Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - DEAD ON VACATION: Father demands answers about daughter’s mysterious death at Cancun resort

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Abbey Conner, 20, and her brother Austin, 22, were both found floating in the pool-side bar at an Iberostar hotel in Playa del Carmen. Abbey Conner died days later, but her brother recovered. Local police did not question the bartender or other witnesses before declaring it an accident, according to the father. Reports say the pair consumed allegedly "poisonous" alcohol. Joining Nancy Grace today: Bill Conner - Victim's Father Gary Davidson - Partner, Diaz Reus international Law Firm & Alliance, www.diazreus.com, Twitter: @DRT_Alliance, Instagram: diazreustarg Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire'  Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet" featured on "Poisonous Liaisons" on True Crime Network Raquel Rutledge - Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. A beautiful young college student goes on vacation with her family. Her whole family is there. How does she end up dead. When they pulled her out of the pool, obviously Abby was dead. She was already gone. But Austin was lucky enough that they pulled him out in time and he fully recovered, obviously, but Abby was on life support. And obviously, we were hoping that putting her in a coma might bring her back.

But once I got down to Fort Lauderdale, where they med flighted her into, obviously, I knew the situation at that point that she wasn't coming back. Just hearing his words sends a chill down my spine. You are hearing my now who I consider to be a friend. That's Bill Connor, Abby's dad. How does it go from I'm already all excited about our family vacation this summer? How does it go from that thrill of taking your children somewhere to this? And joining me today is Abby's dad, Bill, along with an all-star panel. You were hearing Bill just then, but in addition to Bill Connor, joining me today, Raquel Rutledge, investigative reporter, and let me say crack investigative reporter, because she cracked this and other cases just like it, wide open.

When I read her stories in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA Today as well, wow, she hit the nail on the head. You've got to hear this before you go on vacation. Also with me, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. With me, forensics expert, Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned psychoanalyst joining us out of L.A. She's a psychoanalyst to the stars. She's now on a hit series on Netflix, Bling Empire. And you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Gary Davidson, partner in a high-profile law firm, Diaz Ruiz International Law Firm and Alliance. This is one of his specialties.

And boy, do we need an international lawyer today. And special guest joining us is Bill Connor. This is Abby's dad and Austin's dad. And he has come to symbolize the fight to end what happened to his girl, Abby. In fact, he's so committed, he even created Abby's Ride for Life. It's an incredible bike-a-thon. But first, I want to go to Bill Connor about this. Bill, when I hear you speaking about what happened with Abby, I know I've put you through this before, but would you please tell our listeners what happened? All our listeners that are heading out to vacation, what happened? Well, it was a vacation with their mom and stepdad and her brother.

They were taking their spring break for college, and they were going down to cancun to relax for a couple of days and they um unfortunately they ran into uh the wrong services um they checked into their hotel and wait this was like a five-star hotel incredible hotel you know i think i told you when i was learning to dive i learned in the queens ymca pool but then you had to do an open water dive and the dive instructor offered a cheap trip down and i did open water dives and dive also dived at cancun i didn't see much because I was underwater every single day. But the place where Abby was staying was really beautiful, like marble floors, palm trees, the works.

Correct. And they had two other pools. Until this day, we still don't know which pool they ended up in, but they did leave the bar. Unfortunately, they weren't covering all their pools. And so our kids fell into one of the pools. And as you talked about earlier, unfortunately, Abby didn't make it. And they, one of the, somebody on the property saw the kids, but pulled Austin out and Austin fully recovered. And it was something that

unfortunately their mom and stepdad went up to the room, were waiting for them to come up and they never came up. So when they, they they came down they were in an ambulance already heading to the hospital and so um it was a dark day what was the first you heard bill that she was being airlifted um yes um i actually got the phone call from my son and told me what happened and what was going on. And then Abby's grandfather got the plane to transfer to Fort Lauderdale. And we're going to fly her into a hospital in the Milwaukee area, but the doctor said that her brain was swollen and he didn't think she'd be able to make that trip. So Fort Lauderdale was the second choice, and we flew her in there.

And then obviously we prepared her to move on and donate her organs. Bill, I've never asked you this. Were this happening in Cancun? Had they already put a shunt in her head? I have no idea. Because, you know, with brain swelling, and I'm certainly no MD, I'm a JD, but my little nephew as a, was in a crash. A lady in a van with three screaming kids ran over him, and he hit his head on the sidewalk.

