Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Pravin Varughese

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

When 19-year-old Southern Illinois University student Pravin Varughese dies unexpectedly, police quickly rule his death a tragic accident and close the case. But for many, the facts just don’t quite add up. His mother’s years-long battle for justice is marked with soaring highs and dizzying lows – but even with so much progress, there are still unanswered questions. Please join us in signing the Justice For Pravin Petition For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-pravin-varughese/

Hi, Crime Junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and this is a little bit different because I'm gonna tell you a story I already told you, but kind of in a completely different way. We recently released an episode about the mysterious death of Praveen Varghese. After we released the episode, members of our team at Audio Chuck

were actually fortunate enough to connect with Praveen's amazing mother and champion, Lovely. And after learning about her experience and hearing her story in her words, we felt that we needed to rework and re-release this episode in order to tell a more complete version of Praveen's story. The reason we wanna make these changes is because the context of what Lovely experienced

contradicts the investigation into her son's death. And in order to fully understand Praveen's story, we feel that it's important to also share what this experience has been like for a woman like Lovely, an Indian woman who immigrated to the United States and has to continue to fight for her son in a country that she dreamed of moving to as a child. There are still so many questions in Praveen's case,

questions that Lovely shared with us during our conversations with her. From the very beginning, she noticed red flags that just seemed to be glossed over and her concerns were completely ignored. And that changed her. And in turn, she found her voice, a voice that many people within the justice system

have attempted to silence, but she continues to use it to this day to advocate for her son and those who may have experienced similar tragedies. So with all of that being said, this is the story of Praveen Varghese. [♪ upbeat music playing It's about 11 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, February 13th, 2014,

and a college student named Ashley Thomas is just starting to wake up. He's a bit groggy since he was out late the night before. He'd gone to a party and then went to work, so it takes him a little while to get up. Eventually, he does, but as he's leaving his room, he notices that the door to his cousin Praveen's room is closed. The two live together in an off-campus apartment

just a few minutes away from home from Southern Illinois University, where they're both sophomores. Ashley decides to knock on the door to see if Praveen is in there, but the door is locked and he doesn't get an answer, so Ashley just assumes that he left already for class. The rest of Ashley's day goes by normally, until he gets a text around 2 or 3 that afternoon

from one of his friends named Kyle asking if he's seen Praveen recently, because Praveen hadn't shown up for his class. According to the investigation discovery documentary Who Killed My Son, Ashley immediately knows that something is wrong. He and Praveen were at the same party last night, but they hadn't come home together because Ashley,

like I said, had to leave early to make it to his work. But it's not like he just left his cousin all alone to like fend for himself. Their friends were there too, so he had no reason to worry, but if Praveen didn't make it to class and he's not there at the apartment, then where is he? Ashley checks the parking lot,

and sure enough, Praveen's car is still there, so it's not like he could have gotten very far. But no matter how many times Ashley calls or texts, he doesn't get any reply. And then the feeling of uneasiness that's been growing for the last few hours doubles, when Praveen's phone starts going straight to voicemail. By 6.30, Ashley and Kyle know that they can't just sit around

and wait for Praveen to show up. So they go to the house where the party was the night before. They search the house and even the whole block, but they can't find any sign of him. So they think, okay, we know he was drinking a bit last night, everyone was drinking last night, and so maybe he's in a hospital or a drunk tank somewhere. They don't remember Praveen being super drunk,

but they're kind of at the end of their rope at this point. So they call every hospital and police station in the area, but no one has him. Even though there isn't anything in our source material about whether they contacted any of their friends, I would imagine that they probably texted and called everyone they could think of. But when it comes to calling his parents,

Ashley says that they held off on that because neither his parents nor Praveen's knew that they drank. So he doesn't want to get his cousin in trouble if he shows up later that day. Like he's going to cross everything else off his list before making that call. So with still no sign of Praveen, Ashley heads back to the apartment

and decides to call the apartment manager to see if he can unlock Praveen's room. The manager arrives between 7.30 and 8.00 that evening and unlocks the door, but sure enough, Praveen isn't there. All his stuff is, though. There's sheets hanging off the bed, clothes all over the floor, but other than this huge college age boy mess,

they aren't any closer to finding him. So once it's clear that Praveen isn't coming back, they make the decision to call the police and report Praveen missing. At about 9 p.m. that evening, Praveen's mother lovely gets a call from police. When our team spoke with her, she said that she had felt something was wrong that whole day.

I mean, so much so that she had to take the day off of work. She told us that she didn't know why she felt so off, but when she picked up that phone that evening and heard that it was the Carbondale police, it all clicked. The officer on the phone asks her if Praveen is there, and she says no, Praveen is in Carbondale at school. You see, the Varghese family lives in a suburb of Chicago,

and that's like a six-hour drive from the university. So at first, she's like confused as to why they're even asking her this, like why is she even getting this call? That's when the officer tells her that her son had been reported missing, and lovely just kind of sits there for a moment, because this doesn't make any sense.

She had just spoken to him on the phone the day before, and everything was fine. But before she can even process what she's being told, the officer tells her to let him know if she hears from him, and then he just hangs up. Lovely told our team that as soon as she put down the phone, all she could do was scream to her husband that Praveen was missing,

but they couldn't just sit around and wait while their son could be hurt or in danger, so that very evening, they hop in the car and make the drive to Carbondale. The whole way, lovely tries to call Praveen over and over again, but as each call goes to voicemail, she can't help but think that he's stuck somewhere where he doesn't have access to his phone.

