaker 2: Fruitful, just not as many officers to get on the
Speaker 2: ground and cover stuff, and.
Speaker 5: So's everywhere everywhere feel that people are interested in anymore.
Speaker 2: It's is it that not as many people are interested
Speaker 2: in the field, or is it you know, the amount
Speaker 2: of money that departments have to put towards their police force.
Speaker 5: I think it's all the above. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 5: a career field that is admirable, but like a lot
Speaker 5: of people don't like you. You know, you never you
Speaker 5: never hear about somebody disliking a firefighter. It's a very
Speaker 5: thankless job. You know, it's tough to stay positive, it's
Speaker 5: tough to keep that purpose and in the forefront of
Speaker 5: you know, your path, and I think people are just
Speaker 5: seeing the risks and it's and it's just not worth it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, Gosha, it sounds very scary to me.
Speaker 2: You know, you never know what you're going to encounter
Speaker 2: every second of the day. I think it's a very
Speaker 2: admirable career, but you're right, it's like, yeah, for the
Speaker 2: last what ten fifteen years, it's definitely been in the spotlight.
Speaker 4: I do like the stuff so that they do when
Speaker 4: they like to become a detective. It's not just like
Speaker 4: they're they pick the bet you you apply for it,
Speaker 4: and then they pick the best person for the job.
Speaker 4: So it's not like just derelics are out being a
Speaker 4: text day.
Speaker 2: Like you think of the movie screen where they've got
Speaker 2: like Deputy Dewey trying to alve this good murder.
Speaker 1: That's not the case.
Speaker 4: It's easy to put holes and the way the investigation
Speaker 4: was done because they can't do every single thing.
Speaker 5: And that's part of why I love working for the
Speaker 5: smaller agency, just because it's not just one primary detective
Speaker 5: working that case. You know you're getting you're bouncing off
Speaker 5: your brainstorming with other detectives that are still are helping
Speaker 5: you on that particular investigation. You know, and a lot
Speaker 5: of my coworkers saw things that I didn't see. So
Speaker 5: it's it's super helpful when you have when you approach
Speaker 5: a homicide, or you have the opportunity to approach a
Speaker 5: homicide with a team versus larger agencies because they're spread
Speaker 5: so thin. You know, one detective is in charge of
Speaker 5: how many, you know, whatever their caseload is.
Speaker 2: And I think that's you know, like I said, that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why we're trying to like let's
Speaker 2: put everybody's head together and really think about what this
Speaker 2: could how this could have happened.
Speaker 5: And I'm sure they have. I'm sure Atlanta has, especially
Speaker 5: if leads were running cold, they try to reapproach it
Speaker 5: and get a different perspective and see what other avenues
Speaker 5: they can take.
Speaker 2: I will say that they every year they do news
Speaker 2: conference about it.
Speaker 3: You know, they've upped the reward money.
Speaker 2: There's always the reminder about the crime Stoppers line and
Speaker 2: how you can report anonymously. I know that a lot
Speaker 2: happens behind the scenes that we don't even know about.
Speaker 2: I know that there's things details of the case that
Speaker 2: they can't release, you know, there's it's part of the investigation.
Speaker 5: So well, it's still considered open too. If it was close,
Speaker 5: then yeah, you could get a lot of information out
Speaker 5: of it. But and then nowadays, even with rewards, people
Speaker 5: are scared. They're scared forward there to get information because
Speaker 5: anybody can look up anybody. Nowadays, it seems like, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: So true, absolutely yeah, so.
Speaker 3: They're twenty five grand.
Speaker 5: I'd be like, yeah, is it worth though to kind
Speaker 5: of stick your neck out for this crime to get solved?
Speaker 5: But who knows what's going to happen afterwards if you
Speaker 5: start getting hate mail or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there was actually just a a shooting
Speaker 2: here in Atlanta that happened outside of an elementary school.
Speaker 3: A woman was shot.
Speaker 2: By a guy, and there was someone who witnessed it.
Speaker 2: Like she said, the guy looked right at her and
Speaker 2: she was kind of like, don't shit me.
Speaker 3: He walked away. She was on like, I don't think
Speaker 3: it was the news.
Speaker 2: It was like this, you know this Instagram guy that
Speaker 2: does like Atlanta news. I wish I could remember his
Speaker 2: name right now because I plug him because he's funny.
Speaker 2: But he interviewed her and she was saying exactly what
Speaker 2: he looked like what happened.
Speaker 3: He looked me dead in the eyes.
Speaker 2: And I'm watching this and I'm like, dude, if I
Speaker 2: was that woman, I would not be on the news
Speaker 2: right now talking about this Like that sounds really like
Speaker 2: she's lucky he didn't do it in that moment.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, well that's why we have, you know, witness
Speaker 5: protection real thing.
Speaker 1: We are so appreciative that you came on staff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for having me again. This was really it
Speaker 5: was a neat experience.
Speaker 2: Again. You know, we're just kind of speculating, just feeling
Speaker 2: out what the possibilities here are because, like you know,
Speaker 2: we think that this we'll all unsolved cases deserve to
Speaker 2: be solved. You know, there's someone out here that can't
Speaker 2: speak for themselves anymore. So we appreciate your perspective and opinions,
Speaker 2: so sure problem.
Speaker 5: Thanks.
Speaker 4: Sources for this episode could be found in our show notes,
Speaker 4: and just a reminder, these are opinions and speculations surrounding
Speaker 4: this case and in no way an assumption or accusation
Speaker 4: of guilt towards any specific person