And there was swelling of the brain. And the first thing they did wisely is they sawed a hole in his head and put a shunt, which is really just a tube, and it opened the skull up so the swelling had somewhere to go. If you don't do that immediately, the brain swells up against the skull, and you have, you die. You have permanent brain damage and die. If you don't do that immediately, that's the only way I knew about it. They saved his life. The good news on

that story is he went on, had a double major in chemistry and IT, and now he's an IT wizard. Okay. So because he got the right treatment, he is happy today with a wife and a child and a job and all that good stuff. But that did not happen with Abby so the first thing dad Bill Connor hears is there's been this horrible accident and his daughter is being airlifted I want to go straight to Raquel Rutledge and guys let me tell you something if you have not read her articles on what happened and it's happening to a lot of people in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel please before you head out on vacation please look her up online Raquel Rutledge Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Raquel you've heard the story about Abby and so many others what's really happening at the bars

across the border well what, what we heard time and time again, and it really surprised me because, you know, when we first heard about this, it just, it raised so many questions about how two people who are young and who literally had about an hour in the pool where they had a couple of shots that we know of that Austin remembers and we interviewed Jenny as well. And so what we could surmise from that is this happened very quickly. And so when we first wrote that story about what happened with Abby and Austin, we were just flooded. We started getting emails and phone calls from people all around the world.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Before you go on vacation, you have got to hear Bill Connor's story about his daughter Abby. Beautiful, young, brilliant. to hear Bill Connor's story about his daughter Abby beautiful young brilliant along with her brother Austin they go to this five-star hotel in Cancun they have a couple of drinks and then suddenly Austin wakes up he's in the pool and his sister also in the pool has to be life transported uh life lifted back to fort lauderdale to try to save her life but they couldn't save her life and right now with me uh incredible work by raquel rutledge raquel go ahead dear so we started this hearing from people from around the world that had similar situations where they had had small amounts to drink.

And and then they would black out and not remember anything and wake up with broken bones, had been sexually assaulted. There were all kinds of stories that we were hearing. And people just really second guess themselves because they couldn't they couldn't imagine. I mean, they blame themselves. They thought, did I really drink that much? Because they couldn't remember. And so, um, that was, that was what was different too, is that sometimes we, we had stories of couples who would like Abby and Austin, brother and sister, but we had husband and wife, um, siblings, friends where two or three people at the same time would black out. Um, and so in literally after drinking in one case, case, somebody had half a drink.

And there were all different kinds of drinks. So it was very hard to kind of pinpoint specifically the one thing that was getting everybody. But what I came to learn through investigating was that there's a huge black market for alcohol in Mexico. And at one point, it was upwards of 40% of all alcohol consumed in Mexico produced is illicit. So that doesn't mean it's all tainted, but it just means it is. So wait a minute. Let me understand something. Up to 40% of alcohol consumed in Mexico is bootleg, moonshine, made out of somebody's radiator,

and sold in a bottle with fake tags on it, with fake appearance that it's the real thing. Yeah, that is a portion of that percentage, and then others, it's just that they haven't paid the proper taxes on it, so it's impossible to know exactly. But what we do know is that they... What you're drinking. Yeah, and we do know that they confisc confiscated after our stories and after we started writing

some of this, the Mexican authorities went through and they did confiscate and find and shut down a number of black market distilleries. Oh, you know, Raquel Rutledge, you know, before I became a felony prosecutor, I worked at the antitrust and the consumer protection divisions with the Federal Trade Commission. And I know, like everybody else on this panel knows, they shut down a bootlegger one day. They pop up five miles away the next day unless they're put in jail and doing hard time. It's like trying to put a sham corporation out of business. Yeah, you close down that one. But then the next day,

they reincorporate under another name and do the same thing. It's still happening right now. Guys, I implore you to go to Raquel Rutledge's articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online about bootleg alcohol. Abby and Austin were not drunk. They had a couple of shots.