Praveen isn't the type of person to be out of contact with his friends and family for a few hours, much less a full day. And even if he did miss a call, he would always call right back, so being sent to voicemail again and again confirms to her that something is terribly wrong. As soon as lovely and her family get to Carbondale, they pick up Ashley and head straight to the police station

at about 4.30 in the morning. But when they get there, they're told that they can't really do anything until 7 when the investigators come in. The person they talk to at the station suggests that they just go get a hotel room, try to rest before they talk to investigators. By now, Praveen's sister Priya has gotten there as well,

and so they all do that. They go to a nearby hotel and wait for an excruciating two and a half hours until the clock strikes 7. By the time they walk back into the police station at 7 on the dot, two investigators meet them there and they start reviewing the case. But right away, lovely gets the feeling

that they're not taking Praveen's disappearance seriously. I'm actually going to let her tell you about that first conversation with investigators. And then one of them said, oh, don't worry, you know, all college kids do this. We all go for some few days and come back. He said, been there, done that. And I said, oh, no, Praveen is not like that.

He knows if he doesn't answer our call, we will be here in six hours. He knows that he's not going to do it. But then, you know, like, I don't know how serious they took it. The police do at least go to Praveen's apartment and take a look at his room. But like Ashley witnessed the day before,

there isn't anything abnormal about it. The investigators do take his laptop and they get his banking and phone information. And from that, they're able to learn that he hadn't withdrawn any money recently. And the last time he made a call was at 12.33 a.m. the day before. According to an article by Dustin Duncan

for the Southern Illinoisan, they learned that the call was from Praveen to a friend in Chicago named Anita. Now, Anita says that it wasn't unusual for Praveen to call her late at night, especially after he'd been drinking. And that's what she expected this call to be. But when she picked up, she heard Praveen say,

Anita, don't hang up. But after that, she could just hear two male voices. She recognized one as Praveen's, but she couldn't identify the other. She says she heard a car door slam followed by what sounded like movement, maybe running or walking or something like that. And she heard an exchange

between Praveen and this other guy, not a super friendly one either. The other guy said, give me that back. And then Praveen said, I'm trying to help you. Then it sounded like running and more movement. And she says that after maybe a minute of her calling out to him over the line and getting no response, she hung up.

After that phone call, there was no more activity on his phone. And it's at about this point after seeing the bank records and the phone records that police start to take his disappearance a little more seriously. So they begin their official search that Friday and they work into Saturday.

In addition to your standard ground searches, they also bring in search dogs and helicopters to scour as much of SIU's campus and the surrounding areas as possible. More of Praveen's friends and family also come in from out of town to help in the search. Lovely told our team that by Saturday, all the available hotel rooms in Carbondale

were full of people there to support them. She also said that she was surprised just how much the SIU student community rallied together to help search for her son. I mean, it seemed like everyone she met knew Praveen and even called him their best friend. But she knew that's just who her son is. He always was the type of person who never met a stranger.

Eventually, a reward fund is put together in order to try and generate some tips. It starts at 5,000 on Friday, but by Saturday, the Paducah Sun reported that the total had reached $15,000 with donations from family and friends. But even though it might seem like everyone is doing everything they can,

there are still some things that aren't sitting right with Lovely. And as the investigation continues, she starts to feel less and less confident in the people in charge of finding her son. At this point, the university hasn't put out any sort of statement about there being a missing student. No email out to students, no official press release, nothing like that.

And on Saturday evening, police tell the Varghese family that they're going to discontinue searching for Praveen because they just don't have enough staff. Which, it's not like Carmedale is this huge city with a lot of crime, it's like a small college town. So, in my mind, like, what's more important than a missing student that's taking up everyone's time? It's also in that meeting that police ask Lovely

and her husband, Matthew, when they plan on going back home to Chicago. And when I learned this, I just about lost my mind because I'm thinking, this family has been here for all of what, a day, day and a half, and they're being asked when they're going to leave. And Lovely makes it clear to them that she's not leaving until they find her son.

But it's at this point that she starts to get the feeling that they're just not welcome there. And I want to take a moment to talk about Lovely's intuition throughout all of this and how she trusted her gut, even when the people who were supposed to be finding her son stopped looking for him. In our team's conversation with her, she described multiple points where she just

knew that something was wrong, knew that she wasn't being given the whole story. An early Sunday morning, she gets this same feeling when she's startled awake from a dream that she had about Praveen, where she saw him being pushed out of a moving vehicle. Lovely explains in that investigation discovery documentary that in Indian culture, it's said that a dream that happens

in the early morning hours will come true. And so when she wakes up, she's more sure than ever that something terribly tragic has happened to her son. She even tells one of the investigators later that morning about her dream, but he brushes it off. Just like police said, by Sunday, they had called off all of the official searches. But Praveen's family and friends aren't going to let them

give up when they haven't found him. Someone is able to get in contact with Sheila Simon, who is the Illinois Lieutenant Governor. And they tell her what's going on and that police are stopping their search. And so Sheila personally reaches out to the Carbondale police and tells them to keep going until they find Praveen. And fortunately, they listen.

