About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Solid Proof — “48 Hours" Full Episodes from 48 Hours, published August 17, 2026. The transcript contains 20,972 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"*music* Hey, Joe. Hi. Hey, it's Officer Joseph. So you said, uh, took your purse with her, right? Yeah. Um, phone. Do you have phones? Do you want it? It's here. Police officers first made contact with Joe Elledge on October 10th, 2019. Joe Elledge said that on October 8th, he'd gone to sleep with..."
[00:00:00] Speaker ?: *music*
[00:00:30] Speaker 1: Hey, Joe. Hi. Hey, it's Officer Joseph. So you said, uh, took your purse with her, right? Yeah. Um, phone.
[00:00:39] Speaker 2: Do you have phones? Do you want it? It's here.
[00:00:42] Speaker 3: Police officers first made contact with Joe Elledge on October 10th, 2019. Joe Elledge said that on October 8th, he'd gone to sleep with Monkshi at about 11, 11:30 or so, and then he woke up the next morning, and then he noticed that Monkshi was gone, vanished.
[00:01:04] Speaker 2: Her phone and her, her wedding ring were both, um, were both just left on that table. I can't unlock her phone. It's locked in. I don't know the password.
[00:01:15] Speaker 4: At the time that Monkshi G disappeared, she was a young married mother. She had a child who was one years old. Can you save me, lady? I think it's easy to see that Joe would have been attracted to Monkshi for her personality in terms of how caring she was.
[00:01:35] Speaker 5: We all know that she's a very successful young engineer, and she's really good at being a mom, and she had hopes for a brighter future in this marriage in Joseph Elledge.
[00:01:48] Speaker 3: At first blush, Facebook postings, you know, Instagram, you would see what appeared to be a happy family.
[00:01:58] Speaker 6: He was young people, got married, had a child, and circumstances changed, and arguments happened.
[00:02:06] Speaker 2: I talk too much. You, you need to know when to stop. You don't listen enough. You need to know when to listen.
[00:02:12] Speaker 6: So there was a total of 14 hours of audio recorded between the couple.
[00:02:18] Speaker 2: Right now, what's happening is just more of what I don't want.
[00:02:21] Speaker 7: Communication.
[00:02:23] Speaker 2: Lack of it.
[00:02:25] Speaker 6: He actually discovered that she was involved in an online relationship,
[00:02:30] Speaker 8: and he knew that there were some of these sexually explicit photos being sent back and forth. Correct.
[00:02:34] Speaker 2: I actually found this earlier. There's this, like, it's like a journal, and it talks about her having, like, some secret love. I think he's in China right now.
[00:02:47] Speaker 8: Did she ever express an interest in a future with this man, that perhaps she'd move back to China? There were discussions about a future.
[00:02:56] Speaker 3: We checked into whether or not there was maybe any contact with Uber, cab companies, had she bought an airline ticket. We were looking for any evidence of an electronic footprint.
[00:03:07] Speaker 2: I know she was talking to somebody else on the side, and whatever she's doing, I just hope she's safe.
[00:03:14] Speaker 3: I would have loved nothing more for her to just appear out of nowhere, alive, so she could take care of her daughter. But I knew that wasn't going to be the case. We had these boots that were found, and then we have five juniper needles that are caked into the boots.
[00:03:33] Speaker 8: And these needles, where did they come from?
[00:03:36] Speaker 3: We had three needles that came from that tree right there. Who would have ever thought it? DNA from these juniper trees helped solve this crime.
[00:03:47] Speaker 8: I've never heard of anything like this before in my entire career at 48 Hours.
[00:03:58] Speaker ?: I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before. I've never heard of anything like this before.
[00:04:19] Speaker 9: We have a seat right there.
[00:04:41] Speaker 8: On October 15, 2019, Joseph Elledge walked into the Columbia, Missouri Police Department without a lawyer. To tell detectives about the mysterious disappearance of his 28-year-old wife, Meng Xie Ji, six days earlier.
[00:04:59] Speaker 9: We didn't have any big fights. I think the last big fight was actually the week before. It wasn't really a big fight.
[00:05:06] Speaker 8: The 23-year-old described his wife as tense and withdrawn the night before she disappeared. So he gave her a massage.
[00:05:14] Speaker 9: I was doing it kind of slow. I was trying to drag it out because I wanted to extend the amount of time that we were together doing something.
[00:05:23] Speaker 8: According to Joe, Meng Xie eventually went to sleep, saying she had to be somewhere in the
[00:05:29] Speaker 9: morning. I asked her about three times, "Who is she meeting?" And her answer was, just quote, "me." You mean, she wouldn't tell me who she was meeting or where she was going, what she was doing.
[00:05:38] Speaker 8: The next morning, Joe says he woke up alone. His wife was gone.
[00:05:45] Speaker 3: He was claiming she had just disappeared. That she had left her little girl behind. Her phone was left behind. Her car, her car keys were left behind.
[00:06:01] Speaker 8: From the beginning, then Boone County prosecuting attorney Dan Knight had doubts about Joe's story.
[00:06:07] Speaker 3: We were trying our best to leave no stones unturned, but there were a lot of stones.
[00:06:16] Speaker 8: Joe told investigators that after his wife disappeared, he found journal entries on her computer, where she'd written about an online emotional affair she was having with a man living in China.
[00:06:29] Speaker 9: And then last paragraph said, "It's sad, though, that I have no interest in my husband."
[00:06:35] Speaker 8: The day Joe spoke with detectives, he also did an exclusive interview with our local CBS affiliate, KRCG, and implied that his wife may have left him for another man.
[00:06:47] Speaker 2: I hope that she's at least with somebody who cares for her, you know, enough to keep her
[00:06:53] Speaker 8: safe. Joe and his family hired attorney Scott Rosenblum, who points out there were intimate texts between Mon Shiji and the man she was communicating with. Sexual in nature. Very sexual. Texts like this one, where she wrote, "I want you so much right now." And did she ever express love for him in any of these communications? She did. The question was, had Mon Shiji run off to be with that man who lived in China where she was born?
[00:07:28] Speaker 4: Mon Shiji was born during China's one-child policy.
[00:07:32] Speaker 8: Amy Saladay is the G family's attorney.
[00:07:35] Speaker 4: But Kay Ren, Mon Shiji's mother, would say that we only ever wanted one child. We wanted to give all of our love to this child.
[00:07:46] Speaker 5: Mon Shiji is like the kid all the parents would want.
[00:07:50] Speaker 8: Yau Li is a Chinese immigrant and an assistant prosecutor in Boone County, who helped Dan Knight communicate with Mon Shiji's parents.
[00:07:59] Speaker 5: They are really, really proud of her. And I know how hard it is to get into a top university in Shanghai and Beijing. The competition is really intense and she did that.
[00:08:14] Speaker 3: And then she came to the University of Missouri in 2012, where she finished up her undergraduate studies. And then she also obtained her master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. This was a brilliant woman, correct? Absolutely.
[00:08:30] Speaker 8: One of her professors hired her right out of school at his biomaterials company, Nanova, where Joe also worked.
[00:08:39] Speaker 3: Joe grew up in Kansas City. He then came to the University of Missouri and he studied engineering. And he met Mon Shiji at Nanova biomaterials. My understanding is, is that she was his supervisor.
[00:08:53] Speaker 8: The two quickly fell in love and a year and seven months into their relationship, Joe proposed. He took a knee on a trail in Rockbridge Memorial State Park called the Devil's Icebox. Two weeks later, they were married.
[00:09:09] Speaker 3: Well, I believe there was a rush to get married because Mon Shiji's visa was about ready to expire.
[00:09:15] Speaker 5: It's a really foreign concept for American citizens to understand the stress that an immigrant is facing. She's fully capable to support herself financially, but she cannot get this green card. So this really changes the power dynamics of a marriage.
[00:09:36] Speaker 8: Nearly five months into the marriage, Mon Shiji was offered a big job. And then she found out she's pregnant. Mon Shiji and Joe decided she should turn down the job to be a full-time mom. Even though at the time, she was the sole income earner. Joe had quit working to finish school. In October 2018, their baby was born.
[00:10:00] Speaker 5: So that's the dynamic of this marriage. Mon Shiji was completely isolated from all the support system that she can have. The little baby is the only thing she has.
[00:10:16] Speaker 8: Her one lifeline was a daily call with her mother in China. It was their ritual. So when Mon Shiji didn't call on October 9th, 2019, her parents sent a friend living nearby to check on her. And it was only after that visit, the day after he said his wife vanished, that a seemingly unconcerned Joe Elledge finally called police to report her missing. But he didn't call 911. Joe called the non-emergency 3-1-1. Do you find that suspicious? Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:10:58] Speaker 3: It would be natural for him to have reported this immediately.
[00:11:05] Speaker 8: Instead, Joe would tell police that the day he woke up and found his wife missing, he went on two long leisurely drives in her car with their baby in the backseat, looking for new hiking trails.
[00:11:19] Speaker 9: There's just this big area that's all green on the Google Maps. And so I wanted to go and see if there were walking paths back there.
[00:11:26] Speaker 8: Naturally, that raised eyebrows.
[00:11:28] Speaker 1: Did you lock your door when you left the apartment? Yeah. If she comes home, how is she going to get back in? You've got her keys and her car and her phone's in the house. She can't even call anybody. Yeah, I don't know.
[00:11:41] Speaker 8: Detectives and Dan Knight suspected foul play, but there was no physical evidence, no blood, no weapon, no witnesses, no body. There was also no evidence that Mon Shiji took off with that man in China.
[00:11:55] Speaker 3: And then also, it became apparent early on that Mon Shiji would not have abandoned her child, her one-year-old daughter. She was a great mother.
[00:12:08] Speaker 8: During his interview with detectives, Joe gave them access to his phone. And on it, they found something stunning. Ten hours of secretly recorded conversations with his wife, like this one.
[00:12:23] Speaker 2: I'd like to discuss our relationship. And I am kind of ready to discuss the end of it as well.
[00:12:30] Speaker 3: Joe told Mon Shiji that he wanted to divorce her.
[00:12:34] Speaker 2: I don't like being married to you. I don't like living with you. It's been a terrible relationship. I'm eager to end it.
[00:12:42] Speaker 3: He was asking her whether or not she was going to basically cooperate. And if not, he was going to tell the judge that she had been abusive to him.
[00:12:53] Speaker 2: Should I mention in court that you're abusive to me? Should I ask them to deport you?
[00:13:00] Speaker 8: But that was nothing, says Dan Knight, compared to the nearly four and a half hours of secretly recorded audio they found on Mon Shiji's phone. And what was on those conversations of significance? Unvarnished. Joe Ullich.
[00:13:15] Speaker 2: If you keep acting this way, I've told you before, it ain't going to be pretty.
[00:13:22] Speaker 10: What are you trying to do? Are you trying to make me go crazy so that you can call the police on me and take my baby away from me?
[00:13:43] Speaker 8: It was October 29th, 2018, about a year before Mon Shiji would disappear, when she secretly recorded her husband Joe going ballistic for nearly an hour.
[00:13:55] Speaker 2: You want me to break s**t? You want me to hurt somebody?
[00:14:01] Speaker 8: It all started weeks earlier, after Mon Shiji gave birth and her parents flew in from China to stay with them. It is Chinese custom for grandparents to stay and help for 100 days, a custom that infuriated Joe.
[00:14:17] Speaker 3: I don't want your mom here. Your mom is causing problems. Your mom should be f**king me. What really infuriated Joe was that Mon Shiji was standing up to him and saying that she needed her mother.
[00:14:29] Speaker 7: If I don't take care of my own body, my own health, it's not responsible for me or the family. I agree. She's helping me to do that and I know it.
[00:14:38] Speaker 5: I don't like that woman. I don't think you should either. The tension was just to the breaking point. And there's yelling, there's cussing.
[00:14:47] Speaker 8: And Yao Li says Joe really despised it when Mon Shiji and her mother, Kei Ren, spoke Chinese in his presence.
[00:14:55] Speaker 5: That's a stressor for him because everything that he doesn't understand, he would assume the worst.
[00:15:04] Speaker 8: When Mon Shiji's father returned to China, Joe decided to take back control, says Amy Saladay.
[00:15:10] Speaker 4: Mon Shiji's mother was making Chinese dumplings, fantastic dumplings. She's making them for his birthday and he doesn't like how she's using the cutting board. I called it the cutting board incident.
[00:15:25] Speaker 8: Prosecutor Dan Knight says it's an incident that seems petty, but it led to an explosive argument.
[00:15:32] Speaker 2: Don't do my cutting board like that. I'm telling you, cutting board doesn't like that.
[00:15:37] Speaker 3: He was demanding that his mother-in-law leave the residence immediately and permanently, never to return.
[00:15:45] Speaker 8: Did Mon Shiji's mother stand up to him? Would she stand up to him? And could that have triggered this cutting board incident?