That's it. Celebrating. And she ends up dead, and he ends up with serious fractures and injuries. Guys, take a listen to Gio Benitez, ABC. How excited about Mexico were you? Probably the most excited person was Abby. Mom Ginny and stepdad John booked the IberoStar Paraiso Resort in Playa del Carmen. We just sat on chairs at the side of the pool and they're like we're gonna go up

we're gonna get it ready for dinner you guys need to meet us in the lobby at 730. 20 year old Abby Connor and her 23 year old brother Austin stayed by the pool. We swam around for a little bit and we decided let's celebrate with you know a drink so we go to the bar and another group that was already there we just start talking so people you didn't know no we didn't know them the bartender pours out a line of shots and they come all the way down and i take one and you know everyone else does and the last thing i remember was just like we are right now sitting here talking and lights went out and I woke up in the ambulance. So you went from fine to blacked out in seconds? Like I said, I felt completely normal. I felt completely normal. Take

a listen to more. Here's our friend Gio at ABC. The family says a guest found Abby and Austin floating face down in the waist deep pool and soon they were on the way to the hospital. But Jenny and John had no idea. Now it's time for you to meet them in the lobby. It was getting close to 8. I'm starting to get worried. I said I just I need to call their room because I can't contact them any other way to find out where they are. And she said is your husband here with you? And I'm like well yeah he's sitting right over there. And then she went and got the general manager and quickly brought me to John,

explained that there had been an accident. Abby was brain dead. Austin had a concussion and a golf ball sized lump on his head. Abby was flown to a Florida hospital where she later died. Waist deep. In a waist deep pool it sounds almost impossible listen to our cut 11 abc that day their blood alcohol level was a 0.25 three times the legal limit in their home state of wisconsin austin says he can't remember how many shots they had. Is it at all possible that you just drank too much?

I've thought about it and I mean it is a possibility but how if we're in a group of people do two people at the same exact time just pass out in the pool and no one sees it? The family questioning if tainted alcohol, a toxic mix of cheap ingredients, could be partially to blame. Other families have since come forward, recalling how they suddenly blacked out after a few drinks during visits to resorts in Mexico. Mexican officials say they've seized 1.4 million gallons of tainted alcohol from Mexican businesses, including resorts, clubs, bars, warehouses, and manufacturers in the past seven years and what i want to point out again bill connor is with me this is abby's father people may think oh this is

some cheap hotel some flop house some motel you know buying booze out of the back of some guy's car. No, this is a five star resort that Abby and Austin were at. And Austin really hit the nail on the head. You know, you can make the victims try to look bad by saying, oh, they were just drunk and got in the water. That's not what happened because they had other injuries as well. They're sitting at the bar, then they have the alcohol. And the next thing you know, she's face down in the pool and he wakes up in an ambulance. No memory at all. What were their other injuries, Bill? Well, I don't, Austin, all we know is he possibly caught the side of the pool when he fell in. So we don't know. We haven't – nope, they don't have any footage.

They don't have any security videos. They don't have anything. We don't know. And so luckily he just came away with a head injury. And again, thank God that somebody saw. Supposedly, the guy that found him was an employee. But thank God that somebody saw both of them and was able to get at least one of the kids out of the pool before anything else happened. Unfortunately, again, Abby didn't make it. And it's just, it just boggles my mind that you're a five-star resort.

You've got like two or three different pools and those pools are a risk. Like somebody can drown and, but nobody was watching them, nothing on video and nobody was there. I mean, it was like, I don't know. It was unfortunately almost a perfect setup for what just happened. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to go to Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics.

You know, again, I'm a JD, not an MD, but something is wrong with that alcohol they're serving. And it's not just at that hotel, allegedly. It's all over bootleg alcohol. You look at it and it looks like a top shelf brand, but it's not. It's relabeled and repackaged to make it look like, you know, a very expensive bottle of booze. We are talking about a hazard, a real hazard. You have no idea what's happening. And suddenly you're like Abby and Austin. You black out. You have no recollection. Abby died because of this bootleg alcohol, I believe. Austin completely blacked out.

So what could it be, Joe Scott Morgan? You're the forensics expert. Well, you have to take it from this perspective, Nancy. Are we looking at a case where someone has been slipped something in their drink? You know, when you begin to think about things like rehibanol, maybe scopolamine, any of these types of things that are kind of... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He's saying slip something in your drink like GHB, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, which is a date rape drug you pass out. But why would you slip it into multiple people's drink

and you're not trying to get the girl off to rape her like we normally hear about? It's got to be in the alcohol for so many people to be affected in the same way. Yeah, and that's why. What, are you going to take them all back to your room and rape them? No. No, but you have to keep an open eye when it comes to investigations. You have to narrow the field down, don't you, Nancy? So you want to look and see, well, what's the motivation behind it?