But this was too close a call for the Varghese family. If she hadn't stepped in, would they have just sent them back to Chicago without answers? So in order to make sure the focus stays on Praveen, Lovely and Priya go to the media. But according to Lovely, police don't seem too happy about that. They tell her that she should work with the university because otherwise it could harm the investigation.

This doesn't make any sense to her. Her son's been missing for several days at this point and they don't seem any closer to finding him than they were on day one. So why wouldn't they talk to the media and spread the news as far and wide as possible? Fortunately, the media in Carbondale does pick up Praveen's story. They talk about where and when he was last seen,

his family's desperate searches, and the $15,000 reward that's on a table. But despite all their efforts, it doesn't feel like they're any closer to finding him. Until the morning of Tuesday, February 18th. That morning, Lovely and her family are back in their hotel room meeting with the Dean of SIU to discuss a press conference that's scheduled for that afternoon.

And during their conversation, the Dean tells them that police have actually gotten a tip. And you heard that right, the Dean of the school is telling them this, not one of the law enforcement personnel directly involved in the investigation. I don't know if that stands out as odd to Lovely, it does to me,

but about an hour after the Dean arrives, she gets a call and says that she needs to step out. And just a few minutes later, she comes back in the room, along with the deputy chief. Lovely told our team that even before the deputy chief said anything she knew, she asks if they found him,

and he says yes. But when she asks if he's alive, he says no. After he broke the news, Lovely said that all you could hear was screaming and crying, mourning for the loss of her son who had been such a bright light in everyone's lives. At some point, someone asks where they found him,

and the deputy chief walks out of the room, down the hallway, and just points out the window. Praveen had been found only about 400 yards from where his family had been staying in a wooded area by the highway. The next thing they ask is what happened to him. And they're told that Praveen had gotten extremely drunk at a party,

and that he was probably doing drugs as well. And after the party, he got a ride from a friend, but at some point during that ride, the two got into an argument. So the driver pulled over, and Praveen got out and ran into the woods. And since he was so intoxicated, he got disoriented and couldn't find his way out. So since he was only dressed in a t-shirt and jeans

in below-freezing weather, he died of hypothermia. They're told that he was found laying on his back with nothing but his jeans, boxers, and a single sock on. His shirt was found underneath his body, and the other sock was close by. And his shoes, or what police assume are his shoes, are found near his body as well. And the same goes for his phone.

Now, they say that the reason for his clothes being off is due to something called paradoxical undressing, which is when people feel really hot in the later stages of hypothermia, and so they start taking off their clothes. But as lovely is hearing all of this, she's thinking, Praveen's a healthy guy, he's in shape, he walks everywhere.

So how could he have just gotten lost and died? It's just baffling to her. And the issue of him being on drugs doesn't sit well with her either. Not one person they've spoken to so far has said anything about Praveen doing drugs. And at this point, they hadn't even done any tests to see if there's drugs or alcohol in his system.

So the assumption that he was high on something makes her feel like they're just jumping to conclusions. Now, the next thing she asks is when the autopsy will be. But she's told that they don't know yet. There isn't a pathologist in Carbondale, so they have to bring in someone out of state, and it's going to take a few days. And, you know, lovely's like a few days.

Like, where's this pathologist coming from? Where would take them a few days to get there? And she's told that they're coming from Indiana. So, again, this is one state over. It does not take that long to get from Indiana to Illinois. So she even offers to pay airfare if they have to, to get the pathologist there sooner. Finally, lovely and her family want to know

when they can see their son's body. Lovely assumes that they're going to need to, like, make the official identification. But she's told that they'll have to arrange that with the funeral home back in Chicago. And lovely told our team, this is when she starts thinking, okay, they aren't going to do an autopsy for a few days. They won't let me see my son.

What are they hiding here? Like, she gets that gut feeling again that something isn't right and she has to fight for her right to see her son's body. And both her and her husband are in the medical field and they know that an ID should be made by the family. I mean, the last thing anyone wants is to go back to Chicago and potentially have someone else's body at the funeral home. So she flat out tells them, no, you're not touching him

until we see him and confirm that it's proven. At the time, she's told that this is just their policy, this is just their way of doing things. But to lovely, this is just all so wrong. And there's really only one reason she can come up with for why they've been treated like outsiders this whole time. And to her, it's because she looks and sounds different than most everyone else in Carbondale.

My English is broken. My accent is bad. But I am going to talk. You are not going to do this to me. No way. I said, as long as I'm leaving, as long as I have a breath in me, you are not going to do this to me. Lovely's insistence pays off because they end up allowing

her family to see Praveen at the hospital there in town. They're led into a room and they see Praveen lying on a table covered up to his neck with a white sheet. But when she sees his face, she knows there is more to this story. I didn't even realize I was saying it out loud. I said, who beat my kid? And then my brother-in-law asked one of the detectives what happened to his forehead.

On Praveen's forehead, there are three huge bruises. One of them is in the center and it's massive. And the other two are above his right eye. I've seen photos of these injuries and the ones above his eye, honestly, I can really only describe as dense, like literal dense in his head. But the detectives are saying that that's just from frostbite. And here's the thing, you guys, we actually have these photos.

