American Homicide - S1: E31 – The Search for Bethany Correira, Part 1

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Bethany Correira moved into her new apartment on Monday. By Saturday, she had vanished. Investigators wonder if her disappearance is connected to a mysterious fire at the building next door.   Reach out to the American Homicide team by emailing us: [e-mail]. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me. How far would he go to cover up what he'd done? The fact that you lied is absolutely

horrific and quite frankly I question how many other women are out there that may bring forward allegations in the future. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known. At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, listeners.

I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talina's R. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her. I didn't want to be talked out of this plan. After I post this, I am turning off my phone for exactly this reason. I kept just kind of asking everybody, anyone else think this is strange? You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl. You can now get access to episodes of What Happened to Talina Czar, 100% ad free, with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription.

I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today. Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Frye and Maria Trimarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests

men dominated the field. But tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrer's, known as the Wicked Lady, who terrorized England in the mid 1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to Criminalia

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Alaska, the big concern is bears. I always say the biggest danger in Alaska is the human animals. Less than a week after moving to Anchorage, Bethany Carrera vanished. She wasn't aware of what a violent place Anchorage can be. And locating Bethany's killer would be just as difficult as finding her body. We knew where her body was. And this is Alaska, and there was three feet of snow on the ground, and we couldn't recover her body until some of the snow melted.

Bringing justice would cost another life. It was a tragedy for everybody involved. Today, we're in Anchorage, Alaska for part one of The Search for Bethany Carrera. I'm Sloane Glass, and this is American Homicide. Just a note that this episode contains some graphic content. Please take care while listening. Music Music With more than 600 square miles of Arctic coast, untamed wilderness,

and majestic mountains, Alaska is our nation's largest state. But even with all that land, just over half a million people live there. Half the population of the state is in Anchorage. Ron McGee was the public affairs manager for the Anchorage Police Department. The last I checked we were like the 64th largest city in the nation. Historically people have flocked to Alaska in search of riches. This state has always been about oil. Along with liquid gold, Alaska was home to the gold rush of the late 1800s. That fostered the first generation of people who came to the state in search of riches.

But then there's the other group of people. In the 32 years that I have been here, I encountered a lot of people who came to Alaska to try and get away from something. Whether it's the law, money issues, or something completely innocent, Alaska is a place where a lot of people go to escape their past. We have a lot of the problems that people in the lower 48 have. But Anchorage has always been what I would consider a very violent place. Our rate of violence is much higher than the rest of the nation.

We've led the nation, for example, in rapes since I can remember. Alaska's violent crime rate is more than double the national average. And most of those crimes happen in Anchorage, which is scary for the college students who move there. The University of Alaska's campus in Anchorage is the largest in the university system. They offer the most majors. And we try to talk to the students and try and make them aware that, especially the students who come from rural Alaska, that this can be a very violent place.

One of those students who came to the University of Alaska in Anchorage, or UAA, was Bethany Carrera. Bethany comes from this little small community in Talkeetna. Talkeetna sits about 100 miles north of Anchorage, a town so small that a cat won the race for mayor as a write-in candidate. Can you imagine losing to a cat? So Bethany came from a small town. Very small. In 2003, the population was 810 people. Bethany was a go-getter who loved camping, snowboarding, and sailing. Adventure was in her blood.

In fact, after graduating high school, Bethany embarked on a year-long sailing trip through the South Pacific. Then she served as a Christian missionary to Thailand and Nepal. But then the 21-year-old decided it was time to go back to school. Bethany came from Talkeetna in 2003 to attend UAA. She was pre-med. She was a good student. She was a good daughter. Her parents had wonderful things to say about her. Bethany found a small apartment a couple miles from campus in Bootleggers Cove.

