Crime Junkie - SERIAL KILLER: Khalil Wheeler-Weaver

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

When a New Jersey family is rocked by the disappearance of one of their own, they set up a trap to catch the man they believe to be responsible. But once that man is behind bars, police discover that the full extent of his crimes goes beyond what they expected.  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/serial-killer-khalil-wheeler-weaver/

Hi crime junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers and the story I have for you today is about a man who terrorized a cluster of New Jersey towns in 2016. A man who for seemingly no reason decided to target some of the most vulnerable women in his community, but it's also about the women who took matters into their own hands and worked together to stop a serial killer before he could strike again. This is the story of Khalil Wheeler Weaver. It's the morning of November 23rd 2016 and a woman named Laverne Butler is becoming increasingly frustrated because her daughter Sarah hasn't returned home.

Sarah had just gotten home from college the day before for Thanksgiving break and last night she borrowed the family's blue minivan to go see a friend. She didn't specify who and as far as I can tell Laverne didn't really ask, but she was only supposed to be gone for a few hours. And listen, she wasn't frustrated that Sarah was out late, I mean she was 20 years old after all, but she did have a problem with the fact that Sarah hadn't called or texted to say that she'd be home later than expected. Now that it's morning though, Laverne's frustration is actually turning into worry.

She tries calling Sarah, but call after call keeps rolling over to voicemail. Sarah's sister Bassania is also worried, and she's been texting Sarah's friends to see if anyone has heard from her, but no one has. This is super out of the ordinary, so at first they fear that she's gotten into some kind of accident or something, so they call around to all of the local hospitals and police stations that are in driving distance of where they live in Montclair, New Jersey, just in case she could be there, but she's not. And so finally, later that day, her family makes the decision to report her missing.

In the days following Sarah's disappearance, friends and family of the butlers mobilized to help find her. Julia Martin reported for NorthJersey.com that a family friend has experience in public relations, and so they're actually able to connect with a few local media outlets to spread the news, and fortunately, they don't have to wait long before they're hearing something. Just three days after Sarah went missing, one of Bassania's friends calls the police and says that she found the blue minivan.

It's parked behind an abandoned factory building just four miles away from the Butler house. But when police arrive at the parking lot and take a look inside, the only sign of Sarah they find is the black jacket she had been wearing on the night she disappeared. But beyond that, there isn't anything super concerning in the car. Like there's no blood, no signs of a struggle, nothing like that. When the butlers get the news that the van had been found, Bassania and one of her friends named LaMia go look at the van themselves just in case they can spot any clues.

And it's a good thing they do because as they're inspecting the vehicle, LaMia spots something on the ground next to it. And when she takes a closer look, she and Bassania both freak out because they realize that it's a red hair extension that Sarah had been wearing in her hair. So it's at this point that any doubt they had in their minds about the circumstances surrounding Sarah's disappearance fade. Because when they see that hair extension, they know Sarah didn't just leave on her own.

Something terrible had to have happened to her. So since police missed that very important clue, Bassania and her friends decide to just take matters into their own hands, and they start their own investigation. They feel like they can't just sit around while Sarah's in danger, so they start by logging into all of her social media profiles, her email and anything else they can think of that might give them a clue as to what happened to her. And I'm sure you're wondering because I certainly was, if police hadn't already thought to look at her social media before this point as part of their investigation.

Because remember, Sarah's been gone for three days at this point, and they know that she was going to meet someone, so getting into her social media, to me, sounds like one of the first things that you would do. And while I can't be 100% sure if they had or had not gotten into her accounts, I kind of lead towards not based on what Bassania finds. So she and her friends log into Sarah's account on an app called Tagged, which is a dating platform that she had downloaded to try and meet new people at school. Think like Tinder, Bumble, that kind of thing.

But unlike Tinder or Bumble, people on the app don't provide their real names, they all have user names instead. So they start scrolling through Sarah's messages on the app and they see that the last person she had contact with was someone under the username Lil Yacht Rock. So they click to read their messages and what they find shocks them. They see that the first time the two communicated was on November 19th, and after exchanging hellos, Lil Yacht Rock asked Sarah, who went by the username Sarah Smile, if she would want to have sex with him in exchange for money.