[00:15:53] Speaker 3: Mon Shiji's mother, like Mon Shiji, wanted harmony more than anything else. There was no standing up to Joe. It was a one-way street. It was Joe's way or the highway.
[00:16:15] Speaker 2: You're not a god. I am a god. I say mom don't stay here, she don't stay here.
[00:16:20] Speaker 8: Mon Shiji pleaded with Joe to let her mother stay. He responded with insults and profanity.
[00:16:27] Speaker 2: What the f*** is the matter with you? F***ing brainless.
[00:16:30] Speaker 3: He told her that she was incapable because she was a woman.
[00:16:34] Speaker 2: You think you're so empowered because of this society. You're still as a woman.
[00:16:40] Speaker 3: It was a calculated effort on his part to gaslight her, to try to brainwash her, to bring her under his control.
[00:16:49] Speaker 8: Joe was also threatening, explaining how he conquers nature. A cryptic comment that Dan Knight believes was a metaphor for wanting to hurt Mon Shiji.
[00:17:00] Speaker 2: You know how I conquer nature? I f***ing kill it. I grab his head and break his f***ing neck.
[00:17:07] Speaker 5: That's how you conquer f***ing nature. Mon Shiji's mother, of course, was in shock. It's just really difficult for her to understand why this young man is so mad and so angry at her, at everything.
[00:17:22] Speaker 8: Mon Shiji felt so helpless that she called Joe's mother, Jean Geringer, who drove two hours to try and mediate.
[00:17:31] Speaker 7: I don't try to call you. I'm sorry. He's going to come back and just, I don't know, unpredictable things are going to happen.
[00:17:38] Speaker 8: Mon Shiji recorded that meeting as well.
[00:17:41] Speaker 11: I'm not here to choose sides. I'm here to try to be neutral and just give advice.
[00:17:47] Speaker 8: Even in his mom's presence, Joe was not shy about expressing hateful, even violent thoughts about his mother-in-law.
[00:17:55] Speaker 2: Do I just smack her? Do I just beat her down? You wanted to. I have that craving, yes. You can't. I'm not going to go there. You can't go there.
[00:18:06] Speaker 3: The evidence that we had was that he was making his mother-in-law, Karen, kneel to him and bow to him.
[00:18:15] Speaker 8: Joe would eventually apologize to his mother-in-law, but he still forced her to leave before the 100 days were up.
[00:18:23] Speaker 5: She thought that apology was sincere or otherwise she wouldn't have left and then believing that things might get better.
[00:18:33] Speaker 8: Yao Li translated Mengxi's journals for the prosecutor's office and says things didn't get better, but Mengxi couldn't walk away.
[00:18:43] Speaker 5: And even she is confused of why I just cannot get out of this relationship. That's her constant question to herself.
[00:18:54] Speaker 8: Dan Knight thinks Mengxi felt trapped by her immigration status.
[00:18:59] Speaker 3: In just five months, she was set to have another interview where she would be applying to get her permanent green card.
[00:19:10] Speaker 8: A little over two weeks after Mengxi vanished, the Columbia Police Department announced it was opening a criminal investigation into her disappearance. That same day, police showed up at Joe's apartment.
[00:19:25] Speaker 4: He's with his mother. The detectives at the scene are asking her, "Where's Munchie? Do you know where she is?"
[00:19:31] Speaker 8: Joe was arrested, but not in connection with his wife's disappearance, but on suspicion that he had physically abused their daughter. We have become aware that there was some bruising.
[00:19:48] Speaker 3: So do you know what we're talking about? Yep. This is through Kay Ren, her mother. Munchie had told her that she had observed bruising on the buttocks, and Kay Ren suggested that Munchie confront Joe about this. Joe then admitted that he had done this to the little girl.
[00:20:03] Speaker 2: Tell me exactly what happened. She was crying a lot one night. I think I just pinched her butt a little bit.
[00:20:11] Speaker 6: To me, that was a ruse to get him incarcerated.
[00:20:16] Speaker 8: Joe's defense attorney, Scott Rosenblum.
[00:20:19] Speaker 6: He was a young parent. Maybe he made a mistake. But there was no other indication that he was abusive towards his daughter, none whatsoever.
[00:20:26] Speaker 8: Joe was held on a $500,000 bond. His mother took custody of his daughter, and Dan Knight set about proving his theory about what happened to Munchie.
[00:20:40] Speaker 3: I thought from pretty much the very beginning, this eventually was going to wind up being a murder case. Things just had to develop.
[00:20:49] Speaker 8: So you're telling me that these trees that we are standing among right now helped solve this case? Absolutely.
[00:20:57] Speaker 12: What do you think happened to Munchie Gee? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and Twitter.
[00:21:16] Speaker 3: On October 25th, 2019, police executed a search warrant over at Joe Elledge's and Munchie's apartment.
[00:21:25] Speaker 8: That was the same day Joe Elledge was arrested on suspicion of child abuse. Munchie had been missing for a little over two weeks.
[00:21:35] Speaker 3: These officers, they were on the ball. They were able to find some things that were great evidence in this case.
[00:21:42] Speaker 8: Prosecutor Dan Knight.
[00:21:44] Speaker 3: Police collected from his backpack writings, different writings.
[00:21:48] Speaker 8: Notes Joe had apparently written to himself about how to respond to questions from reporters and investigators.
[00:21:56] Speaker 3: One of those I labeled as being a script with what to tell the police. Another thing that he had written was that he was to speak about Munchie in the present tense rather than the past tense. She's a very dedicated person.
[00:22:11] Speaker 2: She's a hard worker and I really like that. That's important to me.
[00:22:14] Speaker 8: Why would a man who was claiming his wife had walked away have to remind himself to not speak about her in the past tense? Because he killed her. Detectives looked for possible evidence in every corner of the apartment and on a hunch also took this muddy pair of Joe's boots into evidence. Just in case down the road they might be relevant. Something was amiss. Yes.
[00:22:43] Speaker 3: And they, they sensed it and they took him.
[00:22:46] Speaker 8: The search for Munchie became a hunt for her remains. Starting by retracing the long leisurely drives that Joe said he took with his baby in the back seat while only he knew that his wife was missing.
[00:23:01] Speaker 9: It was a nice day and so I just, I just wanted to go out.
[00:23:07] Speaker 8: But every lead was just another dead end. So Dan Knight made a bold move.
[00:23:13] Speaker 3: I decided to go ahead and file charges. Murder in the first degree without a body.
[00:23:20] Speaker 8: Charges were filed while Joe was still in jail on abuse charges. Meanwhile, Dan Knight stepped up the search for Munchie's body.
[00:23:29] Speaker 3: These are the cell tower records that we had in this case.
[00:23:33] Speaker 8: This is his cell phone. That's correct. Joe's cell phone. According to Joe's cell phone records, he had spent 30 minutes by the Lamine River the day he claimed Munchie disappeared. Something he had not told police. Convinced her body was here, authorities searched for months. There was even a memorial on the river attended by Munchie's mother.
[00:24:01] Speaker 4: By March of 2020, we had really given up. We needed to do something to be able to say goodbye.
[00:24:11] Speaker 8: Then, a year later, with Joe Elledge still awaiting trial, a hiker was making his way through this wooded area. The very park where Joe had proposed to Munchie. A flash of color in the dirt caught his eye. It was a purse.
[00:24:27] Speaker 3: He had this walking stick and he kind of flipped that purse around just a little bit. He noticed that there were these shoes and then he saw something that looked like was maybe a skull. In fact, it was a skull, Munchie's skull.
[00:24:42] Speaker 8: She had finally been found.
[00:24:45] Speaker 3: That's right. That's right. It was, it was a miracle.
[00:24:53] Speaker 5: I think that's, that's the worst moment for a parent.
[00:24:58] Speaker 8: Yao Li had a video conference with Munchie's parents, who were both back in China.
[00:25:03] Speaker 5: They didn't see anything. All you see is their tears.
[00:25:12] Speaker 8: They now knew their daughter was dead. But how and why were still a mystery? Sadly, even the medical examiner's office couldn't say what killed Munchie. Was there damage to her bone structure? Yes. Unnatural damage.
[00:25:29] Speaker 3: Yes, there was. Four ribs were broken all the way through.
[00:25:35] Speaker 8: Do you believe that those broken ribs are evidence of physical abuse, of a physical attack?
[00:25:41] Speaker 3: Of a massive, catastrophic blow to her back. All the way. These through and through breaks. That she would have been in agonizing pain.
[00:25:53] Speaker 8: Dan Knight was building a theory of what happened to Munchie. And items collected about a year and a half earlier were about to become key. For one thing, Joe's cell phone records put him near Munchie's burial site. The day he reported her missing. What were the weather conditions like that day?
[00:26:11] Speaker 3: Unfortunately for Joe, but fortunately for justice, it was raining.
[00:26:17] Speaker 8: Dan had those muddy boots and a hunch was about to pay off.
[00:26:23] Speaker 3: As you can see right here, there is soil that is caked onto these boots.
[00:26:28] Speaker 8: Mud and gravel on the soles of Joe's boots were set out for analysis, along with foliage stuck in the mud.
[00:26:36] Speaker 3: We've got 12 different types of vegetation in these boots.
[00:26:42] Speaker 8: Dan Knight decided to send Joe's boots to a lab at the Missouri Botanical Garden, where juniper tree needles were carefully removed from the soles for DNA testing. Plants have DNA, just like people.
[00:26:56] Speaker 13: Absolutely, yeah. Every organism, every living organism on the planet has DNA.
[00:27:01] Speaker 8: Christine Edwards is a plant population geneticist who never dreamed she'd become a CSI investigator in a murder case.
[00:27:10] Speaker 13: And they wanted to see if there was some way that we could match the vegetation in the boots to the site where a woman's remains were found. These are two samples that were collected from the left boot right here. Once we knew that we could get usable DNA out of the forensic samples that we took from the boots, then we needed to match them to the trees at the site.
[00:27:36] Speaker 8: Christine's colleague, Alex Lignon, was tasked with collecting sample needles from the juniper trees surrounding Mengshi's gravesite. How do you do it? Pick it up off the ground or go up to the trees?
[00:27:49] Speaker 14: We needed to go all the way up to the trees, and this involved a ladder and a 10, 15-foot-long pole pruner so that we could make sure that the needles that we were getting came from the exact tree that it was. So we couldn't just get it from the ground. It had to be from the tree.
[00:28:03] Speaker 8: Each sample was stored and numbered, and back at the lab, they were compared to the needles found on Joe's boots.
[00:28:10] Speaker 13: These two lines here are the genotype of one of the samples from the boots. And this one is from the tree that is overhanging the gravesite. And as you can see, the lines match up.
[00:28:22] Speaker 8: And that moment for you when you realized you had a match?
[00:28:25] Speaker 13: Yeah, it was really exciting. We got him. He was there.
[00:28:30] Speaker 8: No doubt he was there. No doubt in my mind, he was there. Scientifically confirmed. Yes. Just like a fingerprint, just like DNA, blood DNA that is presented in trial, this is just as reliable.
[00:28:42] Speaker 14: Exactly. Exactly the same technology.
[00:28:44] Speaker 8: So what you're telling me is these trees that are all around us here played a role in solving a murder? Absolutely, yes. Dan Knight says it's only the second murder case he knows of where tree DNA has been used as evidence.
[00:29:02] Speaker 3: The walls are closing in on Joe. So I expected at trial for there to be another defense besides, oh, Mung Chi must have just run off and gone to China. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth?
[00:29:16] Speaker 8: And Dan Knight was right. On November 1st, 2021, Joe Elledge went on trial for the murder of his wife, Mung Chi Ji. The question is, what happened in that apartment? Joe's attorney, Scott Rosenblum, pivoted to a new explanation about what happened to Mung Chi. Joe didn't mean to kill his wife.
[00:29:55] Speaker 6: What happened was a tragic accident.
[00:29:59] Speaker 8: Thanks to this juniper tree and its DNA, Joe could no longer claim that Mung Chi had run away. He now had to admit that he buried his wife in a shallow grave.
[00:30:12] Speaker 6: He had no intent, not, certainly not murder.
[00:30:17] Speaker ?: That's not even close.
[00:30:18] Speaker 8: Joe did have something to do with Mung Chi's death, said Rosenblum, but it was not murder. He took jurors back to October 8th, 2019, the day Mung Chi died.
[00:30:31] Speaker 6: And as they go into the evening hours, he asks her if she wants a massage, tries to initiate sex. She rebuffs him. She says no.
[00:30:41] Speaker 8: Joe now admits he knew about his wife's online affair with that man in China, Rosenblum said. And on this night, he confronted her.
[00:30:51] Speaker 6: He's upset, he's hurt, and he wants to take his daughter for a walk. She lunges towards him and pushes him, and he pushes her. Pushes her into the countertop.
