Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Patrick Shunn & Monique Patenaude

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

When a couple from Oso, Washington, is discovered missing, it doesn’t take long for detectives to develop a prime suspect. But solving the case, finding their bodies and capturing the killer took approximately 100 days, using a combination of old-school investigative methods and modern forensic tools.Click HERE to view the footage from SnoHawk 1’s camera, courtesy of the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office. 🚨The Crime Junkie Holiday Merch Collection is here! 🚨Shop the exclusive Holiday Collection -- limited-edition merch designed to bring a little CJ cheer to your season. Perfect for gifting (or keeping for yourself). Get it before it’s gone! 🛒✨Shop the collection now: http://shop.audiochuck.com/collections/holiday Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit:  https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-patrick-shunn-and-monique-patenaude/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies.Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, Crime Junkies. Britt and I did not make a new episode this week, but don't you dare hit pause because I actually still have an episode that is brand new to you. And that is because I'm going to give you one of our fan club episodes. People ask me all the time, like, oh, is the fan club just ad-free content? Yes, everything is ad-free, but that's not it. Oh, do we just get the episodes early? Yes, you get them early, but that is not just it.

Oh, are the bonus episodes like short or just behind the scene? And no, the episodes are exactly like the ones you get here in your feed. And so that is why I wanted to drop this one to show you what you guys are missing if you are not in the fan club. If you're in the club, you will find all of our episodes, tons of bonus episodes, early releases, and it's not just crime junkie. It's so many of the audio chuck shows. So if one episode this week isn't enough for you, maybe you're looking for some extra listens or you're traveling this holiday season, the Crime Junkie fan club is where you'll want to be. And because today is Cyber Monday,

you can join the Crime Junkie Fan Club at a discount today. Just head to crimejunkie.com to learn more and to join. Now, let's get into this special release from the Crime Junkie Fan Club. Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is my umpteenth reason to stay out of Washington. 10th. This twisty and gut-wrenching tale includes a double murder, a historic landslide, a trail of evidence, and a manhunt to Mexico.

And I'm going to take you along and explain how investigators combined old school boots on the ground investigative methods with modern-day forensic evidence to get the killer captured, all over the course of 100 days. And listen closely, because in this story, there are two central themes. Details matter, and the truth never dies. This is the story of Patrick Shun and Monique Paton. Snowhomish County Major Crimes Detective Dave Fontenow walks into his office in Everett, Washington, on April 13th, 2016, with plans to drop his stuff and go home and rest. He and the rest of the homicide squad had just wrapped up about 40 hours of work at a murder scene, and they were beyond tired. But before he can walk out the door, a notice lands in his hands from the patrol unit about a missing couple up in the Oso area. That's about 45 minutes northeast.

The notice says it's a missing husband and wife who were last seen the day before. Their cars are missing. No one can get a hold in them. And there is no activity on their socials. So is this report just coming in or is this just like the official handoff to major crimes here? That's the latter. So the report actually came in the day. before. So day one of this case started April 12th. That's when the first call about the missing

couple came into Sonomish County 911 dispatch. And that actually came from the couple's neighbor friends, Mike and his wife, Suzanne. Basically, the reason he called the four of them were supposed to go to an Iron Maiden concert the night of the 11th. But Patrick and Monique were a no show, red flag number one. Now, Mike had gone to their house to see what was up, sees their beloved dog Cairo running loose, red flag number two, which is what prompted Mike to call Patrick's work. on the 12th, and they told him that Patrick was a no-show at the office. Another red flag. Yeah, that's when he calls police.

So patrol deputies had gone up there to do a welfare check. They get Mike's official statement, and they see that the couple's cars are still missing, which I'm sure to a lot of people would give the impression that everything's fine. They'd be like, oh, they're just like went somewhere. Yeah, they're just not here. Yeah, but Mike can just like feel whatever this is in his bones, so much so that he told the deputy, he actually grabbed the SD card out of, Patrick's trail camera. And he was going to check it himself to see like when they were last

on it because it's kind of like near the entrance of their long driveway. But he's like, you know what, since police are here, like here, I'll just give it to you guys. And the conviction in his voice, his actions, like that's being picked up on by patrol deputies who then passed this notice off to Detective Dave Fontenow in major crimes. And on day two, the official criminal investigation kicks off. Now, his first move is to put in expedited requests for their cell phone data, which comes back pretty fast. It shows that Patrick and Monique's phones both stopped transmitting at 8.32 a.m. on April 12th. But the activity before that is odd. Now, most of the activity from the 11th looks normal. It has Monique kind of out and about running errands. Patrick is placed at work.