And even though she had never done anything like that before, at least as far as her friends knew, she responded by asking how much would he pay her. Over the course of their initial interaction on the 19th, they agreed on $500 in exchange for her spending the night with him. Sarah did seem a bit hesitant, even jokingly asking if he was a serial killer, but eventually they decided to meet up. However, according to an article for The Record and NorthJersey.com, it seems from the interaction on the app that Sarah actually backed out and stood him up.

But they can see that Sarah reached back out to him a few days later, saying, quote, sorry about the other day, I got really nervous. They go on to exchange a few more messages and they agreed to meet on the night of the 22nd after Sarah got home. Now that Bassania and her friends know who Sarah was meeting, they feel like they're on the right track. I mean, there's even a profile picture on this account. So they know what this guy looks like.

So they contact police and tell them what they found. But again, they're not just going to sit around and wait. So they decide to lure this guy out themselves. Another one of Bassania's friends named Samantha actually creates a profile on tag using a fake name in someone else's photo. And then she, Bassania and LaMia start swiping through profiles, hoping that they're just going to come across this little yacht rock. And by a massive stroke of luck, one of the first people to pop up is none other than

the guy that they're looking for. So they give his profile a thumbs up and wait. The next day, all three of the friends are at Montclair police headquarters giving statements and waiting for news when Samantha gets a notification from tag. She opens it up and her stomach drops to her feet because it's a little yacht rock. And just like with Sarah, he's offering to pay her for sex. The women craft a message back right away saying that they are in need of some cash. They're very interested in the offer.

And the guy seems like really interested in meeting up as soon as possible, as in like he asked if they can stop by right then and there. And obviously that can't happen because they are literally standing in the police station. So they stall. They say, we can't meet up like this very second, but we really need the money. So it's not a matter of if it's just kind of a matter of when eventually the messages turn into a phone call and Bassania thinking on the fly whips out her phone to record the conversation.

Samantha takes the lead and she and the man make a plan to meet at a nearby Panera bread a little later that same day. Once their conversation ends, they continue messaging. And when they ask him what his name is, he says it's a Taj. But listen, none of these women actually plan on meeting up with Taj. They fill police in on their entire conversation. And when the time comes to meet, two officers end up going instead. And it turns out Taj isn't quite who he says he is.

When the officers spot the man that they think is Taj pulling into the parking lot, they stop him and confront him with the messages that he sent on tagged. The guy admits yes, he is the man behind the account, but his name isn't actually Taj. It's Khalil Wheeler Weaver. Police asked him about his interactions with Sarah on the night of the 22nd, where they met, where they went and where he last saw her. Now the specifics of the story that he tells them varies depending on which source you read. But he admits that the two did meet up that evening for a date.

However, he insists that when they parted ways, she was alive and well. He even says that he has a friend who can verify this whole story. Now, I'm not sure what police thought of Khalil in that first meeting, but at this point they really don't have a solid reason to hold him for any questioning, so they have no choice but to let him go. But they still do their due diligence and double check his alibi with that friend. According to reporting by Tom Nobile for the Herald News, his friend's name is Richard Isaacs.

And when police ask him about Khalil's whereabouts for the night of the 22nd, he confirms that Khalil was with him pretty much that whole night. He says they were in his garage working on Richard's car when this girl that he didn't know picked up Khalil in a minivan at about 7pm. He doesn't know where they went, what they did, but he verifies that that same woman dropped him back off at his house by like 9pm that evening. So for the time being, Khalil's story checks out. But the question of what happened to Sarah still remains.

Investigators are finally able to get into her phone records, and in particular, they're interested in taking a look at her location data to get a play-by-play of where she went that night. And based on the data, they see that the last place her phone pinged off of was a tower near Eagle Rock Reservation, which is a nature preserve that spans across Montclair, Verona, and West Orange, New Jersey. So on December 1st, they head over to the 400-acre reserve to look for her. And they don't have to search long, because hidden behind a trailer that sits near one

of the parking lots, they see what looks like hands and feet sticking out from under a pile of brush. When they move it aside, they find the body of a young woman. The bottom half of her head, from just below her eyes, all the way down to her chin, is wrapped in duct tape. And there's a pair of sweatpants wrapped tightly around her neck. Once they remove the duct tape, they confirm what everyone already suspected. It's Sarah.