[00:31:02] Speaker 8: Joe claims that's when Mung Chi broke her ribs. The defense called Dr. Keith Norton, the pathologist who conducted Mung Chi's autopsy, and he said it was possible. Yes, but it would have to be a very forcible push. Does Joe maintain that she initiated this physical encounter?
[00:31:24] Speaker 6: She came after him. Well, I mean, she wanted to prevent him from leaving with their daughter.
[00:31:31] Speaker 8: He claimed in his news story that she attacked him. Do you buy any of that?
[00:31:37] Speaker 6: Yes, of course not. Look at the size difference here.
[00:31:39] Speaker 3: Of course not.
[00:31:40] Speaker 6: He's twice as big as her. And again, she lunges at him, and he pushes her away. And she falls this time on her back, and he hears the thud of her head hitting the ground.
[00:31:51] Speaker 8: Joe claims Mung Chi was knocked nearly unconscious, and then got up and went to bed. In the morning, when the baby started crying, Mung Chi didn't wake up.
[00:32:04] Speaker 6: And he's sort of violently shaking her. Are you all right? Are you all right? And it is abundantly clear at that point in time that his wife is dead. Why did Joe lie? He was scared. He made a choice, an erratic, irrational choice.
[00:32:22] Speaker 8: Is that someone who's in a panicked state, or is that a killer who's trying to cover up his crime?
[00:32:28] Speaker 6: I believe it was evidence of extreme panic.
[00:32:34] Speaker 3: That story was very clever, but it wasn't what happened.
[00:32:39] Speaker 8: Prosecutor Dan Knight says all the proof he needs that Joe's story is made up are those four broken ribs. You know how painful it is to break a single rib? She would have had to have been to a hospital, right?
[00:32:53] Speaker 3: Oh, sure. There's no doubt about it.
[00:32:55] Speaker 8: Knight says he keeps going back to Joe's story about giving Mung Chi a massage that night, and believes that's when he killed her.
[00:33:05] Speaker 3: I don't know if he put his hands around her neck and strangled the life out of her. I don't know if he maybe forced her face into a pillow. But I know one thing for sure, that murder was horrific.
[00:33:19] Speaker 8: A premeditated murder, says Knight, fueled by months of growing anger.
[00:33:25] Speaker 3: He hated Mung Chi with everything he had.
[00:33:28] Speaker 2: I'll find a happier life. This s***, I ain't happy here.
[00:33:33] Speaker 8: Joe took the stand in his own defense. Y'all may be seated. And insisted that he loved his wife, even though there was tension in the marriage.
[00:33:43] Speaker 6: You would have these arguments, you both thought you were misunderstanding, and there would be a reconciliation, and you would love each other.
[00:33:50] Speaker ?: That's right.
[00:33:51] Speaker 8: The defense tried to get jurors to relate to the sometimes stormy nature of Joe and Mung Chi's marriage, moments of arguing common with many couples. Joe claimed his wife was responsible for much of the tension.
[00:34:07] Speaker 2: She would raise her voice, yell, and she wouldn't listen to me very well.
[00:34:14] Speaker 4: They wanted to paint her as the aggressor. They wanted people to feel like it was her fault.
[00:34:20] Speaker 8: Amy Saladay and Yao Li were in the courtroom, regularly texting updates to Mung Chi's mother, who was unable to travel.
[00:34:29] Speaker 5: She didn't believe a bit of it. And that was very emotional for her.
[00:34:36] Speaker 8: When Dan Knight finally had his chance to question Joe Elledge, he point blank asked Joe how he killed the mother of his child.
[00:34:46] Speaker 3: Did you maybe stand up on top of her and jump on top of her back?
[00:34:51] Speaker ?: No.
[00:34:52] Speaker 8: Did you suffocate her? No. After nearly two weeks of testimony, detailing the audio recordings, digital evidence, cell tower data, and the tree DNA linking Joe to Mung Chi's burial site, both sides delivered their closing arguments. Then Rosenblum asked for manslaughter. Pretend you're right murder. And Dan Knight asked for first-degree murder.
[00:35:21] Speaker 3: She deserves justice, ladies and gentlemen. Mung Chi deserves justice.
[00:35:28] Speaker 4: We were all nervous, and we hoped that the jury would see the case the way that we saw it.
[00:35:33] Speaker 12: We've all come to know Mung Chi.
[00:35:50] Speaker 4: And so I think we all felt that connection to her, and we hoped that justice would be served. All right.
[00:36:04] Speaker 8: Mr. Elledge, would you please stand to receive the verdict? It was 7:00 p.m. on November 11, 2021, and after deliberating for nearly seven hours, the jury had its verdict. Did the jury find the defendant, Joseph Duane Elledge, guilty of murder in the second degree? Guilty of second-degree murder. The jury believed that Joe killed Mung Chi, but not with premeditation. Yao Li says Mung Chi's parents were very pleased.
[00:36:38] Speaker 5: They weren't nervous about the conviction at all. They believed this is a fair system.
[00:36:45] Speaker 8: But the day wasn't over yet. The jury would now hear testimony in the penalty phase.
[00:36:54] Speaker 3: I had to turn around very quickly, late at night, and start presenting evidence.
[00:37:00] Speaker 8: Dan Knight wanted life in prison. The defense asked for 10 years.
[00:37:05] Speaker 15: I feel very tired, and I feel angry.
[00:37:11] Speaker 8: The state called several of Mung Chi's friends, who spoke about the impact of her death.
[00:37:18] Speaker 16: That hurt us. That make us huge pain and huge sorrow.
[00:37:25] Speaker 8: The defense called only one witness to plead for mercy. Joe's mother, Jean Geringer.
[00:37:32] Speaker 11: It's very disturbing. It's heartbreaking, because it's so out of his character.
[00:37:39] Speaker 8: It was midnight when the jury got the case again. A little over an hour later... We, the jury, declare the punishment for a term of 28 years. Dan Knight believes the jury gave Joe one year for every year of Mung Chi's short life. Yao Li informed Mung Chi's parents.
[00:38:03] Speaker 5: I don't think the numbers matter to them. I think the truth matters the most. That's what is frustrating. I don't think they will ever, ever know the whole truth of what actually happened.
[00:38:21] Speaker 8: What they can hope for now is to be able to raise their granddaughter in China, says family attorney Amy Saladay.
[00:38:28] Speaker 4: Her future is undetermined at this point.
[00:38:32] Speaker 8: Mung Chi's daughter now lives with Joe's mother. But Mung Chi's parents are seeking shared custody of the now four-year-old.
[00:38:41] Speaker 4: I hope that she can be raised to know her mother's Chinese culture and to know her mother's family.
[00:38:48] Speaker 8: Scott Rosenblum says that while the baby will always know her Chinese grandparents, she is in good hands with Joe's mother.
[00:38:58] Speaker 6: Gene and her husband are great parents. She makes it her business to include the maternal grandparents in the baby's life.
[00:39:08] Speaker 8: The other night would not discuss the custody case, but did say this about the trauma already suffered by Mung Chi's daughter.
[00:39:16] Speaker 3: Number one. She was in the apartment at the time that Joe killed Mung Chi, her mother. One of these days she's going to find out about that. The second thing is when Joe drove around the next day, Mung Chi was in the trunk and their little girl was strapped into a car seat. But the thing that she's also going to find out about is that Joe would have been just fine with her going the rest of her life thinking that her mother abandoned her.
[00:39:51] Speaker 4: I want her daughter to know that she was a great mother. She was dedicated. She loved her with all of her heart. I want her to be remembered for her smile and how friendly and outgoing she was.
[00:40:13] Speaker 8: Meng Shiji's legacy of accomplishment, dedication and love lives on in her baby girl and in the hearts of those whose lives she touched.
[00:40:27] Speaker 5: Everybody sees the goodness in her. That's why everybody is so connected with her.
[00:40:33] Speaker ?: I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her. I want her to be remembered for her.
[00:41:03] Speaker 12: A one-time Texas lawyer with a past.
[00:41:06] Speaker 16: She's like, "I just wanted to let you know I seriously considered killing you, but I decided not to."
[00:41:11] Speaker 12: Why did five men in her life end up dead?
[00:41:14] Speaker 16: I've never killed anybody.
[00:41:15] Speaker 17: I'm a little nervous.
[00:41:17] Speaker 12: One journalist's years-long game of cat and mouse. 48 Hours, Saturday on CBS.
[00:41:33] Speaker ?: I want her to kill you. I want her to kill you. I want her to kill you.
[00:41:35] Speaker 18: I want her to kill you.
[00:41:54] Speaker 19: Victims lined up in a courtroom to confront Joseph DeAngelo, the so-called Golden State Killer.
[00:42:00] Speaker 16: My safety was shattered as a masked man, DeAngelo, yielding a knife, told me he would kill me if I didn't do what he demanded.
[00:42:11] Speaker 19: Calling him the devil incarnate and a sick monster.
[00:42:19] Speaker 20: The Golden State Killer is the most prolific serial predator in the nation. He attacked across the state, from Sacramento down to Orange County, across 15 different jurisdictions.
[00:42:33] Speaker 7: He was the boogeyman. He was the man in the bushes that we didn't know who he was, and we didn't know when he was going to strike again.
[00:42:41] Speaker 17: Standing up in front of me was this man with a ski mask on, holding a large butcher knife. It was sheer terror.
[00:42:53] Speaker 21: My sister was the Golden State Killer's final victim.
[00:42:59] Speaker 22: What's fascinating to me about this case is rich with so many clues.
[00:43:05] Speaker 23: Michelle McNamara had a passion for true crime. Michelle was hot on the trail of the Golden State Killer. She was writing a book about him. And she was a mom and a wife to a comedian, Patton Oswalt.
[00:43:19] Speaker 24: My wife is ten times smarter than me. She is thinking and operating on this way elevated level from where I am. She had a mind for the details of true crime, the way that other people have for baseball or me, for films. She could recall the details of pretty much every late 20th and 21st century crime. It was just in her head.
[00:43:42] Speaker 22: That's why I just don't think this is like pure sexual sadism.
[00:43:45] Speaker 25: I think there was something else. She had such good insight. And I think it's because other investigators had trusted her. They told her things that weren't in some of the original files. She was tenacious about investigating the case.
[00:43:59] Speaker 23: She thought she was getting real close to finding him.
[00:44:08] Speaker 7: We found the needle in the haystack.
[00:44:16] Speaker 26: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:26] Speaker 27: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:34] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:36] Speaker 27: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:42] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:44] Speaker 26: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:53] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way.
[00:44:54] Speaker 16: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:44:56] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way.
[00:44:57] Speaker 16: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:45:13] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:45:57] Speaker 28: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:01] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:13] Speaker 24: She was a man of the way.
[00:46:14] Speaker 17: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:18] Speaker ?: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:20] Speaker 29: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:26] Speaker 24: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:33] Speaker 29: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:46:51] Speaker 24: She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way. She was a man of the way.
[00:47:13] Speaker 29: The new bride had some unique interests.
[00:47:16] Speaker 24: You know, Michelle was always a writer. She had published short stories and poetry. But she was also always just fascinated with people and just the messiness of a life.
[00:47:29] Speaker 29: Michelle was captivated by true crime stories, especially cold cases. In 2006, she started the blog True Crime Diary, where she profiled both recent and long forgotten crimes.
[00:47:43] Speaker 24: When she started that blog, you know, she was just off to the races.
[00:47:47] Speaker 29: The pair welcomed daughter Alice in 2009. But even as motherhood took center stage, Michelle hunted for cases and clues.
[00:47:56] Speaker 24: Once everyone was asleep, she was on that laptop. There is a breed of men and women that are just wired to pursue these people and keep going, you know, when other people would have gone, oh, I got to go live my life.
[00:48:11] Speaker 29: Soon, Michelle's online quest brought her face to face with one of the worst villains she'd never heard of.
[00:48:18] Speaker 23: When you hear "Zodiac Killer," you know what it is. You hear "Jack the Ripper," you know what it is.
[00:48:27] Speaker 29: Billy Jensen is a true crime journalist in Southern California.
[00:48:30] Speaker 23: You hear "East Area Rapist" slash "Original Night Stalker," nobody knows what that is.
[00:48:36] Speaker 29: The East Area Rapist, "Original Night Stalker," Erons for short, not a very memorable name, but he's one of the most prolific criminals California has ever seen.
[00:48:45] Speaker 24: She started looking at the devastation that this guy wrought. You're taunting the police, you're taunting the population, and you're never caught.
[00:48:52] Speaker 29: Michelle McNamara had found her nemesis. Paul Haynes is a researcher who worked with Michelle. Michelle called herself a citizen sleuth. What does that mean?
[00:49:05] Speaker 30: A private citizen who's not in law enforcement and who's not a private investigator, that that is drawn into a crime and does their own investigating based on, you know, the tools that are available to them.
[00:49:15] Speaker 29: Michelle started hitting the message boards of fellow online sleuths, hunting for everything she could learn about Erons. Over one horrific decade, he'd covered a lot of ground, starting as a rapist in the Sacramento area in 1976.