These photos were provided to us by Lovely. Normally, we don't put out autopsy photos, but she feels and I feel that it's actually really important for you to see them, for you to see exactly what the first pathologist was looking at. It reminds me a lot of the Ellen Greenberg case. We posted a mock-up on social media in her case of what her stab wounds look like. And it was then that it clicked for everyone

that the case didn't make sense. There's something about seeing it. And that's what Lovely wants you to see as well. There's something about looking at Praveen, about looking at her son that doesn't add up. And you kind of, when you look at this, you have to wonder how could anyone come to the conclusion that they came to by looking at these photos.

So I know it's going to be hard to see, but I do encourage you to go and take a look. I think you're going to feel a very specific way about this case once you see those. Deepak Chitness reported for the American Bazaar that Praveen was just too drunk, got into a fight with a friend who was giving him a ride, and died of hypothermia.

Now, mind you, Lovely and her family haven't even met the police chief. He hasn't been involved in Praveen's case at all. And now he's the one telling the public that Praveen's death was just an accident. And all of this before the autopsy is completed, before they even get the toxicology report back. And one of the reporters even asked

if they're looking into this quote unquote friend who he got in a fight with. But the chief of police says no. Later that afternoon, Lovely and Matthew have their final meeting with police. And detectives doubled down on their theory that the fight had nothing to do with Praveen's death. And it was just a tragic accident.

Police also ask them when they're going to hand over that reward money to the person who called in the tip. And this is infuriating because Lovely and Matthew quite literally just found out their son died. And it seems like all police are worried about is paying the tipster who helped them find the body. But in their numb, grief-stricken state, all they can do is say that they're going to hand it over

as soon as they can. The last thing they do before they go home is place a cross at the site where Praveen was found. And as they're walking through the brush to get there, they're having to cut through thick branches and vines just to clear a path. And the whole time that they're walking, Lovely thinks, there's no way that Praveen walked through here drunk or not.

After they place the cross, the Varagese family makes the journey back to Chicago. Praveen's autopsy is completed on Wednesday, February 19th by a man named Dr. James Michael Jacoby. And the next morning, the coroner, Dr. Thomas Kupferer, calls Lovely with the results. And just like the police assumed, he says that Praveen died of hypothermia.

The toxicology report will still take a little time to confirm police's theory about Praveen being on drugs, but he reiterates what the police said about the alcohol, that he did have alcohol in his urine. But Lovely asks, what about the bruises? What about the literal dents in his head? But Dr. Kupferer just says that he probably got those while running through the woods or something.

But this doesn't sit right with Lovely. Based on the way everything has gone down, she doesn't feel like the pathologist is being entirely unbiased because there's no way anyone could look at those bruises on his face and think that they got there accidentally. Again, go look for yourself. And for her to be told now that it's hypothermia, just hypothermia that killed him,

she's beginning to think that she should get a second autopsy done. And that decision is solidified when she and her husband go to the funeral home to make arrangements. The funeral director actually tells her that Praveen's body just arrived. But then he asks Lovely an unexpected question. According to an episode of Dateline that aired in 2019, the funeral director asks her if she's a nurse, which she says yes, she is.

And he looks at her and says, you need to see him because that's not a frostbitten body. He has injuries. Up until now, Lovely had only seen Praveen's face because if you remember, he was covered with a white sheet at the hospital. But when the funeral director takes her to see him, she gets a look at his whole body and she's absolutely horrified at what she sees.

The first thing that she notices is that Praveen's body has small cuts and scratches covering his arms and legs and torso. And that's all consistent with what you'd expect from someone who was running through a densely wooded area. But the concerning part is that head to toe, head to toe, he is covered in bruises. Most notably, there's a large bruise on his right thigh

and another on his right elbow. And keep in mind, since Lovely is a nurse, she's familiar with what postmortem discoloration looks like on a body. And she's 100% sure that all of the bruising she's looking at is not postmortem discoloration. After she sees Praveen's body, she immediately starts looking for a pathologist to conduct a second autopsy. She's put in contact with a man named Dr. Margolis

who does the second autopsy on Friday, February 21st. And the results of that call into question everything they have been told by police. Even though it will take a few weeks to get the toxicology reports back, Dr. Margolis rules Praveen's underlying cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. But that's not all. There's also a deep bruise on his arm that goes all the way to the bone,

which Dr. Margolis thinks is likely a defensive injury. Praveen also has a bloody nose and a cut lip. He even told Dateline, quote, this was someone who had a violent encounter, end quote. But if his cause of death is blunt force trauma, then his manner of death would have had to be homicide. At least that's what's inferred. And therefore whoever had that scuffle with Praveen on the night he died

might just be responsible for his death. Now, they have to wait until March to hear about the results of the toxicology report from the second autopsy. But in the meantime, lovely gets a letter from the Carbondale police asking her again when they're going to send over that reward money for the tipster, because apparently the guy had been calling them every single day to ask about it. But now that it's been a few days

and they've had a little bit more time to process everything, they decide not to hand over the money. See, when they put the reward together, they stipulated that the money would go to the person who helped with a criminal investigation that led to a conviction. And since police have been very clear that there will not be a criminal investigation, they refuse to hand the money over.