Sarah's autopsy is completed in the days following her discovery. And according to an article by Lisa Marie Cigara for the Montclair Times, her cause of death is determined to be strangulation. But her family confirms that the sweatpants found around her neck weren't hers. They also find evidence of sexual assault, and the pathologist is able to get a DNA sample from underneath her fingernails. And investigators already have someone in mind that they want to compare the DNA to or take a closer look at.

According to Sarah's cell phone data, Khalil's number was the last one she called. And even though he had a friend back up his story, there's just something about him that isn't sitting quite right. So what police decide to do is they actually get a warrant for the location data on Khalil's phone. They're thinking since Sarah's phone was what gave them the information they needed to find her body, maybe his phone will give them some insight on where he really was that night.

And wouldn't you know it? Before the night of the 22nd, the locations where his phone pinged are almost an exact replica of Sarah's, including a stop at the Eagle Rock Reservation a little after 10pm, which is way after his friend Richard said that he was back at his house. And speaking of Richard, investigators want to talk to him again since he confirmed Khalil's alibi. So they go back to him and ask him if he was really telling the truth, and he admits that he wasn't.

He tells the detectives that Khalil had called him and told him that if police showed up and asked about his whereabouts for the 22nd, he should say that he was with him. But Richard is clear that he had no idea what he was covering for. He was just trying to help out a buddy. Now that police know Khalil was lying about his whereabouts and his phone can place him in the same location as Sarah's body on the night that she was killed, police have enough to bring him into custody. He's arrested on December 6 and charged with Sarah's murder and desecrating human remains.

After his arrest, Khalil's story about what happened that night changes multiple times. He says that Sarah actually picked him up from his house, not Richard's, but then he changes his tune and says that he was actually the one who picked Sarah up. But when police ask where he picked her up, Khalil gives them two different locations. And they know all of this is just like lie after lie after lie because again, they have his phone records to prove that he wasn't at any of the places he's talking about that night. They also have uncovered a series of really disturbing searches, including one very specific

search which was for quote, how to make homemade poisons to kill humans. But bizarrely, amidst the searches, they also find that he was researching how to become a police officer. And the more they learn about Khalil, the more everyone starts to wonder why he killed Sarah in the first place. According to an article for The Herald News by Christopher Mogg and Julia Martin, they learned that he grew up in a comfortable middle-class neighborhood with two relatives in law enforcement. He had a few close friends, worked as a security guard, and actually wanted to follow in his

family's footsteps and pursue a career on the police force. So his friends and family are shocked that he's been charged with murder. And his mother in particular is absolutely heartbroken. But even though he seemed like a perfectly harmless, upstanding guide to everyone who knew him, it's like we always say, you never truly know anyone, no matter how close you think you are. With Khalil staying silent, the question of motive remains at the forefront of everyone's minds.

Investigators determined that he and Sarah didn't know each other before they connected on tag on the 19th, so from what they can tell, it seems like he met up with her for the sole purpose of killing her. As they're putting together this bigger picture of who Khalil is, they start to worry that Sarah might not be his only victim. I mean, the texts, the searches, it all seems so cold and calculated. And after news breaks that Khalil has been arrested, police in Newark, New Jersey can't help but notice the similarities between Sarah's story and an unsolved murder of their own.

Just a few weeks before Sarah was murdered, police in Newark, which is just a town to the south of Montclair, received a missing persons report from a woman named Amaya Nobles. Amaya told police that on the afternoon of October 22, 2016, she saw her friend Joanne Brown get into an unknown man's car and drive away, and she hadn't heard from her since. At the time, she said that Joanne was struggling with substance use disorder and heavily relied on sex work to make ends meet. And even though she was trying to get back on her feet by receiving drug counseling,

she was still going out with clients from time to time, so the fact that she was picked up by someone wasn't really that unusual. But that particular time was a bit different because Joanne didn't take her phone with her. See, every other time Joanne met a client, she would call Amaya and tell her where she was and when she was going to be back. But this time, another one of her friends needed to make an urgent call, so Joanne let them borrow her phone.

Now still trying to be as safe as possible, once she was in the car, she asked to borrow the man's phone and called Amaya from that number to give her the usual info. After that, everything seemed fine until a few hours later when Amaya got another call from the same number. Thinking it was Joanne, she picked it up, but whoever was on the other end stayed silent for a few seconds, just like breathing into the phone and then hung up. This was super unsettling, so she called back a few times but didn't get an answer. And as time went on, she got more and more worried about her friend.