[00:49:30] Speaker 30: His M.O. typically is to break into a house in the middle of the night and confront a sleeping couple by shining a flashlight into the eyes of the female, insisting that she tie up the male.
[00:49:44] Speaker 29: Then Erons moved to Southern California, where he used the same M.O. to break in and rape. But now he'd leave no witnesses. All told, over 50 women were raped and 13 people murdered before the attacker stopped in 1986 and seemingly vanished.
[00:50:04] Speaker 30: And she began working on a feature for Los Angeles magazine.
[00:50:08] Speaker 29: Michelle wrote an article about Erons in 2013. She had details from bits of information she gleaned online and more explicit details from investigators on the case. The odd acronym, Erons, was not a name many knew. So Michelle decided to rebrand him, hoping to give him a higher profile.
[00:50:27] Speaker 23: Working with her editor at Los Angeles magazine, they said, you know what, this Golden State Killer, it shows just the breadth of him having hit Northern California, Southern California, and then sort of right in the middle.
[00:50:38] Speaker 29: With that, Erons became the Golden State Killer. And Michelle would become a book author, signing a deal to write about him. Patton says they sacrificed family time so Michelle could travel extensively by herself. to retrace the steps of the killer.
[00:50:54] Speaker 24: It's one thing to read it on a piece of paper, but to actually walk it every day and see businesses and houses that were there, that are still there, you know, changes the writing. So I would go out of my way to try to give that to her.
[00:51:06] Speaker 29: So you were really the Watson to her homes?
[00:51:09] Speaker 24: Yeah, except Watson was way smarter than me. If I was the Watson to her homes, I was the kind of Watson that just went and got like coffee, or can you go get me a turkey burger, please? Fine, I'll get a turkey burger. And even I would get that order wrong.
[00:51:23] Speaker 29: The obsession of hunting a serial killer took its toll on Michelle.
[00:51:28] Speaker 24: And I'd go back in the back office and Michelle would be there just like in tears because some road she had gone down had not panned out. And then it's like, I now have to start back again from zero.
[00:51:40] Speaker 29: And she did, picking up new promising leads in her hunt for the Golden State Killer. By April 2016, Michelle had been driving herself hard, hoping for a breakthrough. On the night of the 20th, she was exhausted from it all.
[00:51:56] Speaker 24: I just remember this so clearly saying, you know, tomorrow, just sleep till you wake up.
[00:52:02] Speaker 29: The next day, around mid-morning, Patton checked on Michelle.
[00:52:06] Speaker 24: She was snoring. I remember I was laughing like, oh, she's snoring. And then I, I brought her, I went and got her an Americano, left it on her bedside.
[00:52:16] Speaker 29: By early afternoon, when Michelle still hadn't gotten up, Patton went to check on her again.
[00:52:22] Speaker 24: She had, she was dead. And I tried reviving her and it was just, you know, and then everything after, everything after that to me, it just, I remember it as like screaming and vomiting and EMT guys and friends.
[00:52:36] Speaker 29: Michelle McNamara had died at the age of 46.
[00:52:40] Speaker 24: It was, it was April 21st. Spring's coming. It's all good. And then literally within the space of three hours, just annihilation. Like, like your, this world that you're seeing in front of you is just, you know, cinders. It's just all, it's just cinders. I want to talk to her so badly. I miss her so much. And I'm just sad all the time.
[00:53:24] Speaker 29: When Michelle died so suddenly her husband Patton Oswalt and seven year old daughter Alice were devastated. So when Oswalt won an Emmy for writing a variety special, just five months later, the moment was bittersweet.
[00:53:39] Speaker 24: I'm not trying to say that this is meaningless, but it really does. Everything seems like the lights have been turned down 50% on everything since she's gone.
[00:53:50] Speaker 29: Patton was still waiting for the LA coroner's office to find the cause of Michelle's death, but he'd reached an important decision.
[00:53:57] Speaker 24: Her book needed to be finished. It had so consumed her life and it was so much a part of her.
[00:54:02] Speaker 31: I thought she was one of the nicest people I had ever had the opportunity to meet.
[00:54:08] Speaker 29: Larry Crompton spent decades with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department. Michelle met with him in the hope of tapping into his wealth of knowledge about the monster she was chasing.
[00:54:19] Speaker 31: He would walk through the area just like a normal person. So nobody would notice him.
[00:54:25] Speaker 29: Crompton tells the story of a white man of average height and slim athletic build in his early 20s who stalked his victims before striking, though they never knew it.
[00:54:36] Speaker 31: We'd go in the house when the people weren't there and set that house up and he would leave a window unlocked or a door unlocked so that he could go in.
[00:54:45] Speaker 29: Michelle learned the rapist would also hide tools for his attack.
[00:54:49] Speaker 31: One thing that the rapist would do is leave shoelaces or whatever to tie the people up with.
[00:54:55] Speaker 29: When the rapist returned to attack, he'd come armed with a knife or gun, wearing a ski mask and gloves.
[00:55:02] Speaker 31: He would blindfold the victims. And after tying them, he would take a towel and tear it up and use that for a blindfold.
[00:55:11] Speaker 29: Within a year, the rapist crisscrossed Northern California, striking at least 22 times. A few sketches were released based on brief glimpses by eyewitnesses on the street as he got away every time. That knack for avoiding capture haunted Michelle.
[00:55:27] Speaker 7: He struck so often. He hit so many times. It was so frequent.
[00:55:31] Speaker 29: Today, Ann Marie Schubert is the district attorney of Sacramento County. But back in 1976, she was just a local 12-year-old.
[00:55:40] Speaker 7: I have very vivid memories of what he did to this community.
[00:55:44] Speaker 32: Each night, they patrol the neighborhoods of Sacramento County's east side.
[00:55:49] Speaker 20: You have people who are scared. This is a community where they want to lock their doors.
[00:55:54] Speaker 29: Paul Holes was a cold case investigator with the D.A.'s office in Larry Crompton's Old County.
[00:56:00] Speaker 20: And now they're having locksmiths come out to install deadbolts. People were going and buying guns. Michelle had flown to meet Holes as well. That first day, we spent probably six hours in the car between, you know, in the car and getting out and looking at the various scenes. That I took her to.
[00:56:21] Speaker 29: To catch him, Michelle had to understand him. For the Golden State Killer, it seemed to be about the notoriety.
[00:56:29] Speaker 7: He had complete control over this community and he thrived off that. He thrived off the media attention.
[00:56:38] Speaker 29: I'm really scared. In fact, he took cues from the press. Initially, he'd only attacked women who were alone. But then...
[00:56:47] Speaker 31: The newspaper mentioned that he had never hit a place with a man in the house. He read that. And that was a challenge to him. That was a challenge. And that's when he started with the men.
[00:56:56] Speaker 29: Immediately, the rapist started targeting couples. And he adjusted his M.O. as he went. After waking the pair, he'd insist the female tie up the male.
[00:57:07] Speaker 30: Then he would bind the female and then reinforce the bindings in the male.
[00:57:12] Speaker 29: He'd lull the couple into thinking he was just there to rob them.
[00:57:16] Speaker 30: He would ask the victims where the money was, where the female's purse was. He would ask the female to accompany him, to show him where it was.
[00:57:24] Speaker 29: As soon as the couple was separated, the rapist would set his true and terrifying plan in motion.
[00:57:30] Speaker 30: He would retie the female in the living room of the house. He would return to the male and stack dishes on the male's back. And he would tell the male, if you move, I'll hear these dishes rattle and I'll kill everything in the house.
[00:57:44] Speaker 29: Immobilized and emasculated, the man was then forced to lie there, listening to the rape occurring a room away.
[00:57:52] Speaker 31: How a man can deal with that, knowing that he could be the reason for his family to die. And then in his mind, no, but I can't do anything. I have to shut up. I can't save anybody. For him to live with that, very, very, very difficult.
[00:58:12] Speaker 29: The rapist toyed with his victims, often breaking off mid-attack and wandering into the kitchen.
[00:58:18] Speaker 23: He would go in, he would eat food in the house. He would take things that weren't necessarily worth a lot, but they would be worth something to the individuals.
[00:58:30] Speaker 29: When it was over, the rapist slipped out silently, leaving his victims bound and blindfolded, afraid to move for hours. One victim remembers all too well. What, is he going to murder us? Is he going to kill us? What's he going to do to us? The identity of the Golden State Killer is a mystery that kept true crime writer and amateur detective Michelle McNamara up all night.
[00:59:05] Speaker 24: You know, she was filled with angst for the survivors, for the families.
[00:59:11] Speaker 29: Michelle had spoken to many survivors. Women like Jane Carson Sandler. She was the rapist's fifth victim. You're always looking over your left shoulder. Always. Jane's horrifying ordeal began shortly before dawn in October 1976. Her husband had just left for work, leaving Jane, then a student nurse and Air Force Reserve captain, in their bed.
[00:59:39] Speaker 17: My son, he was three years old, he came and got in bed with me to snuggle. And right after that, I heard the garage door close, so I knew my husband was gone. And within three minutes, I heard someone running down the hall, and they had a flashlight in their hand.
[00:59:55] Speaker 29: A man wearing a ski mask and black leather gloves burst into her room, holding a large butcher knife. What was going through your head?
[01:00:09] Speaker 17: What's he doing here? Hopefully he's just going to rob us and leave. So I said, take our money, take whatever you want. And the minute I started to say something, he would say in his clenched teeth, shut up or I will kill you. He then proceeded to take shoelaces and tie our hands, our wrists and our ankles. And then he gagged us and blindfolded us, both of us, just fear, fear.
[01:00:39] Speaker 29: When the intruder untied her ankles, Jane realized he was going to rape her. But Jane was focused on something else.
[01:00:47] Speaker 17: When I went to lean next to my three-year-old son, he was gone. He was gone. So when the rape took place, I wasn't paying any attention to it. Because all I was thinking about was, where's my son? After the rape, the attacker kept going in and out of her bedroom. And at one point, I leaned again, and my son was back next to me. So we put him back. And that was such a relief, because I knew he was alive.
[01:01:15] Speaker 29: But the rapist wasn't gone. Jane could hear him in the kitchen, rattling pots and pans.
[01:01:21] Speaker 17: And then he would come back in the bedroom and say, don't you make a move or I'll come back in here and kill you.
[01:01:28] Speaker 29: Finally, after what seemed to Jane like an eternity, there was silence.
[01:01:34] Speaker 17: And I thought, we've got to get out of here. So hobbled around the backyard to the gate in the front of the house and then just screamed for a neighbor.
[01:01:46] Speaker 29: Jane and her son survived. But the carefree life her family had known did not.
[01:01:53] Speaker 17: I was afraid, is he going to come back? Is he still stalking me? You know, does he live down the street?
[01:02:01] Speaker 29: Did you ever think that it would happen to you?
[01:02:04] Speaker 33: Never, ever. My mom always said, she's too old, I was too young, we wouldn't be victims.
[01:02:11] Speaker 29: But the rapist would prove them wrong. In November 1977, 13-year-old Margaret Wardlow would become one of the rapist's youngest victims.
[01:02:22] Speaker 33: I woke up to this flashlight in my face. I saw him in a mask. I had my hands tied behind my back.
[01:02:35] Speaker 29: The attacker left Margaret's room, but she soon heard him upstairs in their kitchen. Margaret knew from newspaper accounts that the rapist would use plates as an alarm system, placing them on the backs of household members that were not his intended target.
[01:02:51] Speaker 33: I knew if he came into my room, he was going to rape my mom. And if he went into my mom's room, he was going to rape me. And he went into my mom's room.
[01:03:00] Speaker 29: The intruder raped Margaret. But in her youthful defiance, she refused to give him what she thought he really wanted. You didn't want to show him you were scared.
[01:03:10] Speaker 33: I didn't want to show him I was scared. I knew he got off on scaring people and having the control of fear.
[01:03:20] Speaker 29: In fact, the rapist would often call his victims after the attack. Investigators recorded one of his bone-chilling phone calls. In 1977, investigators held a series of town hall meetings.
[01:03:47] Speaker 31: And in one of those meetings, a man stood up and said that if he ever comes to my house, I'll kill him. That he would protect his wife, protect his family.
[01:03:59] Speaker 29: Just months later, that man and his wife were attacked. The rapist was probably at that meeting, disguised as just another concerned citizen. Desperate to capture him, investigators literally chased down thousands of leads. Larry Crompton went through the names of 6,000 paroled rapists. Did you feel like you were constantly going down rabbit holes?
[01:04:26] Speaker 31: Oh, yes. There were names that would come up that really looked good. And you would work them and work them and work them and nothing.
[01:04:37] Speaker 29: The rapes in Northern California stopped abruptly in 1979, with the attacker seemingly vanishing from the area. But the nightmare was about to begin in Southern California.