It's a scenic area of Anchorage along the coastline that got its name in the days of Prohibition. That's when barrels of moonshine used to roll off nearby boats. In the early 2000s, the area was popular with college students. Bootleggers Cove at that time was considered sort of a trendy place, a place that was, you know, a little more expensive than the rest of the town because it was close to the water. Bethany's one-bedroom apartment conveniently sat near several

trails for hiking, biking, and running, all of which Bethany loved to do. If you like the outdoors, this is the place to be. At the time, many of the older homes in Bootleggers Cove were being torn down to make way for bigger and fancier places. In fact, Bethany's modest four-unit apartment building was scheduled to be torn down later that year. Yeah, there's always a lot of development going on around here. You know, it's a place that is recreating itself constantly. But it worked out for Bethany.

She was able to sign a three-month lease that coincided with her summer school schedule. And that final week of April 2003, Bethany's boyfriend, Joe, helped her move into her new apartment. But by that Saturday, Bethany went AWOL. Bethany was supposed to pick up her brother from the airport, and she didn't do it. That was out of character for the reliable and responsible Bethany, as you can imagine her family was concerned.

And her mother immediately drove about 100 miles from Telkeetna to come to Anchorage and check on her. And when she checked on her, she couldn't find her. She wasn't at home. She found that Bethany had left her cell phone and her wallet in the apartment, and that immediately made her suspicious. No young lady goes anywhere without her cell phone in a while.

Her mama also found Bethany's car, passport, and even her favorite backpack at her apartment. But what really added to her mother's anxiety was what she saw outside. The apartment next door burns. There had been a fire in the apartment and that immediately made her suspicious. The upstairs unit of the vacant duplex next door

to Bethany's apartment was under construction and had caught fire earlier that morning. The unsettling smell of smoke still lingered in the air. So immediately she called her husband and her husband drove to Anchorage and then her mother called the police. Bethany's mom told detectives that she last talked with her daughter late Friday night. It was now Sunday afternoon. She explained that her daughter's boyfriend Joe had been in town to help Bethany move.

But there were no signs of Joe or any of his belongings at Bethany's apartment. Her mom admitted that she didn't know much about Joe. She then asked the detectives if they knew anything about the apartment next door to Bethany's, the one that had recently caught fire. Originally, they thought that the fire was from electrical natural causes, but

this additional investigator determined that the fire had been set intentionally. That made us even more suspicious when we found that out. All right, so we have a missing 21 year old woman who lived next door to a building that was intentionally set on fire. Immediately, the Anchorage PD got involved. My name is Walt Monaghan. I was the chief of police of the Anchorage Police Department.

At that time, when we did get a report that she was missing, normally we don't take those kinds of reports. Most police departments don't for a couple of days because nine out of 10, they show back up. But because of the urgency in this one, we did look into it. The urgency stemmed from the fact that Bethany

hadn't even lived in Anchorage for a week. Coming from a smaller town where you pretty much know everybody and going into a larger place, you're not gonna be as cognizant or aware of some of the dangers that are around you. If there's a person that you should stay away from and tell Khitna, everybody knows about it.

In Anchorage, not so. So I think a lot of folks, when they first come to Anchorage or Fairbanks or some of their larger places, they're a little more trusting than most people who live in the cities. As the police began their investigation, nearly 100 volunteers from Bethany's hometown arrived in Anchorage to search for her. The family started putting out flyers. They basically papered downtown. You could hardly go by a restaurant or a power pole

that didn't have Bethany's picture on it. The first time I saw one of those, I just thought, she had such an innocent smile, just a happy, genuine, likeable person. And I had hopes that, you know, she'd be okay, like everybody else did. It had been less than a week since Bethany moved into her apartment,

which had no sign of forced entry. If anything, it looked like Bethany had simply left to go run an errand, but never returned. And she was 21 and new in town. Did she go to the bar to not come home? Well, her mother said Bethany wasn't much of a drinker or partier. We found her purse, her keys, and her phone. Everything was there. That kind of added to the evidence aspect of that she didn't just scramble and take off someplace.