Monique's phone shows that she arrived home to where their driveway gate was at 11.04 a.m. And then Patrick's phone shows him arriving home at that same spot at 307 p.m. Now, their phones don't seem to move for a long time, as if they are home. But remember, the 11th is when they're supposed to go to that concert. And Mike said that he actually went over to the house on the 11th at about 4.30 p.m., their car's already gone then. So if they both arrived home earlier that day, where are they? The next activity detective Fontenosa sees on the phone data is at 3.26 a.m.

when both of their phones travel up an old logging road, and then they both stop transmitting five hours later at 8.32 a.m. Now, the 3.26 a.m. time is strange in it of itself, right? Like, where are you going? Why are you going up this logging road in the middle of the night? It's super weird. Yeah. But where this road is is like the weirdest part of all. You see, two years before this, Oso Washington was home to one of the deadliest landslides in American history. I mean, some fourth. 40 houses got buried and 43 people died. Patrick and Monique's house was spared, but barely. I mean, the aerial photos of this landslide are bonkers. It took out an entire mountainside along with houses and roads. And so much of it dumped into the North Fork Stillaguamish River

that the whole river dammed and caused even more houses to flood. I mean, this was a huge tragic mess that ended up in FEMA, but basically having to buy out much of the properties. So all of that to say, where their phones were traveling was like even higher up the mountain than where this landslide had been. There is nothing there, certainly not at 3 o'clock or 3.30 in the morning. And were the phones in that same location when they stopped transmitting at like, what, 8.30-ish? Same general area. Now, another super weird thing about the phone activity is that friends and family are telling detectives that the messages that they've been sending to Patrick and Monique on the 11th,

Like, between the time they got home to them moving up the mountains at 3.30, those were all getting actively read. Like, they can tell from read receipts. Right, like someone's opening the phone and seeing the messages. Yeah. They just don't think that it's Patrick and Monique because no one's responding. And the read receipts stopped completely that morning at around the same time that the phones just totally stopped transmitting. So it would seem that something happened to them after they got home if they were, in fact, the one. in possessions of their phone when they got home to begin with.

That SD card from the trail camera that Mike took could come in real handy now, except when they look at the files, the card was completely full, so it had stopped recording before all of this. Ashley. It's like how? I had gotten my hopes up. I thought maybe we could, like, trust trail cams more than like business security cameras. I have no, no faith in business surveillance, but like even the trail cam.

Once again, I'm disappointed. Upgrade your SD car gigabytes to those trail cam people. Like, neither. So, yeah, this could have shown if it was them, who they were with, when and where they got home. All of that is stuff they need to know. It's going to be important. But first things first, they need to try and find Patrick and Monique. And the best place to start is where the phones were pinging on the morning of the 12th.

By day three of the investigation, this is now April 14th, major crimes detectives are pretty sure they're dealing with foul play. and they put eagle-eyed searchers up in a helicopter. And, Brett, when I say eagle-eyed, like, just you wait, I'm going to be testing your eyesight in a minute. And while they're up in the air, detectives work to search the wooded area on the ground while they wait for their search warrant on the house to go through that. And Brett, this terrain is wild. And I mean that in the literal sense of the word. I mean, yeah, I'm picturing western Washington, like mountains, rivers, woods, beautiful, but like really vast, really dangerous scenery. Yeah, it is rugged on the ground.

There's, like, also huge canopies of trees up above from the sky, like, covering all of that. Right. Plus, remember, add the whole Oso landslide debris stuff on top of this. I actually have some footage if you want to take a look at it over here. Okay. Oh, there it is. At, like, 33 seconds in. I mean, that looks like a car.

Yeah, so that's their first sighting of Patrick's missing Land Rover. Once the Helly Folks radio major crimes, they get out there. on foot. But it's a struggle just to get down to where the car is because it's a steep tree hillside and the Land Rover is fully like nose down 90 degrees and it's stuck on a stump. It's immediately clear that someone tried to cover the car up with like brush and debris, also a camouflage tarp. Oh, okay. And guess what else they see below the car? Exactly 268 feet Further down is Monique's Jeep laying on its side. So both cars look as though someone pushed them over the upper cliff's edge and just like let them tumble down,

like a game of Hot Wheels or Domino's or something. But Patrick's car, the Land Rover, that's the one that got stuck on the stump. So interestingly, there is this wooden four by four posts weirdly positioned, but it looks like someone was trying to like use it as a jack to get the car unstuck from the stump that it's dangling from. Oh my God. I mean, this scene is obviously no good, but I'm kind of bracing myself for what they're going to find inside the cars. What detectives are bracing themselves, too, but what they find is not what they or you probably expected. Detectives run out of daylight so the cars don't get processed until the next day on day four of the investigation.