[01:04:51] Speaker 22: I definitely think there's something about the housing thing that seems very interesting and there did seem to be a lot of like new houses around where he hit and a lot of houses for sale.
[01:05:15] Speaker 29: In July 1981, a realtor walked into a home in Santa Barbara County and made a grisly discovery. Inside were the bodies of Sherry Domingo and her boyfriend, Greg Sanchez. Sherry had been bound and bludgeoned. Greg Sanchez had been shot and beaten.
[01:05:35] Speaker 34: I've always had this image in my head of what her last moments were like. The fear, the absolute terror that she had to have been going through.
[01:05:49] Speaker 29: Debbie Domingo, Sherry's daughter, was only 15 at the time. To this day, she lives with that painful image and with regrets.
[01:05:58] Speaker 34: And the last thing I said to her was, why don't you just stay out of my life? And I carried a lot of guilt for a long time because of the last things that I said to her.
[01:06:09] Speaker 29: Debbie says their relationship had been turbulent in the weeks before the murders.
[01:06:15] Speaker 34: She and I were fighting just like you wouldn't believe. She was doing her best to be a good mom. She had never really dealt with a headstrong teenager. And you were a headstrong teenager. I was. I was. I was pushing the envelope pretty bad.
[01:06:30] Speaker 29: When her mom tried to lay down some house rules, Debbie decided to run away. She'd been gone for about three weeks when she got a call from a neighbor. And she said, Debbie, you need to come home.
[01:06:41] Speaker 34: What were you told at the time about what happened to your mom and Greg? The best answer I ever got was someone broke into the house and killed them. I resigned myself to never, ever knowing what really happened.
[01:07:03] Speaker 29: Debbie Domingo had no way of knowing that her mother and Greg's murders were the latest in a string of unsolved murders across Southern California. Over the span of a year and a half, three other couples and a woman were killed in their homes, all in a strikingly similar, brutal fashion. In December, 1979, Dr. Robert Offerman and his girlfriend, Deborah Manning, had been murdered in Goleta. In March, 1980, Lyman and Charlene Smith had been found dead in Ventura. Five months later, Keith and Patrice Harrington had been killed in Dana Point. And in February, 1981, Manuela Whithun was found bludgeoned to death in Irvine. So you had a hunch that the Southern California homicides were related to the East Area rapists?
[01:07:52] Speaker 31: Yes.
[01:07:53] Speaker 29: When Larry Crompton, who'd investigated the rapes up north, first heard about the murders, he knew almost immediately it was the same suspect.
[01:08:02] Speaker 31: I had no proof. But we looked at the reports and said it is the same. The victims were treated the same way and tied up the same way.
[01:08:11] Speaker 29: Crompton had always suspected the rapist would escalate to murder.
[01:08:16] Speaker 31: We knew that he wanted to kill.
[01:08:18] Speaker 29: But all he needed was the justification. That came after two couples in a row managed to escape during an attack. The assailant would never let that happen again.
[01:08:28] Speaker 31: The next time he murdered. And that's what he did after that.
[01:08:33] Speaker 29: Even though he was sure that Southern California was now under attack by the same suspect, Crompton couldn't convince the different jurisdictions that their murders were all connected.
[01:08:44] Speaker 31: One of the problems we had back then is that law enforcement agencies did not work together. And very little information went from one to the other.
[01:08:55] Speaker 29: Michelle McNamara believed the suspect used this to his advantage, moving from county to county, killing without mercy.
[01:09:04] Speaker 22: This was a crazed, horrible psychopath. He was just obviously very, very angry.
[01:09:11] Speaker 29: The killer seemed to take a five-year hiatus after 1981. But in May 1986, he resurfaced again in Irvine at another house that was for sale.
[01:09:24] Speaker 21: Everybody always wants to know why, you know, why Janelle.
[01:09:28] Speaker 29: Michelle Cruz's sister, 18-year-old Janelle Cruz, was the killer's youngest and last known murder victim.
[01:09:36] Speaker 21: I got a phone call, and it was one of my girlfriends. And she said, "Your sister was murdered."
[01:09:43] Speaker 29: Michelle learned that Janelle had asked a male friend to keep her company that night.
[01:09:48] Speaker 21: Maybe she was scared because she felt like maybe somebody was watching her. And he said that they heard noises? They heard noises. She said, "Well, maybe it's just, you know, a cat outside." And they just went back to talking before he ended up having to leave and go home for the night.
[01:10:07] Speaker 35: That noise that she heard that night is probably accurate. He probably was in the side yard.
[01:10:12] Speaker 29: Larry Montgomery was the lead investigator on Janelle's case back in 1986. What state was she in?
[01:10:19] Speaker 35: She had been bludgeoned badly on the face. She was on her back in a position that looked like it's possible she had been tied up. It looked like she'd been sexually assaulted.
[01:10:29] Speaker 29: Montgomery's investigation into the murder was intense. Still, it went nowhere. But in 1996, the advent of DNA technology provided a break in the cold case.
[01:10:41] Speaker 35: They were able to find DNA and discovered that the DNA from Janelle Cruz's case matches the DNA in the Witthune case five years earlier. And then they started getting hits on other DNA in Ventura County, Santa Barbara County.
[01:10:58] Speaker 29: A year later, investigator Paul Hol's testing on the Northern California rape kits connected the rapes to each other. But the most important forensic discovery came in 2001, when the murders were finally connected to the rapes, officially confirming what Larry Crompton had long suspected. What was it like for you to get the confirmation that your hunch was right?
[01:11:22] Speaker 31: It settled a lot in my mind, and I really had a feeling that, yes, now they're going to catch him.
[01:11:29] Speaker 29: What followed was a concerted effort among all jurisdictions to bring the violent rapist and killer to justice. He could go right up against almost this house here. Erica Hutchcraft, from the Orange County DA's sex crimes unit, worked on the case for over a decade.
[01:11:45] Speaker 25: I thought when I first looked into the cases that it was like something you would study in a criminology course. And it was horrifying, but at the same time, you think, oh, I can make a difference and contribute to the solving of the case. Erica became consumed by this case, just like Michelle. I have never been the same since I started working in these cases. It's like an obsession, you know, so it's overwhelming at times, but it does change your life. And this case has even changed the law in California.
[01:12:17] Speaker 29: Since 2009, largely due to the efforts of Bruce Harrington, the brother of one of the murder victims, all adults arrested or charged with a felony in California must submit a DNA sample for inclusion in the state database. California maintains the third largest DNA database in the world, but investigators got no hits for the Golden State Killer. It seemed he had managed to even elude technology. But in 2018, that would all change.
[01:12:49] Speaker 34: I believe that it's time for his reign of terror to end.
[01:12:54] Speaker ?: The great tragedy of this case to me is that it's not better known, and frankly, it should be solved.
[01:13:12] Speaker 36: I mean, it just should be.
[01:13:25] Speaker 29: In June 2016, two months after Michelle McNamara's death, the FBI marked the 40th anniversary of the Golden State Killer's first attack by announcing a renewed investigation.
[01:13:38] Speaker 25: Today, we're going to launch a national campaign to help identify the East Area Rapist Golden State Killer.
[01:13:47] Speaker 17: All this attention now is being placed on this case.
[01:13:52] Speaker 29: Isn't there a piece of you that says it's been 40 years?
[01:13:57] Speaker 17: Oh, yes. Why now? Right. Why now?
[01:14:01] Speaker 29: But I'm glad now. After four decades, police felt the pressure of time running out.
[01:14:07] Speaker 25: All the witnesses, all the original investigators, everybody's going to start passing away. It's now or never.
[01:14:14] Speaker 29: They also still believe the killer's DNA profile could be the key to unlocking this mystery.
[01:14:20] Speaker 7: There is nothing that you can do to change your DNA. It is the greatest tool of identification we've ever had.
[01:14:28] Speaker 36: Thank God they have his DNA.
[01:14:29] Speaker 7: It's a needle in a haystack with the needles in there somewhere, and it's our job to find it.
[01:14:36] Speaker 25: We're all so dedicated, and we work so much on this case, and it becomes your life. Sorry. That's okay. Why do you think it gets to you? Because I care. You know? I care. I don't want to ever stop caring. If you stop caring, then what good are you as a detective or a cop or a human being?
[01:15:01] Speaker 29: Nine months after Michelle McNamara passed away, the Los Angeles County coroner released the cause of her death. A combination of powerful prescription drugs along with an undiagnosed heart condition.
[01:15:13] Speaker 24: Once she had passed, everything in me was dead, except that was the one spark of, like, life force left in me, of a moving forward life force, is finish her book.
[01:15:26] Speaker 29: In February 2018, Oswalt saw all those years of Michelle's hard work finally come to fruition with the release of her book.
[01:15:36] Speaker 37: Now, I'm optimistic. I know that it sounds crazy to be optimistic, but I am. In your gut, do you think he'll be caught?
[01:15:48] Speaker 24: In my gut, I think he is going to be caught because of what Michelle did and because of what all the cops did before her, I hope.
[01:15:57] Speaker 29: Then, incredibly, in April 2018, almost two years to the day after Michelle's death, there was stunning news from Sacramento.
[01:16:07] Speaker 19: Police in California believe they've cracked a 44-year-old serial murder case.
[01:16:12] Speaker 7: The answer has always been in Sacramento.
[01:16:16] Speaker 29: District Attorney Ann Marie Schubert.
[01:16:18] Speaker 7: For over 40 years, countless victims have waited for justice.
[01:16:24] Speaker 29: Joseph James D'Angelo, 72, a cop in the 1970s, was arrested at his home. He'd been fired from the police force in 1979 after he was accused of shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent. Divorced, his ex-wife is a lawyer. He has three adult daughters.
[01:16:46] Speaker 7: He was never on any list that I'm aware of.
[01:16:49] Speaker 29: New technology was D'Angelo's downfall. The Golden State Killer's genetic profile had been plugged into the genealogical website, GEDmatch.com, and it returned a link to genetic material stored there by one of D'Angelo's relatives.
[01:17:06] Speaker 20: We're dealing with distant relatives, and we're literally having to follow trees, looking, and then find individuals within that pool of people that fit the criteria that we know about the offender. Roughly his age, geographic locations at certain points and times, because we know where the offender is when he's attacking, physical aspects.
[01:17:33] Speaker 29: After painstaking work, investigators landed on D'Angelo as a likely suspect, but still needed his DNA to make a positive match. They hit pay dirt after collecting a sample of D'Angelo's DNA from something he'd discarded in public.
[01:17:50] Speaker 20: And at that point, we knew we had our man.
[01:17:53] Speaker 29: And it turns out their man had been hiding in plain sight, living in Citrus Heights, the same city where Jane Carson Sandler was attacked in the 1970s.
[01:18:05] Speaker 17: I'm so glad it's over. I mean, it is such a relief to finally, after all this time, know that he's behind bars and that's where he belongs. He needs to pay for his crimes. He's just destroyed so many families.
[01:18:21] Speaker 29: For Margaret Wardlow, D'Angelo's arrest brought joy after a very long wait.
[01:18:27] Speaker 33: Oh, I was just so happy. I haven't been able to wipe this smile off my face.
[01:18:32] Speaker 34: I called Debbie Domingo and she just couldn't believe it. She was the first voice that told me that they got him. You thought you were so smart, but you were wrong. You're not getting away with this.
[01:18:49] Speaker 29: In June 2020, D'Angelo cut a deal, appearing in court to plead guilty to 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping with robbery.
[01:19:00] Speaker 38: Murder in the first degree, how do you plead?
[01:19:03] Speaker 29: Guilty. In order to take the death penalty off the table, he also admitted to over 160 uncharged crimes.
[01:19:14] Speaker 38: The rape of Jane Doe 11, October 13, 1978. Including dozens of rapes. You admit or deny, sir?
[01:19:23] Speaker 29: I admit. All rise. This week, his rape victims and the survivors of those he murdered finally had their day in court.
[01:19:34] Speaker 16: Your Honor, my name is Chris Vendretti.
[01:19:36] Speaker 29: Offering statements at D'Angelo's sentencing hearing.
[01:19:41] Speaker 16: As the evening began on December 18, 1976, I was a normal 15-year-old kid. He raped me. Repeatedly. At three different times that night, I thought I was going to die. The next morning, December 19, I woke up knowing I would never be a child again. Good morning, Your Honor.
[01:20:05] Speaker 27: My name is Peggy. I never got over the thoughts that he might return, that he may have kept track of me. After 42 years, I still sleep with two phones and the keys on the bed when my husband is away. I still don't feel safe inside of a locked house.
[01:20:20] Speaker 39: Your Honor, I'm Gaye Hardwick.
[01:20:24] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo attacked us while we were sleeping. He kidnapped me from my bed. The men D'Angelo victimized got their turn as well.
[01:20:39] Speaker 18: Joe D'Angelo sat stone-faced throughout the statements.