While they continue waiting for results, lovely and her supporters form the Praveen Action Council to campaign to reopen the investigation into Praveen's death. They make calls to local and state leaders. They create signs and sign petitions and do anything else they can think of to keep Praveen's name front and center in everyone's minds. But it's not just the Praveen Action Council in Chicago

that's working hard to find answers. Back in Carbondale, several members of the public haven't forgotten about the Varagese family or their fight for answers either. Specifically, a woman named Monica Zuccas who runs a radio show called Reality Check. She has questions about Praveen's death and the lack of an investigation into it.

We actually got the opportunity to talk to Monica as well and she told us that she noticed those same red flags that Lovely saw. It just didn't make sense that a healthy 19 year old college kid who had his phone on him at the time of his death wasn't able to make it out of those woods. So she actually brings Praveen's friends on to her show to talk about the night he died.

And they all point out a lot of the inconsistencies that have been bothering Lovely since the beginning. Now, eventually Lovely is able to get in contact with her and together they work to keep Praveen's name in the news. Finally, in March, the toxicology reports from the private autopsy come back. And it is all negative. Praveen had no drugs or alcohol in his blood

at the time of his death. And to Lovely, this confirms her suspicions. If Praveen wasn't intoxicated, then the only other option is that somehow he got hurt and couldn't find his way out of those woods, even if he went in there willingly to begin with. Now, she asked to wait a little longer for the toxicology report from the Carbondale autopsy,

but in April, she gets a call from the coroner with those results. And the results are the same, all negative. Since they did find traces of alcohol in Praveen's urine, he definitely did drink a little that evening. But since there wasn't any in his blood, then his body would have had to have processed all the alcohol already.

And he wouldn't have been as drunk as police have been claiming this whole time. And I'm sure at this point, Lovely is thinking like, okay, finally, you don't have to take my word for it. You can see your theory was wrong. Look at this with new eyes. So she asks, what about the bruises on his head? What about the injuries on his body?

But again, she is told that it's just postmortem discoloration. It doesn't seem like they're looking at anything else differently in light of the toxicology findings. But that doesn't make sense to me or to anyone really. How could one pathologist find blunt force trauma to the head and another one simply right off the same injuries as postmortem discoloration? But Lovely and her family barely have time to process

what those results could mean when they get news that a video from the night Praveen died has been released to the media in Carbondale. The video is actually dash cam footage from a state trooper squad car that shows him pulling up behind a truck parked on the side of the highway. A young man, it's the guy who gave Praveen a ride that night,

walks up from the woods in front of the squad car to talk to the trooper. And then the trooper walks over to the side of the embankment and shines his light into the woods looking for Praveen. But when he doesn't see anything, he goes back to talk to the driver of the truck a bit more and the two end up leaving. The video raises a ton of questions

about what actually happened that night like why didn't the state trooper actually go into the woods to look for Praveen and what did the driver tell the trooper about what was going on. So Lovely and her other supporters campaigned hard to reopen the investigation into Praveen's death. They learned that the driver's name is Gage Bethune.

He's 19 years old, same as Praveen, and they want him investigated as a suspect. In the spring of 2014, Michael Carr, who's the state's attorney, takes over the investigation. And from July until December, he convenes a grand jury to look at whether or not to bring charges against Gage. And while we don't have the details on the evidence

that the grand jury hears or witnesses that testify because grand juries are secret, we do know that after all of it, they declined to indict him for murder. In February of 2015, Michael Carr releases a 10-page report outlining his findings that claim that there is evidence that Praveen was drunk

when he went into the woods and died of hypothermia. He claims that Praveen drank at least two, four locos, which have the alcohol content of, like, four or five beers each. He says he had two shots of rum, two bottles of beer, and was seen playing beer pong after that too, though no one could really say for sure how much he drank during the game.

In fact, in that report, Michael Carr claims that Praveen was drunk or intoxicated multiple times. But he did not mention in any of his 10-page report that the tox was negative. Nothing. That's what made me so mad. And, you know, he could have said all that, but at least one line, you can say,

okay, you know, the toxicology report says it's negative. Another frustrating thing that Michael Carr's report mentions is Praveen's alleged use of drugs on the night he died. Throughout the course of the investigation, rumors have been spreading that Praveen was either looking to buy drugs or was already using them. But since the talk screen came back negative,

Lovely and her family thought that those rumors would die down. But in this report, it states that on the night he died, Praveen had gotten into a gage's car and was driving around looking to buy some cocaine. And when Lovely and her family read this, they're absolutely infuriated. How could this man in a position of power

just completely write off the findings listed in the official autopsy report? Again, it's not even like just the second one they did. Their own autopsy report showed negative tox results. How could he say that Praveen was super drunk when his blood alcohol level was zero? Most importantly to them was what the investigation report claimed to not find.

And that was evidence that Gage, quote, committed an act which he knew would cause his death. End quote. Even though Gage isn't indicted, Lovely won't stop until she finds the answer she's looking for. Eventually, she requests to see all the files police have on Praveen's case.

All of the evidence, all of the interviews that they've done, everything. Even just the police reports would be enough at this point. But instead of the report she requested, Carbondale police sent her a stack of newspaper articles. News, paper, articles. Like since when do newspapers count as police reports? So she and Monica decide that enough is enough

and they're going to the city council. Lovely gets photos from Praveen's second autopsy from Dr. Margolis and together, the two present everything they've gathered to the council on April 19th, 2016. Autopsy photos included. By the end, every single member of the city council has tears in their eyes

and one of them even has to leave the room. But thankfully, all of it pays off because just a month later, the police hand over all of the records they have on Praveen's case. And none of it is redacted. So finally, after all of this time, Lovely feels like she can finally understand what happened that night.