A look through Bethany's cell phone gave detectives their first clue. I believe her boyfriend had just been talking to her. Bethany's phone showed that one of the last phone calls came from her boyfriend, Joe. So the police got in touch with Joe, who confirmed that yes, he did talk with Bethany that Saturday morning. And that began a long conversation between Joe and the detectives. Because they learned Joe was married. Everyone's a suspect initially.

Everyone. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone, most of all his wife Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives, you're going to want to divorce me. Caroline's husband was living another life behind the scenes. He betrayed his oath to his family and to his community. She said you left bruises, pulled her hair, that type of thing. No. How far would Joel go to cover up what he'd done?

You're unable to keep track of all your lies, and quite frankly, I question how many other women may bring forward allegations in the future. This season of Betrayal investigates one officer's decades of deception. Lies that left those closest to him questioning everything they thought they knew. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here. Diddy's former protege, television personality, platinum-selling artist, Denity King alum Aubrey O'Day,

joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Aubrey O'Day is sitting next to us here. You are, as we sit here, right up the street from where the trial is taking place. Some people saw that you were going to be in New York, and they immediately started jumping to conclusions. So can you clear that up?

First of all, are you here to testify in the Diddy Trial? Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise based on her firsthand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be opposite of the glitz and glamor. It wasn't all bad,

but I don't know that any of the good was real. I went through things there. Listen to Amy and TJ Presents, Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and in color from the Outlaws podcast. On this week's episode, we're talking to none other than Chaperone and Sasha Colby. And let me tell you, no topping is off limits, honey. We talk about the lovers, the haters, and the creator.

I worked at Scooter's Coffee drive-through kiosk. And you are from the Midwest. And in the Midwest, they told you, well, just be humble. Like, you've heard this countless times. You too, right? Oh, yeah, it's very, like, big in Hawaii. Mine was, I think, wrapped up in, like, Christian guilt. Oh, yeah.

We definitely had, like, some Jehovah's Witness guilt there. Yeah. Wait, were you Jehovah's Witness? Yeah. So you were Jehovah's Witness? I grew up that, yeah. My family still has. Hey.

Oh, no, bye. Ha ha ha! Listen, she may have been working the drive-through in 2020, but she's the name on everybody's lips now, honey. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed

to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. I just knew him as a kid. Long silent voices from his past came forward. And he was just staring at me. And they had secrets of their own to share. Um, Gilbert King? I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott. I was no longer of Jeremy Lynn Scott. I was no longer just telling the story.

I was part of it. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known. If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed. I never expected to find myself in this place.

Now I need to tell you how I got here. At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy. Jeremy, I want to tell you something. Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Bethany Carrera was a 21-year-old student who was starting life on her own. On Monday, she moved into her new apartment in Anchorage. By Saturday, she was nowhere to be found. Ron McGee worked for the Anchorage PD. This young lady was completely harmless. She was the kind of young lady that everyone would like to have as a daughter. She comes from this little small community in Telkeetna. For a lot of people who are raised in rural Alaska, Anchorage can be a little

bit of a rude awakening. I always say the biggest danger in Alaska is the human animals. And of course, that was the fear that someone had done something to Bethany. The normally reliable Bethany was supposed to pick up her brother from the airport that weekend. But she never showed up. It left her family wondering, where's Bethany? She didn't want to disappear.

I think everybody was on edge. The Talkeetna community really responded to it. And the people here in Anchorage got involved in it too, particularly the students out at the university. We had a lot of students at the university that were distributing flyers and posting them all over the campus. Flyers with Bethany's smiling face next to the ominous word, missing, went up all over town. It was a scary time for Bethany's parents who struggled to stay positive. I think a lot of times families blame themselves. And in this situation, the family was doing it. They raised a wonderful daughter. They were sending her off to college like so many

other families do. They were trying to do what was right for their daughter, and she ends up missing. It was early May, and Bethany was about to begin summer school. That's also when tourism season was about to begin, which meant the snow was melting and the ground was thawing. That turned Anchorage into a muddy mess for Bethany's search party.