[01:20:54] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo: My name is Jane Carson Sandler, and D'Angelo, I want you to look at me. Deliberately never glancing in the direction of his victims.
[01:21:09] Speaker 17: Joe D'Angelo: I may have been one of your victims, D'Angelo, but you know what? Joe D'Angelo: Now I'm a survivor thriver, and I've had a great life. Joe D'Angelo: I put my fears aside. Joe D'Angelo: I finished my nursing degree at Cal State, the same year of your attack. Joe D'Angelo: And then I spent 30 years in the Air Force, achieving the rank of Colonel.
[01:21:33] Speaker 34: Joe D'Angelo: Today, I am in the room with the pathetic excuse of a man who will now finally be held accountable for his actions.
[01:21:43] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo: Forty years in the making, Sherry Domingo's daughter, Debbie, finally got to express her hope for her mother's killer.
[01:21:53] Speaker 34: Joe D'Angelo: If I had my way, he would be shivering, blindfolded, naked, and exposed every moment from now on. Joe D'Angelo: I'll settle for caged, shackled, humiliated.
[01:22:08] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo: Michelle Cruz's sister, Janelle, was D'Angelo's final murder victim.
[01:22:14] Speaker 40: Michelle Cruz: From now on, while he is withering away in prison, I will be spending my days fishing on the river, Joe D'Angelo: enjoying my family and grandchild, eating out, relaxing in the comfort of my home, free. Joe D'Angelo: I will be free of the fear he put me through for so long.
[01:22:32] Speaker 11: Joe D'Angelo: I am Patricia Cosper. Joe raped my mom when I was seven.
[01:22:38] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo: The daughter of one of D'Angelo's victims had a special mention in her own statement for a certain author who was on a mission until the end.
[01:22:48] Speaker 4: Joe D'Angelo: Michelle McNamara, prime writer, didn't give up. And law enforcement did not give up.
[01:23:00] Speaker 11: Joe D'Angelo: I see her as a survivor. Because she got him caught, her spirit survived.
[01:23:06] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo: After all these weeks' voices had finally fallen silent, D'Angelo himself found his. Joe D'Angelo: I've listened to all your statements. Each one of them. And I'm truly sorry.
[01:23:35] Speaker 3: Joe D'Angelo: To everyone I've heard. Thank you, Your Honor.
[01:23:43] Speaker 29: Joe D'Angelo: As the book closes on the Golden State Killer, a new chapter begins, for the survivors.
[01:23:49] Speaker 27: Joe D'Angelo: And now finally, the end of this trauma is here. Today, right now, I start my new journey.
[01:23:59] Speaker 34: Joe D'Angelo: Today, the devil loses and justice wins. Today, I am not just a broken survivor of a cold case murder. Today, I am a victor in the battle between good and evil.
[01:24:15] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo D'Angelo: Today, I will see you in the battle between good and evil. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much.
[01:25:14] Speaker 41: Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much.
[01:25:20] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much. Joe D'Angelo: Thank you very much.
[01:25:23] Speaker 42: Joe D'Angelo: Allie, what are you doing? Joe D'Angelo: Taking a picture for sunsets by Allie.
[01:25:29] Speaker 43: Joe D'Angelo: She wanted to live the college life in a large university.
[01:25:36] Speaker 44: Joe D'Angelo: She really wanted to be involved in a school that had that ranking, good football team.
[01:25:45] Speaker 45: Joe D'Angelo: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Oxford, Mississippi. Joe D'Angelo: It is the home opener for the Ole Miss Rebels.
[01:25:51] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: It's fair to say she loved Ole Miss.
[01:25:55] Speaker 41: Joe D'Angelo: Yes, Allie loved Ole Miss.
[01:25:57] Speaker 47: Joe D'Angelo: It was fairly late at night. Joe D'Angelo: She was going out to the bar.
[01:26:06] Speaker 48: Joe D'Angelo: It wasn't weird for her to go out on her own and meet up with other people at the square where all the bars are.
[01:26:14] Speaker 47: Joe D'Angelo: She takes an Uber and she goes home alone.
[01:26:19] Speaker 1: Joe D'Angelo: Sardis Lake is a big area. Joe D'Angelo: There's lots of hunting camps and recreational spaces that people use on the lake. Joe D'Angelo: The Sheriff's Department here does a really good job of doing their best to patrol these locations. Joe D'Angelo: The deputy is on a routine patrol of that area.
[01:26:45] Speaker 49: Joe D'Angelo: I don't know what the moonlight was like, but there's nothing around you. Joe D'Angelo: You're in the pitch black dark. Joe D'Angelo: It's not like a lover's lane or nothing. Joe D'Angelo: I mean, it's just a rule. Joe D'Angelo: A lot of people don't know about it.
[01:26:58] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: When you got there, what did you find?
[01:27:00] Speaker 49: Joe D'Angelo: A white female laying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds to her back. Joe D'Angelo: I have not worked a murder work. Joe D'Angelo: Somebody's been shot that many times. Joe D'Angelo: When the ambulance crew was driving in, they noticed the Joe D'Angelo: in the road ditch. Joe D'Angelo: As soon as we opened the purse, Ole Miss ID card, and a driver's license.
[01:27:22] Speaker 50: Joe D'Angelo: Hey Morgan, this is Micah East. Joe D'Angelo: That's Lafayette County Sheriff's Department. Joe D'Angelo: I'm calling in regards to a friend of yours, Alley Hostel.
[01:27:35] Speaker 41: Joe D'Angelo: I had realized I had a missed call when it was the police, and they were calling Joe D'Angelo: about Alley.
[01:27:40] Speaker 43: Joe D'Angelo: The police came to the door, and they told us. Joe D'Angelo: What did they tell you? Joe D'Angelo: There had been a homicide, and that she was the victim.
[01:27:50] Speaker 39: Joe D'Angelo: And I still don't believe it. Joe D'Angelo: Here we are.
[01:27:58] Speaker 1: Joe D'Angelo: That led investigators to go and look in her apartment in her room, and Joe D'Angelo: they found her Apple Watch. Joe D'Angelo: And even though her phone was not there, some of those messages Joe D'Angelo: still synced to that watch.
[01:28:15] Speaker 47: Joe D'Angelo: The hardest thing to do is to go back and read her messages.
[01:28:20] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: The heinousness of this, the crime itself, to shoot her as many times as Joe D'Angelo: as she had been shot, seemed so personal. Joe D'Angelo: Yeah.
[01:28:32] Speaker 43: Joe D'Angelo: Basically, almost was like execution type style.
[01:28:37] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: In your mind, the motive for murder was? Joe D'Angelo: Get rid of a problem. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case?
[01:28:46] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case?
[01:28:48] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
[01:28:49] Speaker 51: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case? Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case?
[01:28:55] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case? Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case? Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case? Joe D'Angelo: A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe this case? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:29:45] Speaker 52: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:29:58] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:00] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:11] Speaker 43: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:14] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:17] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:18] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:20] Speaker ?: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:21] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: It was just like 7:00 o'clock at night. Joe D'Angelo: She had just woken up from a nap because she had a test.
[01:30:25] Speaker 44: Joe D'Angelo: How could you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:38] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it?
[01:30:46] Speaker 44: Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: How would you describe it? Joe D'Angelo: Actually on that day. Joe D'Angelo: I said, what are you going to do tonight? Joe D'Angelo: She said, I'm going to go out with some friends.
[01:30:56] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: 24 hours later, Lafette County Sheriff's Department Investigator Jared Bundren Joe D'Angelo: was hoping clues from Allie's Apple Watch might lead to the first break in the case.
[01:31:08] Speaker 49: Joe D'Angelo: We just started from there. Joe D'Angelo: What was she like to you?
[01:31:14] Speaker 53: Joe D'Angelo: She was like my sister.
[01:31:16] Speaker 46: Joe D'Angelo: Like so many who knew and loved Allie, Maddie Norris, one of her best friends Joe D'Angelo: in high school, was trying to make sense of what had happened. Lafette County Sheriff: I just was like in shock. Joe D'Angelo: The two were inseparable.
[01:31:28] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: It was like if Allie was in her, Maddie was in her. Lafette County Sheriff: I love you too.
[01:31:33] Speaker 39: Lafette County Sheriff: She was like my other half.
[01:31:36] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: We had like a bunch of adventures together. Lafette County Sheriff: The girl things, watching chick flicks, watching Likely Blonde. Lafette County Sheriff: Driving in her convertible.
[01:31:49] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: When it came time to go prom dress shopping.
[01:31:55] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: She just tried on this red dress. Lafette County Sheriff: And she called her mom and was like I have to get this dress.
[01:32:01] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Did she have a boyfriend in high school?
[01:32:04] Speaker 44: Lafette County Sheriff: She had boys she had like crushes on, but nothing ever serious. Lafette County Sheriff: She didn't find a date for prom.
[01:32:13] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: And so I asked her to be on my prom date.
[01:32:17] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: After graduation, Allie was thrilled to be heading to a college steeped in tradition, history and football. Lafette County Sheriff: The University of Mississippi.
[01:32:31] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: She liked the preppy life. Lafette County Sheriff: Very like girly like pearls.
[01:32:39] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Allie arrived in the fall of 2016, but the marketing business major may have had something more on her mind.
[01:32:48] Speaker 44: Lafette County Sheriff: She wanted to meet a southern boy and get married and have children one day and she thought that would be a perfect setting for her to meet her companion for life.
[01:33:00] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: By junior year we were thick as thieves, like best friends. Lafette County Sheriff: Morgan Hull went to college with Allie. Lafette County Sheriff: She was always like rearranging and redecorating her room too, which is always so funny to find little Allie like moving all the furniture around by herself.
[01:33:15] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: We were both from St. Louis. Lafette County Sheriff: Elizabeth Brock met Allie at a campus party and became fast friends. Lafette County Sheriff: So then we're like, oh my God, how did we like not read until now?
[01:33:26] Speaker 48: Lafette County Sheriff: Elizabeth says Allie was fascinated by sunsets. Lafette County Sheriff: She had a sunset Instagram account where she'd post pictures that she took of sunsets.
[01:33:35] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: As for dating at college, Cindy recalled Allie saying she met someone her freshman year.
[01:33:45] Speaker 44: Lafette County Sheriff: She said, I met this boy, he's from Texas. Lafette County Sheriff: She, for whatever reason, loves the state of Texas. Lafette County Sheriff: And she was real excited to invite him to a sorority dance. Lafette County Sheriff: That's the boy she really liked.
[01:33:58] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: What did she first say about him?
[01:34:00] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: That she found a guy that was cute, that she was starting to like, had a crush on.
[01:34:10] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: That crush would turn out to be fellow student Brandon Thiesfeld from Fort Worth. Lafette County Sheriff: Was she really excited about him?
[01:34:18] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: Yes, like head over heels. Lafette County Sheriff: I think she took him to most of her date parties that her sorority had.
[01:34:26] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: So when Maddie went down to Oxford to visit, she was looking forward to meeting the new man in Allie's life. Lafette County Sheriff: Unfortunately. Lafette County Sheriff: I never met him. Lafette County Sheriff: Things did not go as planned. Lafette County Sheriff: You never met him? Lafette County Sheriff: Mm-mm. Lafette County Sheriff: Because he never came around? Lafette County Sheriff: Never came around. Lafette County Sheriff: How did she feel about that?
[01:34:48] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: I mean, it hurt her. Lafette County Sheriff: You had like your best friend from high school coming down to visit you and your crush is at Maya.
[01:34:59] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Maddie was concerned that there was something about her friend's relationship. Lafette County Sheriff: That wasn't quite right. Lafette County Sheriff: But otherwise, Allie seemed to be thriving at college. Lafette County Sheriff: She loved it.
[01:35:12] Speaker 53: Lafette County Sheriff: She could not get enough of it. Lafette County Sheriff: She finally achieved the goal of going there and she just was living her life.
[01:35:18] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Three years later, her life was cut short. Lafette County Sheriff: Now, with the clock ticking on finding her killer, Allie's Apple Watch proved invaluable to investigators. Lafette County Sheriff: What did the watch tell you?
[01:35:33] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: The watch was telling you she was having a very lengthy text message conversation with Brandon.
[01:35:39] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Brandon Thiesfeld, Allie's freshman year crush, it seemed the two were planning to see each other that very night. Lafette County Sheriff: When investigators discovered that Allie's last text messages were with Brandon Thiesfeld, they wanted to talk to him.
[01:36:00] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: And soon. Lafette County Sheriff: We called late Saturday, early Sunday morning to come in and give an interview.
[01:36:05] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Investigators also tried tracking Allie's phone on Saturday, but it only pinged once in Oxford before the signal died.
[01:36:15] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: These felt responded, but made excuses about why he couldn't meet all weekend.