How big a target group do you have? Now, when you think about tainted alcohol, when you go to places like Mexico, for instance, they don't have the same standard that we do when they're manufacturing alcohol. I heard you mention. I.E., no standards. Go ahead. I heard you mention... It will not be processed in the same manner. Say, for instance, something like methanol makes it into the alcohol. And this is very, very deadly. Whoa, wait a minute.

What's methanol? Methanol is a form of alcohol. It's a type of alcohol. And generally, you'll see it in what we refer to as denatured alcohols. Let's think about, for instance, I'll give you an example. Okay, you're going to have to dummy down because you're already losing. Jackie has no idea, and I have a very small idea of what you're saying. Are you saying methanol can get into your drink like Abby's drink? Well, it certainly can if you're

making your alcohol with it and in these factories that are essentially substandard. And so the alcohol becomes toxic at that point. And some of these behaviors that you're talking about people exhibiting, this thing where people black out, you have individuals who are going into renal failure, for instance, their liver shut down on them, all these catastrophic events where if you don't get to them at the right time, you can't pull them back from the edge.

And then you combine water with that. Oh, my stars. Wait a minute. I couldn't get it out of you for Pete's sake. I don't have you on cross. I had to look it up. Methanol, a non-drinking type of alcohol, also known as wood alcohol, used to create fuel solvents and antifreeze a colorless liquid volatile flammable unlike ethanol poisonous for human consumption okay that i understand that i get i mean when

you think about moonshine i remember my grandfather on my father's side my mother's side all teetotallers on my dad's side made wine in the bathtub who wants to drink that well other than him that's a benign example but when we're talking about including methanol and what you're drinking and feeding it to guests maybe the hotel didn't know what was in there, but they had to know it was bootleg, I believe. Guys, take a listen to our friend Gio Benitez, ABC's GMA. Other American families are coming forward. I thought I was dying.

Jamie and Rick Valerie stayed at another resort in 2015. The couple telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they both blacked out after a few drinks from the resort's beach bar. I thought I was dying because I couldn't get out of whatever state of mind I was in. You just couldn't wake up. I remember thinking, how are my six kids going to find out, you know, and what's going to happen to them? They say the hotel ignored their complaints. They thought they were drugged.

My hand's broken, and she's just like, oh, no, no, no, that doesn't happen here. We've never had any anything like that go on maureen webster created the website mexico vacation awareness about the potential risks when traveling to these resorts after her 22 year old son nolan's unconscious body was pulled from a waist deep resort pool and he later died she says a nurse tried to help her son but the hotel doctor pulled him away, saying he was just drunk, which Webster denies. I want to go now to our guest joining us, Gary Davidson, international lawyer. All of this is happening across the border,

and it sounds far away when we say another country, but it's just a hop, skip, and a jump away. People go to, for instance, Mexico. They go to Cancun. They go to Green Cayman. And it's a short, it's a quick trip, and you kind of feel when you're in these resorts like you're still in America, but you're not. No, you're not, Nancy. Nancy and the reality is that in Mexico these all-inclusive resorts such as that where Abbie Connor died these are these are all-inclusive resorts cater to North Americans anywhere from 75 to 90 percent of the visitors are from the United

States and Canada at these resorts. And they have certain expectations when they go to a luxury resort, one of which is they don't have to worry about the quality of the services being delivered because of the ratings that are attached to these hotels. And that's the reality on the ground with tourism from the United States and Canada. But the reality on the ground in Mexico is buyer beware. You know, I have worked in this area for a good deal of time. And this is a tragedy.

It's an international tragedy in the sense that it's an embarrassment to the country of Mexico for this to be going on. But it is an industry down there. This the purveying of phony alcohol is an industry down there. And all of the players are knowledgeable about it. All of the players are involved in it from the beginning to the end. And no one can claim ignorance at this point as to what's going on. OK, let me analyze what you just said. Gary Davidson is a renowned international lawyer joining us out of Miami.

Partner Diaz Ruiz, international law firm and alliance. So you're saying from beginning to end, I think in my interpretation, you mean from top to bottom. For instance, you got the bootlegger making, and I don't mean in the back of his car or out in the woods in a shed. I mean like a warehouse factory making bootleg alcohol and then bottling it to make it look like a name brand that you would get here in America in a liquor store. Expensive alcohol. That's what it looks like, but it's not. So then you go to the level of who buys the alcohol for the hotel. Are they on the take paying the full price, but actually getting a cheaper price and pocketing the money?