As they're going through the boxes, they find something that's better than police reports. And that's DVDs with videos of the man who gave the original tip to police. And they have interviews with Gage himself. The first video is from February 18th, 2014. And it's of a man named Jonathan Stanley. He tells police that his cousin, Gage Bethune,

was with Praveen on the night he went missing. He starts off by saying that he decided to call in this tip because a family had lost their loved one and he would want someone to come forward if he were the one who was missing. But it's also worth mentioning that he brings up the $15,000 reward pretty early on in the interview.

Now, we weren't able to get our hands on the actual transcripts, but Stephanie Harlow was able to for her three-part series that she did about Praveen on YouTube, which, by the way, we had that linked in our source material if you want to watch the whole thing. It's very good. And in the transcript, he first brings up the reward on page two, and he frames it like, oh, that's a lot of money,

so this must be like a really serious situation. But the fact that he brings it up so early makes Lovely think that he's just in it for the reward money, especially since he was calling the station consistently asking for that $15,000 in the days following the discovery of Praveen's body. When police ask Jonathan what happened, he says that on the night of the 12th,

he, Gage, and a few of their other friends headed to Carbondale for a friend's party. He says that he wasn't drinking because he wasn't feeling well, and as far as he knows, Gage wasn't drinking either. At some point between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., Gage decided to go home, and so he told Jonathan and their friends that they would have to find another ride or a place to crash.

Jonathan spent the night at the house, and when Gage picked him up the following morning, he told this whole story about how a guy had asked him for a ride, but he wouldn't tell Gage where he was going, and then he says that this guy tried to rob him so he pulled over and he and the guy got into a fight. Eventually, he says a police officer showed up so the guy ran off into the woods.

Now, the next tape that Lovely watches is the first interview with Gage that happened on that same day. He tells mostly the same story as Jonathan. There are a few inconsistencies, like, for instance, Gage says that it was just him and Jonathan going to the party. There weren't any other friends in the car, and after they got there,

he says that he wasn't really in the mood to be there, so at, like, midnight-ish, he got ready to go home. But as he was outside, he says that Praveen approached him and asked him for a ride. He asked Praveen where he was going, and Praveen said that he's just going down the street, so Gage agreed to give him a ride. He says that it was cold, Praveen was in a t-shirt,

and so he says he was just being a good Samaritan. But when they were driving around, Gage says that Praveen wasn't being clear with his directions. He would occasionally say, you know, like, take a left up here, take a right over there, but for the most part, he was on the phone talking to a friend about where they could get some cocaine. And Gage said that this made him really nervous.

He realized that he was in the car with someone he shouldn't be with. And after about 30 minutes of this, Gage says that he told Praveen, listen, you have to tell me where you're going, but Praveen still didn't give him any clear directions, so Gage decided to just start driving out of Carbondale in the direction of his house. But he says that when Praveen realized they were leaving town,

he got angry. So that's when Gage says he pulled over to the side of the highway and told Praveen to get out, but he wouldn't. And that's when he says Praveen just lost it. He says he started screaming and cursing, and then Praveen hit him in the face. So Gage says he got out, walked around to the passenger side door,

and pulled Praveen out. He says they both started swinging at each other, rolled down the embankment, and had what he calls a scuffle. He admits to hitting Praveen, but Praveen hit back, and really he says the only reason he put his hands on him was because Praveen started it. This is when that state trooper pulled up, the one with the dash cam,

and that's when Praveen ran off into the woods while Gage walked back up the embankment to talk to the officer. He told the trooper, Officer Chris Martin what happened, and Officer Martin shined his flashlight into the woods to see if he could spot Praveen, and then asked if Gage was drinking. Gage says that he told the trooper no, but he admits that that was a lie.

Unlike Jonathan's story, he admits that he was definitely drinking. But after this, the trooper said he was free to go. But that's not all Gage says in his interview. He makes several comments as he's talking to police that leaves Lovely with a pit in her stomach, and it makes her wonder what his true motives really were. In his first interview,

Gage makes some comments about Praveen's race that makes Lovely wonder if his actions could have been racially motivated. At one point he says, quote, I was scared for my life. I don't know what he was capable of. Definitely wasn't my race, and I'm not used to being around that type of population

and those type of people. I wasn't used to any of it, end quote. Now, I don't know what investigators' response was to those comments. Every time I've seen this interview, it's been cut up, so I've never been able to watch it from start to finish. But when I heard those comments, my first thought was,

okay, there's this missing young man who is a person of color, and the last known person to see him, and a person who admitted to having a physical altercation with him, is making racially charged comments about him. And Lovely is thinking the same thing. As she's watching this video, she starts getting worried that it's not just the police that see her and her family as outsiders.

It's also the last person who saw her son alive. Once Lovely watches the tape, she's able to find the state troopers' report from the night that Praveen went missing as well. According to that report, Gage told the trooper that he picked up a black hitchhiker that night who attacked him when he asked for gas money.