No one else in their circle of friends were able to get in contact with her either and so a few days later, Amaya decided to report her missing. Now, unfortunately, I can't find much information about the investigation into Joanne's disappearance, if there even was one. Because here's the thing, I know Amaya gave police the number of the guy who had picked up her friend, but I have no idea if they even looked into it. Joanne remained missing until December 5th when two construction workers found the body of a woman in an abandoned home in Orange, a town right next to Montclair.

They called the police and when they arrived, they found the decomposing body of a woman laying on the second floor of the home. She had a jacket wrapped around her neck and duct tape wound around her nose and mouth. Now it was difficult at the time for them to tell how long she'd been lying there, but an autopsy would later determine that she had been deceased for about a month. Her autopsy also found signs of sexual assault and her cause of death was strangulation. But unfortunately, they weren't able to find any DNA at her crime scene or on her body. And I also couldn't find out if the jacket that was found around her neck was determined

to be hers or somebody else's. Because of that missing persons report filed by Amaya, Newark police were able to identify the woman in the house as Joanne. But until now, they say they didn't have any suspects or leads. Again, phone number aside, I can't even with that. But here they are now. They learn about Sarah's murder. They notice enough similarities between her case and Joanne's that they get in contact

with Montclair police as well as the prosecuting attorney to try and figure out if Khalil could have been the one to pick up Joanne that day. So just like with Sarah, they check his phone's location data. And sure enough, all the pieces start coming together. On the day that Joanne disappeared, they see that he went to the same area where she was picked up, then drove to the house where her body was found. They also look at his call logs, which corroborate what Amaya said in her original statement. Which can I take a minute here, they literally had this guy's number from her friend as soon

as she was reported missing. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why it took Sarah's murder for them to connect the dots and get to Khalil. The only thing I can think potentially in my mind is that this is like a burner phone, so they couldn't necessarily connect it to him. But then once they had it in their possession, I have no idea, but I get very worked up thinking about it. Now, Khalil is confronted with this information in jail, but the explanation he gives is almost

a word for word copy of what he said when he was arrested for Sarah's murder. He admits to seeing her that day, but after their date, he says he drops her off, she's safe and sound, has no idea what happened to her afterwards. But investigators aren't buying it, especially when his phone literally places him at the scene of the murder on the day it happened. So by the time he's arraigned for Sarah's murder on December 13th, they're already preparing to formally charge him with Joanne's murder as well. But before they can, the prosecutor on Sarah's case is approached by a woman who says that

she knows Khalil, and just a few weeks before Sarah went missing, he tried to kill her too. The woman's name is Tiffany Taylor, and she tells the prosecutor that once she heard the news that Khalil had been arrested, she knew that she had to come forward and tell her story. And that story is a harrowing one. Tiffany says that on November 15th, she agreed to meet up with a man who had been relentlessly texting and calling her for the last few months, offering to pay her for sex. Even though she had previously worked as a sex worker, she says that she wasn't interested

in that lifestyle anymore, but recently she'd fallen on some hard times and was living in a car. So even though she didn't know his name, she agreed the next time he reached out to her. But according to more reporting from Christopher Mogg for NorthJersey.com, she wasn't actually planning on going through with it. She says that she just wanted to take the guy's money and get out of there before anything happened.

She had done it before, so she was planning on doing it again. She says that she and the man agreed to meet at the Ritz Motel in Elizabeth, which is a town a little to the south of Montclair. And so at about 7.50pm on the 15th, this guy showed up, handed her $80, and then drove away in a car that she was borrowing from an acquaintance. Right away, there were a few red flags that stuck out to Tiffany. Not enough for her to stop the car and get out, but enough to catch her attention. Like how the guy was wearing a ski mask and gloves, even though it was 50 degrees outside,

for instance. But again, she desperately needed the money, and she was planning on making her escape soon before anything could happen. And just as like a crime-drinky life role, I highly recommend avoiding men in masks offering you money. Tiffany says that before they could make it to wherever they were planning on going, he asked to pull over so he could go to the bathroom. She agreed, and then the next thing she remembers is waking up in the back seat of the car,

and pounding with her neck caught in a chokehold, and duct tape wrapped around her mouth and nose. She says that her hands were cuffed behind her back, and even though she was completely disoriented, she started thrashing and crying. She bit her tongue, and the mixture of tears and blood was enough to help loosen the duct tape so she could scream. And that's when the man asked if she recognized him. And at first, she didn't, because he still had that ski mask on.