Detectives on the ground are expecting that when they open the doors of the Land Rover, that they're going to find the bodies of Patrick and. and Monique. But they don't. Instead, they just find loads of suspicious items that just adds to the mystery of what could have happened to them. I mean, in Patrick's car, there's rope, plastic sheeting, tarps, some towels, and blood in the back of the rover. And fallen out near Monique's Jeep, they find her wallet with her driver's license, a bag of dog food, a bag of chicken feed a roll of unopened paper towels, some black plastic gloves, cables, a McDonald's receipt dated for April 11th at 1041 a.m. They also find some spent shell casings and a shopping list that's covered in blood. Now, all of that stuff that fell out of her car actually matches the

shopping list and her phone activity because one of the errands that she was going to run was to a co-op grocery store where she bought all that food for her animals and the McDonald's receipt lines up too. Which all that stuff still being in her car means, like, she likely never made it back inside her house after arriving back on the property at home. Right. But to be triple sure, they even send someone out to the McDonald's just to check the security footage to make sure that it actually was her who is there. Make sure that she was alone. And when they look, sure enough, it's her in the drive-thru with her dog Cairo in the passenger seat at the same exact time and date as the receipt and matching with. the cell phone data shows. So with all of this evidence, especially the blood in the shell

casings, detectives are now certain that whatever happened to Patrick and Monique, they probably didn't make it out alive. As the car scenes are being processed, neighbor and family interviews are also happening, and this theme begins to emerge. There is one name that almost everyone mentions when asked the age-old question. Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Patrick and Monique. John Reed. Who? John is Patrick and Monique's neighbor, and there is a nasty dispute going on between them. Patrick and Monique had accused John of trespassing and essentially being a bad steward of the land. And again, the theme of this episode is landslide. So John's property is one parcel closer to where the landslide destruction was. His house was barely missed, but the mudslide

actually took out part of his driveway. So he had been using a road easement that was more or less Patrick and Monique's driveway. But here's the thing. John actually took a massive payout from FEMA to allow authorities to seize his house and property. And part of that deal meant that John had to move out and he wasn't allowed to access that property anymore without a government official present. But he was still like coming and going as if he still lived there, basically squatting

on a property that was no longer his. And Patrick and Monique accused him of illegally cutting down trees and like all of this other stuff that they didn't like. The dispute had even escalated to each party calling the cops on each other in the past. So this little neighbor spat had gotten pretty ugly. And has their relationship with John been Rocky the whole time they've been neighbors? I mean, like off and on for like a few years. But Patrick's niece Aaron told us that there was a time after the landslide when Patrick felt like sorry for John. I mean, he like, the guy lost his property.

And he showed, Patrick, showed him a lot of compassion, giving him permission to use their driveway gate, all of that. But then it reached a point where he felt as if John was abusing their kindness. And Patrick and Monique ended up putting locks on their gate. And then that's why they actually put up the trail camera. Because by that time, they were like, this is it. We need evidence of him trespassing so we can sue this guy. So, I mean, leading up to this, things had hit a boiling point. And when I say boiling point, I want to make it clear, none of the.

Patrick and Monique's relatives are like, oh, John definitely murdered them. It's more like, you know, they had zero enemies except for this one neighbor. But they were just one guy. Yeah, this one guy who seemed to hate their guts. But everything is now like starting to click into place for detectives. All the stories are merging into one. Because remember neighbor Mike who reported them missing? Yeah. So his wife, Suzanne, told detectives that on April 13th, so this is going on two days with no sightings of their friends, she had gone over there to check on things, and as she's approaching the gate, she sees John Reed in his red pickup truck exiting the gate. And John's brother, Tony, is with him. Now, Suzanne doesn't know Tony,

but he's wearing a hoodie with the hood like pulled up. He's like wearing sunglasses, like, let's just say the vibes were off. And Suzanne stops to talk to John, and she glances in the back of his truck, and she sees in the back are some cables and a four by four wooden post. And based on Suzanne's description of these things, they are a perfect match for the items found by the vehicles up on the mountain. And not even knowing any of that at the time that Suzanne is like talking to them and seeing this. She is already so suspicious of John that she actually rolled some video on her phone during this interaction just in case something went down. That is such a crime junkie move. I know.