[01:36:20] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Finally, he said that he would be there at 8:30 Monday morning. Lafette County Sheriff: And 8:30 Monday morning. Lafette County Sheriff: And 8:30 Monday morning came? Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:36:36] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:36:39] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:36:41] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:36:43] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:36:50] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:00] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:02] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:11] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:23] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:30] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:38] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:39] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:51] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:52] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:53] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:37:55] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:07] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:16] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:19] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:32] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:33] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:46] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:38:54] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:39:00] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:39:11] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:39:21] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:39:28] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy.
[01:39:35] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: No brandy. Lafette County Sheriff: He had never been in a fight in school. Lafette County Sheriff: No history of violence.
[01:39:43] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: It wasn't long after arriving in Oxford that Thiesfeld met Ali.
[01:39:48] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: He met her at a local bar. Lafette County Sheriff: They dated casually during their freshman year. Lafette County Sheriff: I think she was more enthralled with Brandon than Brandon was with her, quite candidly.
[01:40:03] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: According to Farese, their relationship became complicated when they were sophomores. Lafette County Sheriff: Did he actually block her from his phone? Lafette County Sheriff: Yes.
[01:40:13] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: She had texted him so much late at night when she's out drinking and partying and it got to the point where he did block her phone. Lafette County Sheriff: Yes.
[01:40:24] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: But something shifted by their junior year and the two got back in touch.
[01:40:29] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: I think she saw this as a mutual romantic endeavor and Brandon did not see it that way.
[01:40:38] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Which would explain one thing. Lafette County Sheriff: So when did you first meet him? Lafette County Sheriff: I never met him. Lafette County Sheriff: Ali's closest friends didn't know Thiesfeld at all. Lafette County Sheriff: Morgan says she'd only met him one time.
[01:40:52] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: It's so odd that we were her best friends and we still really didn't even know him that well. Lafette County Sheriff: Like when this happened, we didn't even know his last name.
[01:41:00] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: But in August of 2019, Thiesfeld's name was Front Page News. Lafette County Sheriff: That's when the case was presented to a grand jury. Lafette County Sheriff: The evidence included pictures of the gun and shell casings. Lafette County Sheriff: And this letter investigators recovered during a search of his apartment, apparently written by Thiesfeld the weekend Ali was found dead. Lafette County Sheriff: Prosecutors say it's a confession.
[01:41:26] Speaker 47: The letter that he's written to his mom and dad concerned about what he's done.
[01:41:32] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld wrote that he'd always had terrible thoughts. Lafette County Sheriff: And this is the end for me. Lafette County Sheriff: I'm either going to prison or going to die. Lafette County Sheriff: He also wrote, I know I'm going to get caught. Lafette County Sheriff: He confessed. Lafette County Sheriff: I think he did.
[01:41:48] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: He didn't say he committed the murder.
[01:41:50] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: You could argue that it was a confession, an apology to his mom and dad.
[01:41:54] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: It was an apology.
[01:41:55] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Tony Farees says he spoke to Thiesfeld about the letter and says it was also something more, a suicide note.
[01:42:03] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: He writes a goodbye note to his family, tells them that he loves them, apologizes for what he's done. Lafette County Sheriff: I am told by Brandon that he has the gun to his head and then passes out.
[01:42:17] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: The grand jury handed down their indictment.
[01:42:20] Speaker 15: Lafette County Sheriff: Capital One murder.
[01:42:22] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: At the time, Jake Thompson was a reporter for the local paper, the Oxford Eagle. Lafette County Sheriff: He says Thiesfeld faced the death penalty for kidnapping and murdering Allie.
[01:42:32] Speaker 15: Lafette County Sheriff: It rocked Oxford to its core because, you know, Oxford takes in these people. Lafette County Sheriff: They're one of their own for four years, five years, however long you're here. Lafette County Sheriff: And so it was tough for both the academic and the university and the citizens of Oxford.
[01:42:46] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: In late September, Thiesfeld appeared in court to enter a plea, not guilty.
[01:42:51] Speaker 15: Lafette County Sheriff: The big question, you know, of course, why did it happen? Lafette County Sheriff: And that was something that we were all initially trying to figure out.
[01:42:58] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Investigators hoped to find some answers in hundreds of text messages between Allie and Thiesfeld. Lafette County Sheriff: And what they discovered included some life-changing news.
[01:43:11] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: The first messages about it started in early April. Lafette County Sheriff: We're stuck.
[01:43:24] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: Can't move forward.
[01:43:28] Speaker 42: Lafette County Sheriff: Days are just rough.
[01:43:45] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: When you think about her not being here, that makes you feel what? Lafette County Sheriff: Sad and like broken. Lafette County Sheriff: As Allie's friends and family waited for Brandon Thiesfeld to go to trial for her murder, prosecutors were building their case. Lafette County Sheriff: All right! Lafette County Sheriff: They were hoping text messages between the two could provide insight about what may have led to her death.
[01:44:23] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: We know more about what he may have been thinking, and we know more about what she may have been thinking. Lafette County Sheriff: What was the relationship between these two?
[01:44:31] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: Well, that might be different depending on who you ask. Lafette County Sheriff: I think it would be fair to say that she looked at it with a more serious eye over the entirety of their relationship.
[01:44:41] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld's defense attorney, Tony Faris.
[01:44:44] Speaker 51: Tony Faris: From Brandon's standpoint, it was a casual sexual relationship.
[01:44:49] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: They were never boyfriend and girlfriend, they didn't go on dates, like he didn't pick her up, take her anywhere out to dinner, none of that. Lafette County Sheriff: But he would tell her that he wasn't good enough for her, and that's why they couldn't be together.
[01:44:59] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Morgan and Elizabeth say it was an odd relationship. Lafette County Sheriff: He definitely manipulated her. Lafette County Sheriff: Carried out over text.
[01:45:07] Speaker 48: Lafette County Sheriff: I think we were just more like upset with how if she would show us like texts from him or tell us things he would say that were really unkind to her.
[01:45:15] Speaker 43: Lafette County Sheriff: So you knew she liked this boy.
[01:45:18] Speaker 48: Lafette County Sheriff: Yeah, yeah.
[01:45:19] Speaker 43: Lafette County Sheriff: But she never really had mentioned him, at least to me, over time, or that he was, you know, even in the scene at all.
[01:45:27] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Was there anything in her behavior that suggested things weren't normal?
[01:45:34] Speaker 44: Lafette County Sheriff: See, and that's the thing. Lafette County Sheriff: She's told me everything in life.
[01:45:39] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: But never discussed him. Lafette County Sheriff: Cindy and Keith say they have not read their daughter's text conversations uncovered by investigators.
[01:45:53] Speaker 44: No, we haven't read any of it. Lafette County Sheriff: Will you? Lafette County Sheriff: I don't know if I can.
[01:46:00] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: In April 2019, just three months before her death, Allie was getting ready for spring semester finals. Lafette County Sheriff: What her mom didn't know was Allie was focused on a different kind of test, a home pregnancy test. Lafette County Sheriff: When you learned about that, was that something so out of line for Allie in her behavior? Lafette County Sheriff: Big time, yeah. Lafette County Sheriff: On April 14th, she texted Brandon Thiesfeld a photo of an inconclusive home pregnancy test and this message. Lafette County Sheriff: Like it's a very faint blue line, but I don't know. Lafette County Sheriff: I guess I can wait and see if my period comes. Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld's response? Lafette County Sheriff: Well, all right. Lafette County Sheriff: We will see. Lafette County Sheriff: But if it is pregnant, we are not keeping. Lafette County Sheriff: We can get a pill. Lafette County Sheriff: She was definitely worried. Lafette County Sheriff: She thought she might be pregnant. Lafette County Sheriff: In this text, Allie, it seems, was anxious and conflicted. Lafette County Sheriff: I'm not saying what I am going to do because I don't know what's happening. Lafette County Sheriff: But even if you don't want to be involved, like I am really pretty and sweet. Lafette County Sheriff: And I know I will meet a real man one day. Lafette County Sheriff: It appeared Thiesfeld did not see fatherhood in his immediate future. Lafette County Sheriff: I'm serious. Lafette County Sheriff: No kid at all. Lafette County Sheriff: It will ruin my life.
[01:47:23] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: She was trying to get into contact with Brandon about this. Lafette County Sheriff: And she had texted him and he would either just ignore her or do the thing where he would tell her, Lafette County Sheriff: Okay, like I will come over tonight and we can talk about this. Lafette County Sheriff: And then he would never show up.
[01:47:35] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: So she talked to you about this?
[01:47:37] Speaker 48: Lafette County Sheriff: Yeah, she came to us right away.
[01:47:45] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Investigators would later learn after Brandon Thiesfeld received news about that pregnancy test, Lafette County Sheriff: He had been searching the Internet for mother wants kid, father does not.
[01:47:55] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: Yes, he did suggest an abortion initially. Lafette County Sheriff: There was talk about that. Lafette County Sheriff: He regrets that, but that did occur. Lafette County Sheriff: That's memorialized in the text messages. Lafette County Sheriff: So in your mind, if she was pregnant, she would have had the baby?
[01:48:11] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: She would have given it the world, honestly. Lafette County Sheriff: Ali, despite the ambiguous test result, would text these failed day and night. Lafette County Sheriff: Many of her messages are long, revealing and troubling, says forensic psychologist Chris Mohandy. Lafette County Sheriff: He was not involved in the case. Lafette County Sheriff: We asked him to read some of the text messages.
[01:48:33] Speaker 32: Lafette County Sheriff: These lengthy, pretty much one-sided conversations that were initiated by Ali, Lafette County Sheriff: You know, with very little in return from Brandon, make this a very lopsided investment into this relationship.
[01:48:49] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: This exchange begins on Monday, April 15th, 2019 at 12:57 AM with Ali writing. Lafette County Sheriff: I lived it up this weekend and was drunk 24/7. Lafette County Sheriff: I did that. Lafette County Sheriff: So my body might decide. Lafette County Sheriff: Ha ha. Lafette County Sheriff: No, not today. Lafette County Sheriff: Then at 2:37 AM, she texts. Lafette County Sheriff: I thought about it. Lafette County Sheriff: If you want to talk to me in person, that would be better. Lafette County Sheriff: These failed response. Lafette County Sheriff: Almost nine hours later. Lafette County Sheriff: I can talk tomorrow. Lafette County Sheriff: I'm busy today. Lafette County Sheriff: I'm still going to have the decision of the pill.
[01:49:24] Speaker 32: Lafette County Sheriff: To me, there's several layers there.
[01:49:27] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Do you sense that at all, based on what you've read, that he has any desire to keep her on the sideline?
[01:49:36] Speaker 32: Lafette County Sheriff: It appears that he has no desire to keep her on the sideline from what I've seen in these communications. Lafette County Sheriff: He's communicating just enough for a purpose to try to influence her into terminating the pregnancy if indeed she is pregnant. Lafette County Sheriff: That seems to me to be his only investment in any of these communications.
[01:49:57] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Mohandy says Ali may have been trying to get Brandon Thiesfeld's attention with texts about her drinking. Lafette County Sheriff: In the past 48 hours, I've literally drank a full bottle of tequila, two bottles of champagne, seven beers, a glass of wine. Lafette County Sheriff: I can't even imagine someone her size being able to consume that much alcohol.
[01:50:21] Speaker 32: Lafette County Sheriff: That's a lot of alcohol to consume for somebody of her size and for many people, if not most people. Lafette County Sheriff: My concern would be, you know, alcohol poisoning or an overdose from alcohol, which is why I raised the question of how much she's drinking. Lafette County Sheriff: Or it's being exaggerated to show, hey, to tell Brandon, I'm self-destructive. Come to my rescue. You got to help me. I'm desperate.
[01:50:47] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: Do you believe Brandon believed she was pregnant? Lafette County Sheriff: I know that Ali claimed to have been pregnant. Lafette County Sheriff: So the question is why would she claim to be pregnant if she were not pregnant? Lafette County Sheriff: Hence, my conclusion is that she wanted a serious relationship with Brandon, which in her mind could have included marriage.
[01:51:08] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: The text messages had created a digital map of a complicated relationship. Lafette County Sheriff: They also gave investigators clues about where Thiesfeld was heading a week before Ali's death. Lafette County Sheriff: On Friday, July 12th, Thiesfeld would take a road trip home to Fort Worth, Texas. Lafette County Sheriff: That same day, Ali texted him a photo of two more ambiguous home pregnancy tests. Lafette County Sheriff: Less than 48 hours later, at 4:16 p.m., he posts a disturbing photo on social media.
[01:51:44] Speaker 47: He does a Snapchat saying with a picture of this sporty caliber gun.
[01:51:50] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: And there's a chilling caption, "Finally taking my baby back to Oxford."
[01:51:57] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: By the time Brandon Thiesfeld drove back from Texas to Mississippi,
[01:52:06] Speaker 46: he'd left a digital footprint and prosecutors say it revealed a deeply disturbing web search history.
[01:52:26] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: He is doing some computer searches on how to get away with crimes, how to conceal crimes, planning preparation type stuff, how to tie people up, how to lure them in. Lafette County Sheriff: He did a search on Ted Mundy.