Attacked and tried to rob him, actually. So he told the trooper that he pulled over, there was a struggle, and then that guy ran into the woods. But this was an entirely different story than what Gage just told police during his first interview. For one, again, Praveen is not black. He is an Indian-American.

And two, he wasn't hitchhiking. And thank goodness police decided to do their due diligence and check that report, because according to the police files, they did bring Gage back in for another interview to confront him about all of those inconsistencies. His second interview happened on February 19th. In this one, Gage's story about what happened that night.

And this is the third story by now, by the way. Changes yet again. This time, he says that once he had got to the party, he wanted to buy some cocaine, which if you remember the first time he talked to police, he said that Praveen was talking about buying cocaine. And it made him nervous. Well, now he's saying that he was the one who wanted to,

but he said he didn't actually end up buying any though. The next big difference in his story comes when he gets to the part about driving around for those 30 minutes. This time, he says that he made it clear to Praveen that he was going to drive out of Carpondale. And Praveen didn't say anything, unlike the last time when he started freaking out.

In this version, Praveen only starts getting aggressive when they're on the highway, which is when Gage pulled over and then the rest of the story remains the same. But the question still remains, why lie about picking up an entirely different person? Why lie about the robbery? Gage just says that he was drunk and really didn't want to get a DUI,

so he just made up the scenario that he thought would get him out of there the fastest. And police seem to believe him, so they just let him leave. But now that Lovely has seen all three of his ever-changing stories, she's more certain than ever that he's hiding something. She wants someone else to look at the case, not Michael Carr, not the Carpondale police,

someone new and unbiased. In July 2016, a special prosecutor is appointed to review Praveen's case. His name is David Robinson, and he works quietly for over a year, reviewing all of the evidence and reinterviewing witnesses. It's slow, but finally, in July of 2017, more than three years after Praveen's death,

he presents the case to a second grand jury. This time, they choose to indict Gage for two counts of first-degree felony murder. The first felony is for aggravated battery. That's the actual assault that he thinks led to Praveen's death. But the second charge is for robbery. David Robinson believes that Gage

stole money from Praveen during their encounter, and that ended up leading to the altercation. Both charges carry a minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of 60. For Lovely, this is the moment she's been waiting for. After three years of fighting relentlessly, she can finally allow the justice system to run its course, even though it is a few years late.

I said after all these years of sleepless nights, I think I slept the night, you know? I was like, yes, it was an unbelievable day. Everything that I did all those years was worth it. This case was all gone, done and gone. Even if the case did not go to trial, charging him was enough for me. It was just a relief.

Before the trial begins, David Robinson has some additional evidence that he wants to admit, specifically some tweets that Gage made back in 2013 that contained racial slurs. Even though they were made eight months prior to their encounter, he's trying to argue that they should be admitted in order to showcase who Gage is

and what his mindset was going into that night. Though ultimately, they don't end up getting admitted into the trial because the judge believes that they'll prejudice the jury. Gage's trial finally gets underway a year later on June 6, 2018. According to Dustin Duncan's trial coverage for the Southern Illinoisan, the special prosecutor found a lot more holes

in Gage's story than the first investigation. Holes and also lies, including lies that he told during that third and final interview police had with him. The one that they determined was the complete and total truth. For example, Gage said that Praveen was on his phone the whole time in the truck. Remember, he said he was looking for drugs. But Praveen's cell records showed no such activity.

Gage also said that he left the scene and went straight home, which is also a lie. He actually picked up a girl on his way and then went home. Gage also maintained that Praveen was the person talking about cocaine and he wanted nothing to do with him. But actually, Gage was the one asking about cocaine at the party earlier that night. Even the girl he picked up afterwards

said that he was talking about it with her and asking her if she wanted to do some. The special prosecutor's theory, the one that he presents at trial, is that Gage and Praveen drove around Carbondale together, both looking for cocaine. Praveen apparently had $25, which he was going to use to buy drugs.

The two of them stopped at two or three houses during that half hour but didn't find what they were looking for. When Gage pulled on to Highway 13, Praveen realized that he was being driven out of Carbondale and he asked Gage to pull over and let him out. Well, that's when the argument started. Who hit whom first and exactly when remains a bit of a mystery. But ultimately, Gage pulled the truck over

and Praveen grabbed his $25, tossing a few dollars into the truck for gas and left. The prosecutor says that Gage then got out of the truck and demanded Praveen give him all of the money. And that's what they think Anita heard on the phone. Give me that back. When Praveen wouldn't return the cash, the prosecutor argues that Gage punched him several times,

enough to cause those blunt force trauma injuries, and then he took the money. The prosecutor's theory goes on to say that after Gage threw those punches, that's when the state troopers showed up and Praveen ran into the woods, now with a head injury, one bad enough to prevent him from being able

to act in his own best interest and get out of the woods, so he ultimately died. After a two-week trial and more than seven hours of deliberation, the jury finds Gage guilty of one of the two counts of murder, the one where the felony was the assault. But that's still 20 years minimum in prison. It was a long road getting to this point. A lot of time and effort and energy by Praveen's family,