Like props to the girlies out there who are basically citizen detectives. So this is enough for Detective Fontenot to do some John Reed homework. He runs a background check on John and sees that he actually is a convicted felon, but not for anything violent for an old felony marijuana conviction. But brother Tony also a convicted felon and his past is violent. So this is when police roll over to John's house. John's house that he doesn't technically own anymore where he's not really supposed to be. Correct.

Got it. At least in that moment, he is following the rules. He and Tony are nowhere to be found. Okay. So while they figure out how to track them down, they start knocking on doors of other neighbors to ask if anyone had any information or security footage, and oh boy, does this pay off.

Police obtained video from two different houses that are on the road that goes above the landslide. And one of them shows Patrick's Land Rover, followed by Monique's Jeep, driving up the road, one right after the other on April 12th at 3.31 a.m. It is the exact route and timestamps as the cell phone data. Now, the other video shows John Reed's red truck taking the same route nearly six hours later at 9.21 a.m.

And sticking out of the back of his truck is that four-by-four wooden post. Detective Fontenow told our reporter Emily Muir that, at least for him, these videos were the evidence that changed everything. I mean, in his words, from that moment forward, the hunt for John and Tony Reed was, quote, on like Donkey Kong, is what he told her. Now they have enough to serve search warrants at John's house or his former property. And even more physical evidence is found there. Shell casings, plastic sheeting, a camo tarp, guns, more four-by-four posts, zip ties in the closet. I mean, there's blood in the bathtub.

And that's just evidence that was collected from inside. By his garage, they find a trash barrel that is full of clothes, not burnt, just soaking in diesel fuel. And they find not one, but two secret underground bunkers. I think the only thing worse than finding one secret underground bunker is the second one. Is finding two secret underground bunkers. And listen, he said that each time they were like stumbling across these because like they're, like, They weren't expecting to find them. Yeah.

They're literally thinking like, oh my God, we're going to find Patrick and Monique either like tied up and bleeding and injured or worse. But just like the cars, both of the bunkers are empty. Basically, Detective Fontenow told us he thinks that those were actually just former grow rooms for John's marijuana operations. But anyways, they collect everything. They send it off to the crime lab and bolos are officially issued for John and Tony Reed. The U.S. Marshal Service also sticks some agents. on John and Tony's parents' house in Ellensburg, Washington to do surveillance just in case they showed up there. And do they find anything suspicious inside Patrick and Monique's house?

No, not really. So their house is like kind of immaculate. There's no signs of a struggle. And detectives even had relatives come look around to see if anything looked out of place or missing or whatever. And interestingly, there were only two things that they could note. One, they said Patrick's computer was missing. And like the other one is so small, they said that the wrong cat bowl was out. What exactly does that mean the wrong cat bowl? They said that there was like a certain cat that Patrick and Monique used for like their cat with like food or whatever

and like the one that was sitting out. Was not it. Yeah. I mean, it must have been so distinct that all of them knew or whatever. Yeah. And it's so interesting because this is one of the things that Detective Fontenow admitted to us. He's like, I kind of just dismissed this as nothing at the time.

But it becomes a learning moment for him later on because that, That different capel, it was a clue. The details matter. The details matter. Now, it's not until day five, April 16th, that detectives get word from those agents who are on the stakeout at John and Tony's parents' house. But on day five, they've spotted John's red truck in the garage. Snohomish County detectives drop everything. They drive the three hours away to Ellensburg to serve search warrants on the parents' house and on John's truck.

But they didn't get there quick enough to intercept John or Tony. Like, they are already gone by then. And their parents, Clyde and Faye, are pretty unhelpful. They're basically like, yep, our sons were here, but we're not going to tell you where they went. Oh, cool. Great. Yeah. Not at all concerning.