And they were going all around the town, putting up posters and looking in places, trying to find her. And it's very hard work. Detectives began tracing Bethany's last known whereabouts and got some help from her cell phone, which was found inside her apartment. It was 2003, but even then, no 21-year-old would leave her house without their cell phone, which concerned everyone involved. At the time, Bethany owned a flip phone. A scroll through her phone log showed several calls

from that Saturday morning. I believe she talked to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was a pilot, and they had a conversation. Just before 9 a.m. that Saturday morning, Bethany had a short phone Just before 9 a.m. that Saturday morning, Bethany had a short phone call with her boyfriend, Joe. And that made us suspicious right from the beginning. Joe lived in Nome, Alaska,

which is famous for being the endpoint of the Iditarod dog race. And the only way to get between Anchorage and Nome was by plane. Good thing Joe was a pilot. At the time, Bethany was 21 years old. Joe was well into his 30s. The two used to work together

and had been dating for about six months. One important thing to note, Joe was married. That made us even more suspicious when we found that out. Bethany's parents told investigators they didn't know much about Joe. So detectives questioned Joe, who explained that his marriage was long over by the time he met Bethany. He said the reason his divorce had dragged out for so long was because he and his soon-to-be-ex were trying to do what was best for their child. Joe had been with Bethany before she disappeared. He was helping her move into her new apartment.

He said the two had a nice visit. He even gave her a puka shell necklace from Hawaii as a gift. But Joe said he flew back to Nome on Friday morning because he had to work. Then things got uncomfortable. The detectives asked about Joe's soon-to-be ex-wife. Did she know about Bethany? Joe said she did, and the two didn't exactly have a happy meeting.

That immediately drew some concern from the mother and immediately from the detectives that responded to it. Just a few weeks earlier, Joe's wife found Bethany at his apartment in Nome and was furious. She even threw a glass at her, and later called Bethany's parents and told them their daughter was a home wrecker. I'm a parent too. I have three kids and about the same age as she was.

And so I just felt for her parents." Detectives checked Joe's alibi and confirmed he was flying that entire weekend. As for the pilot's soon-to-be ex-wife, there are no roads between Nome and Anchorage. If she were to come to Anchorage, she'd have to fly in, and there was no record of that happening. They cleared both the pilot and his wife, and again left everyone asking, where is Bethany? There are a lot of people that disappear for a lot of different reasons, and so they wanted to know what happened to this young lady. Through their conversation with Joe, detectives got a clearer picture of what was happening

in Bethany's life. Joe said Bethany had taken a new job cleaning and showing apartments for her landlord, a man named Mike Lawson. And that Saturday, Bethany planned to meet with Mike so he could train her. The detective, he questioned Mike immediately. Mike Lawson said yes. He and Bethany spoke early that Saturday morning. But it was to resolve an issue with Bethany's keys.

But Mike said he never met up with Bethany that Saturday. In fact, he said he's the one who shows the apartments to prospective tenants. So he wasn't sure what Bethany was talking about. Mike Lawson said that he was at home with his brother all day watching NASCAR. After hitting several dead ends, investigators shifted their focus to the duplex next door to Bethany's apartment. There was a fire in the apartment. And in this case, there was something to that fire. Early that Sunday morning, a newspaper delivery person noticed the fire and called 911. Originally ruled an accident, investigators later discovered it was no accident at all.

Well, the apartment was set on fire. When we went to go look at the fire afterwards, we found some evidence. Walt Monaghan was the chief of police for the Anchorage PD. And the fire basically was meant to destroy whatever evidence might be inside. Inside the apartment, the detectives noticed a suspicious patch of drywall, almost like the job was rushed to get done just before the fire. The material that they used to, you know, that caulking kind of drywall stuff wasn't completely dry and actually kind of depressed because of the heat, the moisture there.

It actually shrank back and made us look at it. And as we examined that repair, we found some hair inside of it. It was almost incredible that investigators located those hairs and fibers within the poorly patched drywall. They were sent off to the lab for testing. And while they waited for answers, they were left to wonder whose hair was in the wall and how did it get there? Because the apartment it was found in was vacant. Franco Beznis was a contractor who worked on that building. Mike Lawson and I worked for a construction company and the guy calls me up and he says, hey, Franco, the building caught on fire, the duplex, the one that I was in to work.