Gage was very lovely in particular. She was fighting for justice and demanding action. But before he even gets to the sentencing phase, Gage fires his trial lawyer and hires a new one who immediately files an appeal asking that the decision be overturned for a reason that no one saw coming. The defense's motion to overturn the conviction

focuses on a technicality in the charge itself. Justin Duncan's pieces explains part of it by saying quote, In the motion, the defense says an aggravated battery resulting in the immediate death of the victim cannot suffice as the basis of a felony murder of that same victim. The defense is arguing the aggravated battery charge cannot support the verdict of felony murder

because the conduct of the offense is already inherent in the act of killing end quote. Now, I was a little confused by the legalese so I ended up sending it to Delia who is great at making sense of all of this stuff and she explained it this way. What the defense attorney is saying is that the aggravated battery, the punch or punches

that Gage threw that night can't act as the thing that caused Praveen's death and the felony that was being committed when his death happened which is totally a technicality but it's a technicality that the judge takes extra time to review so it's not until September 17th that everyone piles into the courtroom again.

In the Dateline episode on this case, Lovely says that the judge started that hearing by saying one side of the courtroom is going to be very upset today and if you don't think that you can handle that you should leave now. Now she assumes that he's talking about Gage's family but instead of talking about where on the 20 to 60 year sentence spectrum

Gage's prison time will fall he does something truly shocking. The judge begins by saying that the prosecution didn't do anything wrong, there was no prosecutorial misconduct and they presented enough evidence to prove that Gage committed a crime but then he starts talking about the indictment itself.

The part that he focuses on reads that Gage quote in committing or attempting to commit a forcible felony with an independent felonious purpose namely aggravated battery battery which causes great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement other than by use of a firearm without lawful justification

knowingly made physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature end quote. He says that that word knowingly might have confused the jury about the state's burden of proof and again that was all a lot of legalese but ultimately even though a jury found Gage guilty

the judge overturns the verdict and orders a new trial. The decision to overturn means that Gage who is 24 years old by this time with a three year old daughter leaves the courtroom a free man and listen it is practically unheard of for a judge to completely disregard the jury's decision

and use his power in this way. Even though there's no evidence of misconduct or anything illegal behind this decision in that moment she knew if Gage was the one who had died and Praveen was the one who had been the attacker that night her son would be in prison right now. But back of my head

I knew race is the underlying thing I did not want to make it as an issue but I knew this is the reason why it's being dragged. What was the interest on protecting that boy over my son? How do you explain it? My son did not even have a single traffic ticket

Gage had a pile of a rap sheet you know police records in many counties. In our conversation with Monica she talked a lot about silent prejudice the subconscious unspoken bias that we can have against other people. She told us that from the beginning almost every single person who had power in this case

could identify more with Gage a white man who was born and raised in the area and they couldn't really identify like that to Praveen even if they would never admit it. And that day despite the verdict from a jury the judge decided to put Gage's freedom over Praveen's life. The prosecutor says that they will

absolutely be pursuing a new trial but so far even as of this recording no new charges have been filed. But that doesn't mean that they haven't been doing anything. Lovely told us that the shoes that were found by Praveen's body always bothered her. They were Puma's size nine and a half which Praveen didn't wear.

He was the size nine but even if you're like okay he could have just like half sized up no big deal Lovely told us that he didn't wear Puma's he actually didn't like the brand. And Monica mentioned that he wore purple shoes to the party but the shoes found by his body were black. So they actually got those shoes tested for DNA

and they couldn't find any of Praveen's DNA on them. So neither of them think that the shoes found in the woods are Praveen's but if they're not then whose are they and more importantly where are the shoes that he was wearing that night. It's just another piece of the puzzle that hopefully will all come together one day.

One of the last things that our team asked Lovely is what she thinks happened that night. Since the beginning she's had to be her own investigator and based on everything she's seen and heard some of which has never been released to the public and we didn't share in this episode she shared what she believes happened to her son. I believe Praveen was attacked

probably in front of the house that Gage was because Praveen had a hit on his back of the head and I believe he fell forward and Gage put him in his truck drove him I don't know where he was trying to take him but Praveen came to life and that's probably when he made that phone call. His phone had a pattern lock

so he had to come to life to make that call. So the second beatings happened the side of the road because in Margolis's report there are two different times of injuries because some of the injuries already showed signs of healing. The cells started to go in so he said some of the injuries started to

show signs of healing so he had two sets of injuries which happened two times. Even though this tragedy has shaped the lives of so many Lovely and her family have taken their grief and used this experience to transform the community of Carbondale. When we spoke with Monica she told us I am better because of her our community is better because of her. End quote.

Law enforcement in Carbondale has changed the way they approach cases like Praveen's and like Monica said everyone has had to confront their own silent prejudices in order to better serve their community but there is still work to be done and the fight isn't over. Lovely is encouraging everyone to sign a petition that was created by Stephanie Harlow

that aims to bring this case to the Supreme Court because even though Lovely has stated repeatedly that she's not out for revenge she is out for justice and justice has clearly not been served in her son's death. We'll have a link to that petition in our show notes and on our website. Again please take a moment to sign that petition for Lovely.

You can see it in our show notes and on our website where you can also find all of our source material. That's crimejunkiepodcast.com and again I know this will be hard but please take a look at the photos Lovely shared with us. She wants you to see them. She wants you to see that this case doesn't make sense and Praveen deserves justice.

Crimejunkie is an audio check production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?