So in the garage, they find more tarps, more plastic sheeting that match everything found at the crime scene. And inside John's truck, detectives find a small spot of what looks like blood near the passenger side door. Now, this is tiny compared to the blood that they found in Patrick's Land Rover, but it still gets swapped anyways. And they also find some recent U.S. bank receipts for like big cashouts and a 7-Eleven receipt from Arlington, Washington, dated on April 11th, just before midnight. And that, just before midnight, that's like square in the missing time frame we have for Monique and Patrick, right? So detectives decide to take this. They go to the 7-Eleven, and sure enough, on surveillance video, that was worse.

They actually see John and Tony buying energy drinks and chips at midnight wearing, guess what? The clothes that were found at John's in that barrel soaking in diesel fuel. So the evidence is just piling up against these guys. Yeah, and they just keep collecting more and more. Searchers find Monique's keys and glasses like seven miles away from where the cars were dumped. And they now have help of a cadaver dog who finds Patrick's jacket, which is kind of. covered in blood. So five days in, they've basically solved their case. And Detective Fontenow and his team go ahead and make their case to the prosecutor to get arrest warrants issued for John

and Tony Reed for a nobody homicide. But now the manhunt begins. Abolo got put out on their mom's car, which is the only car that was missing from their house when John left his truck. And they get cell phone data for John and Tony. Both investigative avenues are fruit. Not only do they get a hit on Faye's license plate, but cell mapping is showing exactly where the fugitive brothers are when they go looking for them on day five. And it's nowhere near Washington. By April 16th, the Reed brothers have made it all the way to Phoenix, Arizona. That is a solid 20-hour drive. But before cops can descend on them down south, their phones just go dark.

And they are just completely off the grid. Now, all authorities can do is hope for a sighting or another license plate catch or for the brother's phones to come back online or something even better. And something even better happens on day 35. In mid-May, a call comes in from an attorney in Ellensburg, Washington. He says that he's calling on behalf of his client, Tony Reed. And Tony wants to turn himself in on one condition. They must agree to take the death penalty off the table. Now, the thing is, the death penalty hasn't even been discussed.

Because back then, there was a moratorium on executions in the state of Washington. And while the Sonomish County prosecutor technically could have called for the death penalty or charge and whatever were asked for it, they had no plans to bring any capital charges during the moratorium. But like, whatever, detectives just see this as an opportunity. So they're like, deal of a century. Yeah, happy to agree. And they do that so they can arrest and interrogate Tony. So deal gets done.

And on May 16th, again, same day, day 35 of their case, detectives fly down to the Mexico-San Diego border and Tony surrenders to Washington authorities. They get him back to Washington. And by May 22nd, day 40 of this saga, Tony's ready to talk. Now, he says he didn't kill them. His brother did, but he did try to help his brother cover his tracks. He said that he shot those people and he told me it was off the fence. He said that they came to the gate with the gun and that he started wrestling with one of them and the gun went off. Tony says that he's been in Mexico this whole time, but John suggested that he go home and surrender.

He just wanted to talk me into turning myself in because if something was to happen to me over this, he would have not be able to live with himself. Detectives asked Tony to walk them through exactly what happened, and he does. Tony says that his brother John killed Patrick and Monique on April 11th and that John basically called him to help get rid of the cars and the bodies. What does he tell you? What's the plan? We're going to take the cars up and dump them.

Did you stop and look in the cars? At that first time? No. Okay. When was the first time you sell the bodies? When I got in the car to drive away. Okay. Which car did you drive?

Black and white one. So you drove a Jeep? And where was she at? Or who is in that car? She didn't. Okay. Describe that for me. It had to be pretty...

There's a good signet. Yeah. I'd cover it enough of black plastic because I didn't want to look at it. As Tony goes on to describe how they tried to cover their tracks, all the little puzzle pieces that detectives had been getting, the ones that made sense and even the ones that didn't, they start coming together.

He says that they noticed a trail camera on a tree at the gate, which is right where John killed Patrick and Monique. So I'm sure he was like, oh crap, like my crimes might be on video. So they ended up taking the trail cam, not realizing that the SD card was missing. And Tony says that John goes inside Patrick and Monique's house to take Patrick's computer thinking that the trail cam footage might like automatically upload straight to it. But before John left, after he took the computer, he stopped to feed Patrick and Monique's cat.

With the wrong cap bowl. Their cat was apparently like meowing and just seemed very hungry. So Tony says that John stops their murder cover up efforts to feed the victim's cat. and I don't even know what to make of that. Yeah. After that, Tony says they drive the victim's cars up to the Oso Landslide Road with the bodies in the backs of the cars, and they find a spot for a grave at the base of this uprooted tree.