Who's running the bar? Who do they answer to? A chief steward? Who do they answer to on the budget? Who's looking at the books? Does it go all the way to the top of a five-star resort? Does it go beyond that to the corporate heads? Are they in America? How do you get jurisdiction over these people and bring them to justice? That's what we're talking about we we do we we do we do bring them to justice because this is Iberostar, which is an international hotel conglomerate based out of Spain.

They have offices here in Florida where they handle their reservations and marketing. So with these types of folks, we can bring them into into in the United States. You mentioned five-star resorts again. And keep in mind that there is a tremendous economic incentive in Mexico for the use of what I refer to as phony alcohol. And that is because these are all-inclusive resorts, people are generally not paying anything for their alcoholic beverages. So there's a tremendous financial incentive to cut costs as much as possible. I believe that's what in principle has driven the industry to become so big down there, this phony alcohol industry, because of the nature of all-inclusive resorts.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bill Connor, who's Abby's dad, who created Abby's Ride for Life, you can find him online. When you hear it's all about making another dollar and your daughter is dead, what is your response? Well, I guess what I do

is I think about the people outside of our family and how many people have lost somebody and they've had no recourse. Um, it makes me sad that, um, these people are doing this and it's a part of their livelihood. And so what I,

what I hope to do and with Gary and Raquel and is to, this needs to be put out on the, in the, in a bigger light and it has to be paid attention to it's, it's just been shoved under, under the rug for too many years. And it's just, all I hope for is someday that people, I can't imagine somebody losing their child like we did, and then go home and then have no recourse. You can't find the right lawyer. You can't find the right person to help you with your tragedy. And I mean, if it wasn't for Raquel and Gary, we wouldn't be here. You know, Bill, just hearing you just... It's just sickening. It's just sickening. It is. It is sickening. And Dr. Bethany Marshall, I want to understand the frame of mind.

I'm going to go back to Raquel to give us all of her knowledge that she can. Bethany, for instance, you know how I love taking the children on a Disney cruise. You know why? Because I feel safe. I feel like everything's going to be okay. They're safe. I feel like everything's going to be okay. They're safe. They're having fun. There are staff people everywhere. I've got my eyes on them.

And it feels safe and secure and happy. That's just me. But when people go on vacation, especially with your children, we are kind of lulled into a sense of complacency that we're on vacation and nothing bad is going to happen. And that really, and Bill, Bill and Abby spurred me on to write a whole chapter about travel mishaps and how to avoid them. What happens to us when we go on vacation? Why do we think, oh, nothing bad is going to happen here? Nancy, it's like a suspension of disbelief, meaning like when you watch a movie and there's all these stunts going on, you're going to believe the visual cues rather than dismantling and taking apart, you know, oh, that was a stuntman on that rig. You know,

you're going to want to watch the story rather than the underpinnings. And I think like in Disney World and cruises and all these all-inclusive resorts, they look so good. There are greeters when you come to the front of the hotel. They serve you a nice drink or a cocktail. The people behind the desk call you sir, or in my case, doctor, or miss, or madam. And there's this idea of how could these lovely young people behind the desk or these cute, you know, college students working during the summer, you know, handing you towels by the pool. How could there be such a horrible underpinning to all of this? I went on a cruise once with Good Morning America. It was called Girls Week Out. And they took, I think, 300 women on Norwegian cruise lines. We

had a talk show every morning with Gayle King and Diane Sawyer. And there were all these different restaurants on the boat. So there was the cafeteria and then there was this high-end restaurant and then a Mexican restaurant and a steakhouse. And I realized as I went to restaurant from restaurant to restaurant, they were serving the exact same food. It was chopped up as a hamburger when you went to the cafeteria, and then it was served with a sauce as a steak in the high-end steakhouse. But the visuals of being whether you're in the cafeteria or the high-end steakhouse were supposed to trick you into thinking you were having a better experience. Well, obviously, Bethany, you need to go on a Disney cruise with me because it's nothing like that. I want to figure out how this is happening and why it's happening. And I want to go back to Raquel Rutledge, investigative reporter who really cracked this whole, the whole issue wide open at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And if this reaches even one family, as you head out for summer vacation with your family, it will all be worth it. Everybody on this panel will be happy if one person hears this and heeds

this warning. Raquel, it's not just Abby and Austin. Raquel, take a listen to our Cut 17, Griff Jenkins, Fox News. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, another mysterious death. There were six Americans in the last 12 months that have died. John Corcoran, one of her favorite brothers, the family issuing this statement acknowledging the passing. Quote, John Corcoran passed away at the end of April in the DR from what is believed to be natural causes. He loved and frequently visited the Dominican Republic. The hotel where he was staying is unknown at this point. The State Department also confirming it.