But then she realized that she knew exactly who he was, Khalil Wheeler Weaver. She tells the prosecutor that the two had met a few months before, and he had become obsessed with her, texting her non-stop and asking to pay her for sex. Eventually, she said yes, but she took the money and ran instead, changing her number so he couldn't contact her anymore. But in that moment, she realized that he must have found her new number because he was the guy who had been texting and calling her over the last few months. Now, as Tiffany is being attacked, she tried to appeal to Khalil, doing it in any way she

could think of. Desperately, she said that the handcuffs were too tight and asked if he would loosen them. She said she was trying to think of anything to get him to stop, and to her surprise, he actually said yes. So he literally stops trying to kill her and loosen her handcuffs, and in those few seconds, she was able to come up with a plan. According to an article by Rebecca Panico for NJ.com, Tiffany told Khalil that she had left her phone back at the motel, which was a problem for him because she had saved their

entire conversation on it. And that kind of seemed to snap him back into reality because he realized that if he left that phone, the police would see that he was the last person she talked to. So he climbed back into the driver's seat and drove the two of them back to the motel. And it was in that moment Tiffany says she realized that she could get out of that situation alive. When they got back to the motel, Khalil got out and removed the duct tape from her face. He then draped a jacket around her shoulders to hide the handcuffs and told her to lead

the way that he was going to follow a few feet behind her so he didn't look suspicious. And then he let her out of the car. Tiffany tells the prosecutor that what Khalil didn't know at the time was that Tiffany didn't actually live at the motel, the guy that she worked for did. They had this arrangement where she would buy this guy drugs and in exchange he would pay her and let her sleep in his car. And so when Khalil let her out, she went straight to his room and kicked the door. Hearing that kick, the man opened the door right away and she rushed in and slammed the

door behind her. The deadbolt locked automatically, leaving Khalil outside banging on the door and yelling for her to come out. Tiffany slipped one of her hands out of the cuffs and pulled open the window curtain next to the door to show him that she had gotten free. And at that site, he bolted. But she goes on to say that she wasn't about to let Khalil get away with this so easily. And so she called the police.

And then she texted Khalil and said that the car he had wasn't hers and if he brought back the keys, she wouldn't call the cops. And she was hoping that both the police and Khalil would show up at the same time and they would arrest him. But unfortunately, they missed each other, though Khalil did come back to drop the keys off at the bottom of the stairs leading up to her room. So the prosecutor is wondering what you are probably screaming right now, which is like, why the f*** wasn't this guy arrested?

If Tiffany called the police, what happened here? She knew his name and one of the handcuffs was literally still hanging off her wrist. How is he free to then go and murder Sarah? Well, what Tiffany tells him next makes him believe that Sarah's murder could have been prevented altogether. Tiffany tells the prosecutor that when the police showed up, she told them everything that had happened to the best of her ability. But according to body cam footage from the three police officers that responded to Tiffany's

call, which was published in a video from northjersey.com, it is obvious from the very beginning that none of them believed the story she told. Here's actually a part of Tiffany's interaction with police that night. This to me is absolutely outrageous. For them to say, you let him duct tape you? Like who the f*** says that to a victim? What about this woman makes you not believe her story? But not only did the officers not believe her, they accused her of being a sex worker and

placed all the blame on her. And again, she literally still has one of the handcuffs hanging off her wrist. And so even though she gave them Khalil's name, she literally gave them his Facebook profile, his phone number, doesn't matter. They just left. So when the prosecutor learns all of this, he is infuriated because Tiffany's attack happened just a week before Sarah was murdered. And sure enough, Khalil's cell phone data corroborates Tiffany's story, as does security

footage that they pull from the motel. So had even one of the three officers who answered Tiffany's call done even the teensiest bit of their freaking job to try to corroborate her story, Sarah Butler would still be alive today. Khalil is charged with Joanne's murder and Tiffany's assault over the following weeks, to which he pleads not guilty on all charges. But even though he can't hurt anyone else behind bars, investigators continue trying to uncover the full extent of his reign of terror.