Did you guys have to dig a hole? Yeah. Do you bring shovels with you? Yeah. They dispose of the bodies, cover them, and then push the cars over the cliff's edge, and watch them just tumbled down. The only issue was that the Land Rover,

got caught on that stump and was kind of like out in the open. So they decided to come back later and try to pry it loose or to cover it better. Tony says that he and John then walked a trail back down to John's garage and along the way, Patrick and Monique's phones were just like blowing up with messages from their friends and family. And Tony is reading them, trying to gauge if anyone had called police yet. The read receipts. But down the trail, Tony decides to toss the phones into a spring along with Patrick. his wallet. Now, he's telling them in this interview, cut to one of the detectives

stepping out of the interview to tell search and rescue to go out to this trail, see if they can recover the phones from the mud. They're probably not going to need a whole lot more evidence, but like anything to corroborate, this confession is going to be helpful. And sure enough, they are right where Tony described, soaked in mud right next to Patrick's wallet. Now, back in the interview room, Tony is still yapping away. He says they destroyed and tossed Patrick's computer and trail camera out in the woods, which searchers later find as well. And after, he says they get back down to John's garage and toss their blood-soaked clothes in a burn barrel and just like douse them in fuel.

Why? Because they were supposed to burn them, but they forgot. Whoops. Stay stupid, criminals. Stay stupid. So they drive back up to the cars the next day. They tried to, like, use that 4x4 as a jack to get the rover off that stump. But the reason that they just leave it in there before they actually do is because they start seeing helicopters circling above.

So that's when they, like, give up. They're like putting branches and the tarp over it because they're like, we got to get out of here. And they know that they've got to make a run for it. So they head to mom and dad's house in Ellensburg to switch cars, get some cash, and off to Phoenix they go. Tony says that in Phoenix, they meet up with a buddy to switch cars again. And that's when they headed to Mexico in that car. Now, when asked about the murder weapon, he says they took it to Mexico, and he thinks John still has it. You got right across the board with the gun.

I don't truck you going to Mexico, man. The only one that cares about anything is America. Yeah, so you're going to be able to come back with it. The one thing that Tony won't give the cops is his brother's location. But Tony does agree to take law enforcement to Patrick and Monique's bodies on day 41. Tony gets booked and charged for first-degree murder and investigators start the two-day process of recovering Patrick and Monique from the hole that they were left in about a mile from the cars under this uprooted tree.

And detective said that this was like very emotional for them. I mean, they had been going nonstop for six weeks. And along the way, they felt like they'd really gotten to know Patrick and Monique through their loved ones. And Brett, they sounded like legit the coolest couple. They met at Burning Man. They loved their little slice of paradise on the river where they had a hobby farm and just, like, worshipped their animals. And I know I mentioned Monique was like buying chicken feeds. So they had chickens and roosters.

They're not for butchering or eating. Those were Monique's pets. They also loved fly fishing and hiking and camping. And they were just like this very calm and steady presence within their families. Now, when investigators find Patrick and Monique, They're in the same grave, wearing the same clothes that they were last seen in. And both family members that we interviewed for this episode, that was Monique's foster sister Vye and Patrick's niece, Aaron.

They said the same thing, that after they saw the crime scene photos, that it looked like they were cuddling when they were found. And while they can never unsee that image, they said it actually brought them some peace to know that they were together till the very end. Now, word about what they were finding spreads faster than you. can dig up two bodies. So while this painstaking work was happening, news choppers were circling. And Britt, if you look at the aerial news footage from the scene at this time, it's so interesting. And this is like my favorite behind the scenes moment of this case. All of the cameras

of like the footage that day, they're all focused on this big blue tarp with a bunch of huge branches like laid out in order, smallest to biggest. And what's I have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. This was a tactic that Detective Dave Bill you used to make the news camera focus on something besides the bodies. Oh, that is brilliant. Like, it looks important because they're all in order. Right. You're immediately, like, as a crime junkie, I'd be like, what does it mean?

It was like, you got to decode it. These sticks are important. They were used in, like, the, what's a ritual. And they're coming out and, like, in the order and they're all lined up. Like, I mean, it was, it was brilliant and it worked. I mean, there's a King Five news story where. the close-ups are all of this tarp and sticks. So do you think the news stations know that they got duped or are we going to be the bearer of bad news here?