We are in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, here at the U.S. Embassy. We came to talk to them about this string of deaths. They're unable to go on camera because of the ongoing investigation by Dominican officials that the U.S. is assisting, including the FBI. But they wanted to stress that their highest priority is the safety and security of Americans. You darn right. You think it can't happen to you? You know who that victim was? This famous, famous realtor in New York. I've heard her name a million times, Barbara Corcoran.

Her brother mysteriously dies after drinking alcohol at a resort in the Dominican. And to our clip 20, our friends at ABC, listen to this about Layla Cox. Tonight, the State Department monitors yet another investigation of an American tourist who died in the Dominican Republic and whose family is asking questions. Just a day after her 53rd birthday, Layla Cox, a radiologist from New York, died from what officials say was a heart attack. But her son claims she was healthy. It's been a nonstop nightmare just trying to get her body and her remains back trying to get answers. This after at least eight American deaths in the last 12 months at different resorts across

the island. Families all around America asking questions. Nobody can give me a solid answer on how she passed away. Everything is being misdirected and mis-skewed. I get new information every single day. It was just two weeks ago when Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Day, seen here kayaking on the island, were both found dead in a DR resort. Autopsies performed on the island said they died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema. The husband of Miranda Warner says she died after drinking from a mini bar in her room. He and the relatives of Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Day now wait for toxicology results. Officials there saying there is no evidence so far that the deaths are connected

and are urging tourists not to rush to judgment. To Raquel Rutledge, investigative reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, how vast do you believe this is, this phony alcohol business? I think it's much bigger than anybody imagines. And I think it goes on really, I mean, in many places across the world. But because we have so many tourists traveling to Mexico just by the vast numbers, we have more cases that show up there than the rest of the Caribbean or anywhere else that we vacation. But what happens is because of the nature, as Gary mentioned, of the all-inclusives, it's very easily hidden by the idea that you just have college kids getting drunk. Because the truth is, we do have college kids getting drunk. So there's

a lot of things going on at once that make it easy to hide this. There are some cases where perhaps people were specifically drugged with date rate drugs and raped. There are some cases where perhaps people were specifically drugged with date rate drugs and raped. And there are cases where people over drank and got sick that way. So it's easy to sort of lump it all together and just blame it on those things when actually systemically there's something larger going on. And that has been shown by the fact that they've cracked down, even though, as you said, yes, a new bootlegger will has been shown by the fact that they've cracked down, even though, as you said, yes, a new bootlegger will open up. But the fact that they did confiscate a bunch of stuff does tell you that it is, in fact, a problem and they are aware of it. And to Bill Connor,

Abby's dad, you can find him online. Look up Abby's Ride for Life. Bill Connor, as literally millions of people head out with their families on vacation, what's your message, friend? Well, you've got to be careful no matter where you go. You can't be as trusting as we used to be. And I think one of the

big things that comes out of this is I was talking to some of the people in Wisconsin and the government. You know, when we go out of this is I was talking to some of the people in Wisconsin and the government, you know, when we, when we go out of the country or other, other countries and, you know, things like this happen, we don't have like a nine one, one, uh, type, uh, situation to, I mean, when you're in Mexico, you get in trouble, you're in trouble. And, but you know, yeah, your friends know you're down there, but where exactly are you? I think we need to have a system in which that families or individuals that for whatever reason, uh, are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean,

your cell phone, uh, we need some type of, uh, uh, communication that at least it will log where you're at, and obviously your phone number will come up in some type of directory. Can I jump in and just add something? It's Raquel here just talking about the State Department. I think we as Americans do imagine that when we travel, we are safe, that we can call the consulate in whatever country we're visiting, and they will come to our rescue and they will investigate. They don't have investigative authority in most countries. They have contracts with countries.

And so we have this false sense of security that our government is going to protect us here at Fox Nation and SiriusXM that you're joining together to literally save people's lives. With all your investigative work, Raquel, and Bill Connor, your story, you may very well

save a life today. To everyone listening or watching, please be careful as you head out on vacation. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.