It's a two story, burnt to the first floor, the flames went up and even the ceiling was burnt, but it didn't actually break the shell of the whole building. And it was ruled as electrical fire, which really upsets me because I'm the one that does the work and I don't want to be blamed for, you know, touching two wires together. But after examining the fire, I knew that it wasn't me. ATF came in and ruled it as arson. And that changed everything. That drew attention to the whole disappearance next door.

That's when the police started looking at everyone who had been working on the apartment. The lead investigator starts telling us about Bethany Carrera is missing, and they knew the connection that we had already, that our company is the same company that rented a tour, so they're questioning all of us. Little did I realize that they ran a background check,

literally everybody right there in this fight. And wait until you hear what they found. Out of the seven guys that I worked with, five of them come back as registered sex offenders, which blew me away. Okay, so there are five registered sex offenders working on an apartment building where a 21-year-old girl went missing. And the neighboring building was set on fire? There's one gal that just rented the apartment there who's alone. So that really drew a lot of attention to our company. For investigators, the hope was that one of these five registered sex offenders might

lead them to Bethany. And with any luck, they'd find Bethany alive. I believe that somebody knows something. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me. Caroline's husband was living another life behind the scenes.

He betrayed his oath to his family and to his community. She said you left bruises, pulled her hair, that type of thing. No. How far would Joel go to cover up what he'd done? You're unable to keep track of all your lies, and quite frankly, I question how many other women may bring forward allegations in the future. This season of Betrayal investigates one officer's decades of deception.

Lies that left those closest to him questioning everything they thought they knew. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here. Diddy's former protege, television personality, platinum-selling artist, Denity King alum Aubrey O'Day joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Aubrey O'Day is sitting next to us here. You are, as we sit here, right up the street from where the trial is taking place. Some people saw that you were going to be in New York and they immediately started jumping to conclusions. So can you clear that up?

First of all, are you here to testify in the Diddy Trial? Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise based on her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be opposite of the glitz and glamour. It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real. I went through things there. Listen to Amy and TJ Presents, Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, y'all, it's your girl, T.S. Madison, coming to you live and in color from the Outlaws podcast. On this week's episode, we're talking to none other than Chaperone and Sasha Colby. And let me tell you, no topping is off limits, honey. We talk about the lovers, the haters, and the creator. I worked at Scooter's Coffee drive-through kiosk. And you are from the Midwest.

Mm-hmm. And in the Midwest, they told you, just be humble. Like, you've heard this countless times. You too, right? Oh, yeah, just be humble? Like, you've heard this countless times. You too, right? Oh yeah, it's very like big in Hawaii. Mine was, I think, wrapped up in like Christian guilt. Oh yeah.

We definitely had like some Jehovah's Witness guilt there. Yeah. Wait, were you Jehovah's Witness? Yeah. So you were Jehovah's Witness? I grew up that, yeah. My family still has hair. Oh no, bye.

Listen, she may have been working the drive through in 2020, but she's the name on everybody's lips no, bye. Ha ha ha! Listen, she may have been working the drive-through in 2020, but she's the name on everybody's lips now, honey. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. I just knew him as a kid. Long, silent voices from his past. Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. I just knew him as a kid.

Long silent voices from his past came forward. And he was just staring at me. And they had secrets of their own to share. Um, Gilbert King? I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott. I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer.

He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known. If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed. I never expected to find myself in this place. Now, I need to tell you how I got here. At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Bone Valley Season Two.