Oh, I actually don't. I bet they're finding out for the first time. So anyways, like it was, again, behind the scenes a little bit, it was so interesting to me. This works. They're able to get the bodies out of there. Do the autopsies where it's confirmed that gunshot wounds are the causes of death. Now, Patrick's single wound to the head was fatal and had to have been a surprise. close-range ambush from behind. Now, the medical examiner can't say in what order Monique's shots came. She had multiple, three, actually, her arm, neck, and head. But the speculation is that she rolled up to the gate that morning after running errands

with her groceries, her dog in the car. She came upon John Reed, where there was some sort of confrontation, and then John snapped. Detective Fontenow believes Monique was in her car when John first pulled out his gun, and that maybe she put up her arm in defense when the first shot landed. but he kills her. And then he thinks that John like paced around for a few hours just waiting for Patrick to get home. And then he shot him in the same spot.

Now, since they had locks on the gate, you had to actually like stop your car, put it in park, get out before you could drive through. So John must have known that he'd have the perfect opportunity to sneak up on Patrick, either as he approached the gate on foot or as he stopped his car at the gate. And was there blood outside by the gate?

Or just in the cars? Just in the cars. I mean, at the gate, there was one lone shell casing left behind. So investigators think that John was, like, laying in wait and then shot Patrick the moment that he pulled up and just stopped there. Or he shot him as he approached the gate on foot. But again, there wasn't enough blood to, like, see an obvious, like anything obvious in the dirt. But what I will say is that most of Patrick's blood was found soaked into that jacket that they found in the woods and inside the Land Rover. Now, in late May, after the autopsies, all they're still missing for this investigation to be wrapped up is John Reed.

They know he's likely still in Mexico, so they are constantly bugging international and federal authorities to be on the lookout for him, or the guy's car that they took from Phoenix to Mexico. They also put up wanted flyers with his photo in areas that they think he might be hiding. And as they wait, they continue just building their case against both Reed brothers. By June, they analyzed Tony and John's cell phone data, which actually shows Tony was in Ellensburg when Patrick and Monique likely died. So they dropped the murder charges against Tony, and they just charge him with assisting in the crime. They also arrest and charge the Reed parents, Clyde and Faye, for rendering criminal assistance because further follow-up revealed that the elderly couple actually went to the bank and got additional cash for their fugitive sons, essentially helping in their escape, as if like giving them the again. getaway car wasn't enough. And about a month later in July, the final breakthrough comes when international authorities call Detective Fontenow and say, we have found John Reed.

Detective Fontenow said he was skeptical. He says, like, send me a picture of him. And sure enough, this is the guy that Snohomish County cops have been chasing for count them. One hundred days now. The authorities in Mexico say they spotted John's getaway car outside a barbershop in Puerto Penaasco about 62 miles south of the Arizona border. They'd gone to this apartment above the barbershop where they thought he lived. John wasn't there, so they leave. And what do you know? Who is walking right towards them on the sidewalk outside? Stop it. Like all this time he's been like two days ahead, a couple steps of like just out of their reach running on like what seems like Pure luck.

Yeah. And he's just there. And he doesn't try to run. Luck is now on detective sides. He is arrested. He's taken back to the U.S., back to Washington. But unlike his brother, Tony, John's lips are sealed. Does he know his brother confessed and is, like, already arrested in charge and everything?

Unclear. We asked Detective Fontaineau, and he said that, again, like, John just refused to talk. So it's hard to say what he did or didn't know at the time. But if what Tony said was true, it was John who's suggesting. that he turned himself in. So who knows? But detectives had a mountain of evidence against him. So John still gets charged, put behind bars, and though he's not talking to them, word gets

out that his defense is going to be self-defense. Okay. How? I know. What? The prosecution knows that all they have to do, all they have to do, I say it like it's easy. All they have to do is prove that Monique and Patrick got home and died at

different times. Right. And if they can do that, it's going to be so hard for John to claim that they pulled guns on him first. Right, because then it would have had to have happened like two separate times. Right. So, Nahomish County Digital Forensics Detectives, James Hedrick and Tyler Quick, they take another look at John Reed's cell data. And it confirms John was in Oso on the day of the murders from at least 10.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. He then drives to Ellensburg to pick up his brother Tony, and they arrived back in Oso at around 3.30 a.m. Okay, so so far, all of that matches up with the other evidence. Right. They also analyzed the health app data on Monique and Patrick's phones, which essentially

confirms their last movements alive in a few different ways. They can see on Monique's phone that the last time the power or like that home button was pressed was at 11.07 a.m. Patrick's phone, same deal. Last time those buttons were used. used was on April 11th at 3.07 p.m. Then there is no health app activity again until their phone start moving up that old logging road toward the landslide just before 3.30 a.m. The health apps also confirmed the moment that their phone stopped working after Tony Reed tossed them into that spring at 8.30 a.m. on the 12th. And listen, you are never guaranteed a slam dunk case. But man, like, when the investigation is done right, it is good to see.

