Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 09.23.24 | Man Shot, Beheaded by Best Friend

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Cops say missing man found shot and beheaded in Arizona desert killed by his best friend. HUGE illegal python seized from upstate New York owner.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. Elijah Bradley, 24, reported missing after failing to show up for work. Family can't reach him either. Elijah's mom tracks his phone. Last known location, best friend Samuel Bush's home. But Bush claims he doesn't know Elijah's whereabouts. The family then tracks the GPS location of Elijah's car, which leads them to the desert near Gila Bend, Arizona. Authorities find Elijah's headless, dismembered body. Cops arrest Bush, who they say shot Elijah in the back. Nancy, Elijah had just marked his 24th birthday, celebrations that Samuel Bush attended.

Elijah's family is heartbroken and confused, having no indication there was anything wrong between the childhood best friends. Bush has not confessed to the murder or provided any kind of motive. All of Elijah's remains have been recovered. So-called best friend Samuel Bush, 23, charged with second-degree intentional murder and concealing a body. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation gets a complaint about an illegally owned snake. The responding officer finds a yellow Burmese python in a four-foot tank. The snake's 80 pounds, 13 feet long, and growing. The owner claims to not have known how quickly the snake would grow. A ticket for possessing wildlife as a pet and possessing dangerous wildlife without a permit is handed out. The python, fortunately, very healthy now

and slithering around the Fort Rickey Discovery Zoo. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. Authorities in northeastern Wisconsin have confirmed that the skeletal remains of three-year-old Elijah Vu, who disappeared in February, have been discovered. The grim discovery was made by a hunter on September 7th in the rural town of Two Rivers, located approximately 30 miles southeast of Green Bay.

Elijah Vu was last seen at the Two Rivers home of his mother's boyfriend February 12th. His remains were located roughly three miles from that residence, according to Two Rivers Police Chief Benjamin Minard. A forensic anthropologist from the state crime lab later identified the remains as Elijah's. Elijah's mother, 31-year-old Katrina Bauer, and her boyfriend, 39-year-old Jesse Vang, were both charged in February in connection with the case. Bauer faces a felony charge of being partied to child neglect, as well as two misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing an officer.

Vang was similarly charged with being party to child neglect. Both have pleaded not guilty. Court documents detail that Bauer had left her son in Vang's care February 12th, hoping he would help, quote, teach him to be a man. Days later, February 20th, Vang reported the child missing, telling authorities that he had fallen asleep with the boy and, after waking up three hours later, discovered Elijah was gone. Chief Minard emphasized that the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Elijah's death remains ongoing. In Kansas, a cold case spanning more than four decades has finally seen justice.

For more, we turn to Sydney Sumner of Crime Online. A former neighbor of Mary Robin Walter, a 23-year-old nursing student who was killed in her trailer home in Great Bend in January 1980, has been sentenced for her murder. Stephen L. Hanks, now 70, received a prison sentence of 10 to 25 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. The case had gone cold for years until a 2022 decision by Barton County Sheriff Brian Belendier to reopen the investigation using modern technology and forensic methods unavailable at the time. This renewed effort led investigators back to Hanks, who had been a suspect in the initial investigation. New interviews with Hanks yielded a confession,

giving authorities the evidence needed to charge him. Hanks was arrested in 2022 when he was living in Burden, Kansas. Initially, his plea agreement had called for a sentence of five to 25 years. However, Barton County District Judge Stephen Johnson handed down a stiffer penalty, departing from the agreement to impose a minimum sentence of 10 years. Local authorities believe this may be the oldest cold case in Kansas to be solved, ending a 44-year quest for finding answers in Walter's death. Thanks, John. Nine-year-old Alexis Patterson walks from her Milwaukee, Wisconsin home to school with her stepdad, Leron Bourgeois. Bourgeois says he watched Alexis walk towards the playground before heading home.

After school, Bourgeois and Alexis' mother, Ariana, learn Alexis is absent from school. Mom believes Alexis skipped class because she got in trouble for not completing homework and could not bring cupcakes to school that day. Fellow classmates say they saw Alexis crying on the playground before and after school. Alexis reported missing. Police suspect foul play as Alexis has no runaway history. Searches of the surrounding area turn up nothing. Alexis' bio dad, Kenya Campbell, cooperates with police as does Ariana and Laurent Bourgeois.

But police say Bourgeois fails a polygraph. Still, no arrest. Alexis Patterson, an African-American female child, brown hair, brown eyes, three feet, eight inches, 42 pounds at the time she disappeared, a scar below her right eye, and a bump on her left pinky. That was 22 years ago. If you have info on what happened to little girl Alexis Patterson, please call Milwaukee PD 414-935-7401. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com and please join us for our daily podcast, Crime Stories. For This Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.