Jeremy. Jeremy, I want to tell you something. Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley Season Two on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to As the Anchorage PD pieced together a timeline of Bethany Carrera's disappearance, they were focused not only on her apartment, but the building next door. Right around the same time Bethany disappeared that Saturday, her next door apartment caught on fire. The timing of the fire was back to back. Franco Beznaiz was a contractor

who worked with Bethany's landlord. Saturday night, the fire broke out. Same building that I did all the work at. So initially it was ruled electrical fire. Then after more investigation it was ruled as arson. That changed everything. Detectives got even more suspicious when they did a background check on the construction crew. Five out of the seven were roasters, sex offenders. I'm sitting there going, what am I working with? The police looked into all of their alibis,

including Bethany's landlord, Mike Lawson. At the time, Mike Lawson was 45 years old. He was tall and husky, but jet black hair he slicked back. And yes, Mike did have some well-documented problems with women. The lead investigator actually asked him right in front of me, is it okay if I do a visual search on your vehicle? Mike said yes. So they walked over to Mike's vehicle. Mike opened every door, including the hatchback, to his SUV Mercedes. They walked

around, did a visual look, and then they drove off. I go back to work, an hour and a half goes by, and I look back over there, Mike never left. All he's doing is walking in circles around his car, looking sort of like what the investigators did. Can you imagine seeing one of your coworkers doing that? So yeah, Franco found it a little suspicious. And then things got even more strange. He walked up to me and said, Franco, can you cover for me? And I'm like, yeah, I'll cover for you.

He said that he needs to go get an attorney. I looked at Mike and I said, Mike, we don't all need attorneys. I know for a fact that I didn't do anything and I don't think any of these guys did, but why worry about it, Mike? And he said, well, they're looking at me. The next day, Mike showed up to work

with his car completely cleaned and detailed. This car is the cleanest I've ever seen it. But you got to understand about Mike. This car, I've known him for several months. One time I could ever get in the car, it was so dirty. Papers and boxes. There was never no room except for just him. And look, this could be one giant coincidence

that Mike had his car cleaned a day after the police searched it. But it's what Franco learned about Mike that concerned him. Mike Lawson is a registered sex offender. He was a registered sex offender that did not re-register himself here in Anchorage. And so I started having this gut feeling about Michael and called Crime Stoppers. They connected me with the lead investigator. As soon as the investigation began, we started talking to people and they said that Mike Lawson was a very angry man. Ron McGee worked for the Anchorage PD. He's got a lot of problems with women,

very violent. In 1987, Mike was living in Illinois. That's when he was arrested for tying up, beating, and repeatedly sexually assaulting his then-girlfriend. A year later, a jury convicted Mike Lawson of aggravated criminal sexual assault. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. After serving only three years in prison, Mike Lawson was released. That's when he relocated to Alaska. He and his brother Bob then started a roofing company. Right around the time Bethany Carrera vanished, Mike was getting divorced for the fourth time. Clearly, he's got some anger issues. His wife had just left him. He indicated that he wanted to do violence to women and that made us suspicious

right from the beginning. That made him a suspect right away. If you remember, Mike had an alibi for the day Bethany went missing. Mike and his brother had said that they were home all day watching TV, watching race car driving. We were able to get their phone records and determine from their phone records that they were lying to us." So let's talk about those phone records. On the Saturday morning Bethany went missing, Mike called his brother Bob seven times. And all seven calls happened within three minutes. Why was Mike so desperately trying to get a hold of Bob?

Well, a closer look at these phone calls might tell us. Mike's cell phone had pinged the cell tower near Bethany's apartment. So, Mike may have said he and Bob were at home all day Saturday, but their phone records said otherwise. They were not telling the truth, that he had not been at home. So, you know, obviously something was amiss there. And of course that raises more suspicions when you find out that people were lying to you. That Saturday morning, Mike's brother Bob finally took his brother's call just before 11 a.m. Afterwards, records showed Mike's cell phone

returning to his home before traveling some 45 miles north, which is close to Tolkeetna. Mike's phone then went silent for hours. First of all, we didn't have enough evidence to charge him, but we had a suspect, so we had to find other ways to prove that Lawson had been involved in this. Mike Lawson had been involved in this. Mike Lawson had lied to investigators. And that's when the police leaned on Mike's brother, Bob. Here's audio of Bob being questioned by detectives.