[01:52:49] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: For Ali's friend Morgan, it was an eerie reminder.
[01:52:52] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: A few months before this happened, Ali and I watched the Ted Bundy movie together.
[01:52:57] Speaker 43: Lafette County Sheriff: Extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile.
[01:53:02] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: And we just sat in her bed and we ate popcorn and snacks and we were like, this is so messed up. And then months later, you know, this happens to Ali.
[01:53:11] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: What explanation do you have for what he was thinking when he's making these searches?
[01:53:18] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: Well, he certainly has some searches that could be troubling. Lafette County Sheriff: It depends on how you view those. Lafette County Sheriff: When you start looking at someone's search history, you're watching TV. Lafette County Sheriff: You've got all sorts of news shows that feature Ted Bundy.
[01:53:32] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Attorney Tony Faree says the search history doesn't prove Thiesfeld had been planning to shoot Ali. Lafette County Sheriff: He says there's an innocent explanation for why his client brought that pistol back to Mississippi.
[01:53:46] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: That's not outlandish that in our part of the country, in Mississippi, in Texas, people, people shoot. Lafette County Sheriff: We've got shooting ranges here in Oxford, so we deny that it was brought back for the sole purpose of killing Ali.
[01:54:00] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: But it was clear to prosecutors Thiesfeld's trip to Texas and the computer searches were part of a carefully laid out plan.
[01:54:08] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: When you put it together would appear to us what his purpose was in bringing the gun back.
[01:54:14] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: A gun that apparently he didn't even know how to use.
[01:54:18] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: If you sit there and you go through all of his Google searches, he don't even really know how to work a gun. Lafette County Sheriff: He was Googling hollow point ammo and what button does what on a pistol.
[01:54:28] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: On Thursday, July 18th, shortly before 2:00 in the morning, Ali texts Thiesfeld a photo of her stomach. Lafette County Sheriff: The following day, Friday, July 19th, the day before her death, Thiesfeld texts Ali, "Are you going to be home today? Because I could visit." Lafette County Sheriff: Almost two hours later, Ali texts him another photo and this message. Lafette County Sheriff: Like it isn't like I'm not that small anymore and I can pretend I'm fat right now, but I don't know. It's getting hard. Lafette County Sheriff: After a few more texts from Ali, Thiesfeld writes, "Just let me know when you are back from going out. Is your house private right now?"
[01:55:13] Speaker 47: The horrifying irony is that text messages from him to her were asking, "Is it a good environment? Are your friends going to be there?" Lafette County Sheriff: You could assume that she's thinking he wants to talk about the pregnancy issue and to work on the relationship. In his mind, he's thinking, "I don't want any witnesses when I get her in the car with me."
[01:55:37] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Minutes before midnight, a security camera captured Ali walking out of a bar in Oxford Square. Lafette County Sheriff: Then around 1:30 in the morning, prosecutors say Thiesfeld and Ali take that dark and desolate drive to Sardis Lake. Lafette County Sheriff: Once you turn off that paved road onto the dirt road and then another 10 minutes to get to here, there's no one out here. I mean, this is an abandoned fish camp. Lafette County Sheriff: Yes, ma'am. Lafette County Sheriff: Assistant District Attorney Mickey Mallet and Investigator Jared Bundren took us to the place where it happened, where there's now a makeshift memorial. I mean, I can only imagine what was going through her head. Wasn't she alarmed? Wasn't she concerned?
[01:56:26] Speaker 1: You know, in her mind, she may not have had a reason before that to be in the same kind of fear. Lafette County Sheriff: Um, you know, we'll never know. But I think she was just so blinded by her desperation to talk about what to do in their relationship.
[01:56:43] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Investigators found cans of White Claw hard seltzer on the picnic table. Lafette County Sheriff: Eleven shell casings were discovered on the ground. What did ballistics tell you?
[01:56:54] Speaker 49: Lafette County Sheriff: Ballistics told me he was sitting either across from her or on that side of the table. Lafette County Sheriff: Uh-huh. Lafette County Sheriff: He fired one shot. There was one shell casing here, and the other ten were in that area coming around the table. Lafette County Sheriff: They was not all in one spot. It, like, started. It started coming all the way around. Lafette County Sheriff: He circled her? Lafette County Sheriff: Yes. Lafette County Sheriff: And with every move? Lafette County Sheriff: He was fired. I mean, even went around, hit the table right there.
[01:57:18] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: And he just left her here? Lafette County Sheriff: Left her here. Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld knew all about that place on the lake. He'd been there his freshman year. Lafette County Sheriff: His attorney told us what Thiesfeld says happened that night.
[01:57:34] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: He had been drinking all that day. She had been drinking. They're listening to music. Lafette County Sheriff: They start talking. Brandon has some cocaine. He goes to the truck, does a little cocaine inside of the truck, goes back to the picnic table. Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld, he says, goes back to his truck again.
[01:57:51] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Grabs his pistol and fires a shot across the lake.
[01:57:55] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: She states, oh, you're crazy. You sit there and talk. Then he shoots her.
[01:58:01] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Remember, Allie was shot at least nine times. Lafette County Sheriff: Why? It just came out of nowhere? Lafette County Sheriff: I'm not sure out of nowhere. Brandon denies that it was planned when he took her out there.
[01:58:19] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: I don't think Brandon would have been in this situation but for his choice of consuming alcohol and then using cocaine.
[01:58:28] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: So you're saying in that moment, under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, he snapped?
[01:58:35] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: That's what I'm saying.
[01:58:37] Speaker 44: Lafette County Sheriff: It was out of rage. Out of rage.
[01:58:40] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: And rage for what?
[01:58:42] Speaker 44: Lafette County Sheriff: Maybe he thought he was going to be a father and he wanted to end it his own way. Lafette County Sheriff: The evidence against Brandon Thiessfeld, according to prosecutors,
[01:58:54] Speaker ?: was overwhelming. Lafette County Sheriff: There was a lot of planning on Thiessfeld's part about what he was going to do.
[01:59:09] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: I'm not saying it was smart the way he did it, but pretty good indication that he was looking for a remote location so her body would not be discovered.
[01:59:18] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: No doubt in your mind that this was premeditated? Lafette County Sheriff: No doubt. Lafette County Sheriff: No doubt. Lafette County Sheriff: No doubt. Lafette County Sheriff: Heat of passion? Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: It was cold and calculated. Lafette County Sheriff: This was calculated over a very extended period of time. Lafette County Sheriff: Which is why it was capital murder. Lafette County Sheriff: In Mississippi, a county sheriff, police officer, police officer, and police officer,
[01:59:36] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: A capital murder charge means another felony crime was involved, and in this case, prosecutors say that crime was kidnapping. Lafette County Sheriff: They believe Thiesfeld lured Alley into his truck.
[02:00:00] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: Under the guise of working the relationship out, when he had a .40 caliber pistol and had planned her murder all along.
[02:00:08] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld's attorney says that theory might be tough to prove at trial.
[02:00:13] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: They were going to have to show that we kidnapped Alley. Lafette County Sheriff: She voluntarily gets in the truck. Lafette County Sheriff: They're going to try to say that we tricked her. Lafette County Sheriff: That's a very, very big stretch.
[02:00:23] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: With Thiesfeld facing a possible death sentence and prosecutors knowing a capital murder trial could be grueling, emotional, and risky for everyone involved, they presented the defense with an offer.
[02:00:37] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: If you get a plea offer other than death, then guess what? Lafette County Sheriff: You've got a scenario where a plea to a lesser charge of first-degree murder is certainly more attractive.
[02:00:50] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: And that's exactly what happened. Lafette County Sheriff: On August 27, 2021, Brandon Thiesfeld, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Lafette County Sheriff: Alley's family and friends were there wearing her favorite color, pink. Lafette County Sheriff: The judge sentenced Brandon to life in prison. Lafette County Sheriff: Reporter Jake Thompson was in the courtroom.
[02:01:15] Speaker 15: Lafette County Sheriff: We never saw a motion from him until the plea herring, where he spoke or read a little bit. Lafette County Sheriff: He broke down in tears. Lafette County Sheriff: That was the first time he showed emotion.
[02:01:24] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Thiesfeld's audio was muffled when he faced the judge and addressed the court. Lafette County Sheriff: He said in part, quote, "There is no excuse for my actions. Lafette County Sheriff: I have asked God for forgiveness, and I hope one day that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me."
[02:01:41] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: Brandon Thiesfeld stood up and accepted responsibility in open court, and the realization of the consequences of his actions are very real and sobering. Lafette County Sheriff: There is no parole for murder in Mississippi, so let me tell you, that is a terrible penalty. Lafette County Sheriff: Why did he say he killed her? Lafette County Sheriff: There is no justification for his conduct, and I believe no good explanation for what he did.
[02:02:13] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Does he say why, though?
[02:02:15] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: No, I'm just telling you to the best of, I mean, there is no good answer. Lafette County Sheriff: I think what has been explained is he's impaired on alcohol. Lafette County Sheriff: He's drunk. Lafette County Sheriff: He's impaired on cocaine. Lafette County Sheriff: We certainly know what that does to someone's mind. Lafette County Sheriff: You know, was he justified? Lafette County Sheriff: Absolutely not. Lafette County Sheriff: Were they arguing? Lafette County Sheriff: Not to my knowledge. Lafette County Sheriff: Did the allegation of pregnancy going on and on and on contribute to that? Lafette County Sheriff: Certainly could have. Lafette County Sheriff: He shared with us that he didn't know, but he didn't believe that she were pregnant.
[02:02:51] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Oh, he said he didn't believe she was pregnant?
[02:02:53] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: Well, he doubted that she was pregnant. Lafette County Sheriff: He doubted that she was pregnant. Lafette County Sheriff: He doubted that she was pregnant.
[02:02:57] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Prosecutors say the home pregnancy test results were inconclusive. Lafette County Sheriff: Allie's autopsy report, however, was definitive.
[02:03:06] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: We know medically she was not pregnant.
[02:03:09] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Could Allie have been pregnant in the months leading up to her death? Lafette County Sheriff: According to a text message she sent Thiesfeld in early July, Allie says she had been bleeding and believed something was wrong.
[02:03:23] Speaker 1: Lafette County Sheriff: There was some evidence that would have, that could indicate she had a miscarriage. Lafette County Sheriff: Do you believe she was pregnant?
[02:03:30] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: I do.
[02:03:31] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: At some point, I do. Lafette County Sheriff: To your knowledge, was she pregnant?
[02:03:39] Speaker 41: Lafette County Sheriff: We just don't know if she could have been, but also the results were inconclusive, so we really just aren't sure.
[02:03:46] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Prosecutors believe what happened between Allie Costell and Brandon Thiesfeld is a cautionary tale.
[02:03:53] Speaker 47: Lafette County Sheriff: I can't imagine how there could be any way possible that Allie could have known that Brandon Thiesfeld was capable of doing what he did to her. Lafette County Sheriff: If she had any idea that this is what this person was capable of, she would never have gotten in that truck. Lafette County Sheriff: I think love can blind us to certain things that other people can see that we can't.
[02:04:25] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Brandon Thiesfeld's family chose not to participate in our broadcast. Lafette County Sheriff: His mother asked his attorney to share these words.
[02:04:34] Speaker 51: Lafette County Sheriff: When I heard Brandon was being spoken to by the police, I still had no single thought that it could be him. Lafette County Sheriff: Now, after two years and knowing more of the details of their relationship, I'm heartbroken for every person this impacts and crushed that our son did not share with us any of the turmoil he was trying to manage. Lafette County Sheriff: I encourage every parent to regularly sit down with their children, teenagers, young adults, and discuss with them that there will never be anything too big, too complicated, too out of control that they cannot tell you about. Lafette County Sheriff: We will always pray for the family and friends of Allie Costell.
[02:05:13] Speaker 46: Lafette County Sheriff: Cindy and Keith are holding on to their memories. How are you doing? How are you doing?
[02:05:23] Speaker 43: How are you doing? It's the quietest moments that are the most haunting.
[02:05:28] Speaker 46: She was my life, my everything. Lafette County Sheriff: For her friends, Allie's love for sunsets still shines through.
[02:05:38] Speaker 42: Lafette County Sheriff: Allie, what are you doing? Taking a picture for sunsets by Allie. Follow.
[02:05:43] Speaker 48: Lafette County Sheriff: So every time we see a sunset or a pink sunset, we're like, that's Allie.
[02:05:47] Speaker 41: And we just try to live for her and bring her light into the world. Lafette County Sheriff: 48 hours.
[02:05:52] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: Don't miss an episode. Lafette County Sheriff: Don't miss an episode. Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you. Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you. Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you. Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you. Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you. Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you.
[02:05:58] Speaker 12: Lafette County Sheriff: Thank you. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No.
[02:06:02] Speaker ?: Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. Lafette County Sheriff: No. you