We take a look at murders that occurred in and around the cities of Montclair, specifically if the victim was a female sex worker, and it doesn't take them long to focus on the murder of another young woman whose body was found on September 1st. Her name is Robin West, and according to more reporting by Rebecca Panico for NJ.com, her badly burned body was found by firefighters after they put out a fire at an abandoned house in Orange, New Jersey. The fire appeared to have been started either on or very close to her body. In fact, Robin had to be identified through dental record because of how badly damaged

she was. The woman she was last seen with told police at the time that she saw Robin getting into a silver sedan, and she even wrote down the license plate number. So police had a solid place to start. And wouldn't you know it? When they check who owned that car, it was none other than Khalil. Like literally, this guy was doing nothing to cover his tracks, but he knew he didn't have to because police are doing nothing to take this guy off the streets.

To be fair, at the time, they did bring him in for questioning, but I'm sure by now you can guess exactly what he said. He's like, yep, saw her that night, dropped her off a few hours later, she was fine, no idea what happened afterwards, and so they let him go. He was free to leave, and after that the investigation stalled. Khalil did remain on the radar as a possible suspect, but I couldn't find anything stating if he was ever re-interviewed. So by now he's been charged with the murders of two other women, the assault of a third,

and they have a feeling that Robin could have fallen prey to him as well. So they go back to those trusty phone records and look at his location on the night that Robin was killed, which by the way, they could have done when Robin was killed. And according to those records, they can see that after he picked up Robin, which remember he admitted doing, he drove to the house that she would later be found in, and then he left shortly before the call came into 911 reporting the house fire. But his phone records also show that he didn't go straight home. According to more reporting from Julia Martin for North Jersey, after he left, he circled

back and returned to the house, presumably to watch as the fire was being put out. All of this is enough to charge Khalil with Robin's murder in February of 2017, and it's no surprise to anyone that he pleads not guilty. In total, he's charged with three counts of murder, three counts of desecration of human remains, kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, attempted murder, and aggravated arson. His trial begins on October 23, 2019, and the prosecution focuses primarily on the location data from his phone, as well as the communication that he had with Sarah and Tiffany before their attacks.

Tiffany even tells her story on the stand, tearfully expressing to the jury that because of Khalil's attack, she doesn't feel safe anywhere anymore. According to another article by Tom Nobile for the record, they also present the DNA that they found under Sarah's fingernails, which they were able to match to Khalil. As for the defense, his lawyers argue that everything connecting him to the four victims is entirely circumstantial. And without any evidence proving that he killed them, they say that there's enough reasonable doubt to clear him.

But the jury doesn't seem to think so because they convict him on all counts and he's sentenced to 160 years in prison. And up until March of this year, that was the end of the story. But on March 31st of 2022, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey released a statement announcing that they're charging Khalil with another murder. He's been charged with murdering a 15-year-old girl named Mawa Dumbia, who went missing back in October of 2016, right in the middle of his killing spree. According to this statement from the prosecutor's office, Mawa left home on October 7th and

she was classified as an endangered runaway. Her remains were found in an abandoned carriage house in Orange in 2019 and her cause of death was determined to be strangulation. But she remained unidentified until November 5th of 2021. Authorities allege that they were able to connect Khalil to the location where Mawa was found, surprise surprise, via his phone records. They state that he met Mawa online on October 7th, which was the day that she went missing, and he lured her out of her house with the promise of paying for sex.

Later that same day, she was killed and left in that abandoned house until someone found her years later. As of this recording, he hasn't been arraigned yet, nor has he entered a plea. But even if he pleads guilty and spares Mawa's family the trauma of a trial, it won't bring her back. And the same can be said for all of the other women he brutally and senselessly took away from their families and friends. One of the most frustrating parts of this story is that it all seemed so preventable.

Especially his later crimes. Again, if the investigators had done just a bit more digging into Robin's disappearance, maybe they would have found something that could have put Khalil behind bars before he could kill again. Or maybe if the officers who responded to Tiffany's attack had acted with compassion and believed her story, Sarah might still be here today. We could still have Joanne, and fewer families would have had to go through the heartbreak of losing their children, their sisters, their loved ones.

You know, we've talked about cases before like this where police looked the other way. And so often we want to say that that was so long ago. This wasn't that long ago, you guys. No matter someone's profession, no matter why they were out there to meet someone, everyone deserves the same amount of respect and care from the people serving the community. You can find all of the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, at crimejunkiepodcast, and we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

So, what do you think Chuck, do you approve?