Do you believe that your brother's involved in the arson or Bethany's disappearing? I really don't. I just got deep down true blue from my heart. I really don't think Mike's involved. If my brother came home and told me he did something like that, I'd tell him, I'm not going to jail for anybody. I'll tell you that flat out. So investigators went to Plan B and played hardball. They showed Bob a loan application he and his brother Mike Lawson filled out for their roofing company.

Lawson had applied for a loan and falsified some information on documents during this loan process. The application had this question, are any of the applicants a convicted felon? Mike was a convicted felon, but he lied. He had checked off the box for no, and by doing that, Mike and Bob had committed fraud, which is a federal offense. Police charged both brothers, but offered Bob a deal. If he would cooperate in their investigation into Bethany Carrera, he'd avoid punishment for the fraud case. We kept emphasizing to him that this is a young lady and her family wants to know where she's at. Bob could either join Mike in jail or take the deal. It took

some serious thought, but Bob finally came around. He accepted the plea deal and agreed to flip on his brother. If that's what I got to do, somebody's got to tell the story. If that has to be me, I will. Someday when I'm eulogized, all I want somebody to say is I stood up and did the right thing. I always tried to do the right thing. I think he eventually got to his conscience and he decided to help us. I'm sure it was a very difficult decision that he had to make,

but he eventually did the right thing. Some nine months after Bethany Carrera went missing, Bob told the detectives his brother Mike shot and killed Bethany. And he said he knew where to find her body. I think that basically they just wanted it to be far away from town. Walt Monaghan was the Anchorage chief of police. It's about 400 miles from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

At mile 129 there's a big gravel pit. That's where Bob told the caravan of police and search crews to pull off the road. The crew went out there where we believe that she was disposed at. It's a fairly large gravel pit and you're surrounded by mountains. By that time it was winter time. I think at one point it was like four feet of snow. Bob Lawson led investigators through the deep snow to where he claimed he and his brother Mike dumped Bethany's body nine months earlier.

After four hours of searching the gravel pit, which was the length of two football fields, they called off their search. We knew that she was there, but we had to wait until the snow melted. With the search on hold, something unexpected happened. Mike Lawson told investigators he was ready to talk. And get this, Mike told detectives that it was his brother Bob who was responsible for Bethany's death, not the other way around. And Mike volunteered to wear a wire to prove it.

If there's anything that could help us find a clue, a lead, a person who might give us more insight, that's always what we try to do. So now you had two brothers blaming one another for the death of Bethany Carrera. Would you be willing to talk to your brother? And if so, would you be willing to let us tape record that conversation? Sure.

Join us next week for part two of The Search for Bethany Carrera. I'm Sloane Glass. That's next time on American Homicide. homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us at americanhomicidepod at gmail.com. That's americanhomicidepod at gmail.com. That's americanhomicidepod at gmail.com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me, Sloane Glass, and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gantz. The series is also written

and produced by Todd Gantz, with additional writing by Ben Federman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is Kristen Malkuri. Our I Heart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchak. Audio editing, mixing, and mastering by Nico Oruka. American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Noiser, music library provided by MyMusic. Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts,

and please rate and review American Homicide. Your five-star review goes a long way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast, Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me.

How far would he go to cover up what he'd done? The fact that you lied is absolutely horrific. And quite frankly, I question how many other women are out there that may bring forward allegations in the future. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known. At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltsin, host of What Happened to Talina Czar. It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns, and the group of online sleuths who try to find her. I didn't want to be talked out of this plan. After I post this, I am turning off my phone for exactly this reason. I kept just kind of asking everybody, anyone else think this is strange? You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk, I'm out there.

I'm an action kind of girl. You can now get access to episodes of What Happened to Talina's R, 100% ad free with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription. I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today. Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tramarchi,

hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field. But tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrer's, known as the Wicked Lady, who terrorized England in the mid 1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season.

Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to Criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.