Yes. Everything is buttoned up come the spring of 2018 when Snohomish County presents 43 witnesses and about 750 exhibits. And as expected, John claims self-defense and even takes the stand. And as soon as I looked away, she can buttoned out me and she tried to punch me in the face. John must not have known about the state's evidence showing Monique and Patrick getting home separately because his story was that they both got home and they both came at him and they pulled guns on him first.

As soon as I could, I screened off like three shots. John testified that he shot them both and considered calling 911 but says he panicked. He even said if he had to do it over again, he would call police. He got destroyed. on cross-of-deamination, and ultimately he was found guilty of aggravated first-degree murder for Patrick and second-degree murder for Monique. He remains in prison in Washington.

And we did send him a letter back in September to try and give him plenty of time to do an interview or to provide us a statement that we never heard back. So John's locked up, but what about the brother? Like, did he or the parents go to prison too? They did do some time in the county jail, but all three are out now. And we tried reaching them too, but we didn't hear back from any of them either. This story is so bonkers. But, like, at the end of the day, I don't really, I don't really get it. Like, what made John resort to killing Patrick and Monique?

Like, I feel like neighbor disputes are just common. Like, they end up. Worst case, it's, like, civil court or maybe, like, neighbors taking sides, some over-the-fense smack talk, whatever. Like, what's the difference between your unhinged neighbor who might yell at you and your unhinged neighbor who might kill you? Yeah, like, how do you know? Or, like, what made this time the time that it escalated to double homicide? Well, I mean, that was something that I kind of wondered about, too. And when we talked to Detective Fontenow, he told us basically he thinks this whole thing came down to, like, who John Reed was, like, his personality.

And that basically he got overwhelmed and just snapped. He says that because of how the homicides played out, which he calls disorganized. Now, they have zero evidence that John was under the influence when he killed Patrick and Monique, which is. is another interesting factor because Detective Fontno also told us he's like, listen, typically homicides boil down to three things. Sex, drugs, money. So he called this case atypical. I mean, sure, there were high emotions.

There was animosity between the households. But what did John gain by killing them? Yeah, like, that's what I'm trying to think of, like the hope of not being sued maybe, like making the civil loss. Or were you just so angry? Like, yeah, it just seems like extreme choices to, avoid kind of small things like civil lawsuits. But you could have avoided the civil lawsuits by just like not doing the thing too, right? Like just like not being in that sort of like elevated

conflict in the first place. He seems like an angry man like where I get like things had happened to him. Like, you know, he lost his property, but you got paid for the property. Like I don't know. Like I just can't. It's hard to like distill and boil down. And I like, it's motive for me that's always so interesting because so many of our cases I'm like trying to figure out what's the why. How do you what's like how do you protect yourself? What do you look for? And like it's hard pinpoint that here. Now for Patrick and Monique's family, seeing John convicted and sent to prison was a form of justice. But like, also it doesn't bring them back. Nothing brings them back. Losing them was extremely difficult and nothing has replaced the whole that their absence has

created. Vai told us that Monique used to cuddle her chickens and her roosters. And when they got sheep, she raised the babies inside their house, which like as a farm girlie, I saw so many animals in your home. And Patrick's niece, Erin, said that her uncle was like a father figure to her. He stepped in to make sure that she had school clothes when she was little, and he was a huge jokester. She said he wants to put potatoes in her stockings on Christmas morning, just to make her laugh. After all was said and done, by got a rooster tattoo in honor of Monique. And Aaron got The Truth Never Dies, tattooed on her collarbone. She said that throughout the investigation, Detective Fontenow, kept telling her that, and it stuck with her.

And it's a reminder that even in a whirlwind 100-day investigation, it pays to never give up. And the tiniest of details that you gather along the way might be what puts the killer behind bars. You can find all the source material. for this episode on our website, crime junkie.com. And you can follow us on Instagram

at CrimeJunkey Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.