Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom danced while toddler starved to death; Twins go missing, but police don't search

Episode Date: August 8, 2018

A toddler starved to death while mom allegedly spent nights dancing for money in a club. Nancy Grace looks at the case against Devin Moon for the death of 2-year-old Reygan. Nancy's expert panel includes lawyer and psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, private investigator Vincent Hill, forensics expert Karen Smith, lawyer Ashley Willcott, & reporter John Lemley. Grace also looks at the cold case of twin sisters Dannette and Jeannette Millbrooks, who disappeared from their Georgia neighborhood in 1990. Their sister shares her frustration with the lack of investigation . There's renewed hope as podcasters Laurah Norton and Brooke Hargrove, hosts of the "Fall Line" podcast & "UnResolved" host Michael Whelan take up the case. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph. A young mom lets her two-year-old little girl starve to death. How? How can that happen? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Devin Moon's little girl, Reagan, weighed just 14 pounds when she was found. A two-year-old little girl, just 14 pounds. I mean, I'm trying to take that in because of course my daughter Lucy was two pounds when she was born, but John David was five pounds at birth, over five pounds. This girl is two years old and she only weighs 14 pounds. Joining me right now, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of

Investigation Discoveries hit series, Fatal Vows, which kicks off a new season August 11, Saturday night, Investigation Discovery, 10 p.m. Eastern. Vincent Hill, cop-turned-private investigator. Karen Smith, forensics expert. Ashley Wilcott, judge, lawyer, founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. And joining me right now, investigative journalist with CrimeOnWatch.com, and joining me right now, investigative journalist with CrimeOnline.com, John Limley. John, let's just start at the beginning. What, nobody noticed that a two-year-old child only weighed 14 pounds? Oh, somebody did notice. In fact, about a year before the child's death, the grandmother, Deborah Walton Moon, had been

spending some time with little Reagan, who was then around two years old. And she just noticed that she was skin and bones. And she thought maybe there was something wrong with the child. So she decided to take the child in to see a doctor. The doctor said that for her age, and at this time, she actually weighed 20 pounds. This is before the final weight loss. And he said she really, for her age, should weigh a lot more than this. And then about six months later, she took the child back again. And he said, ma'am, this child weighs the very same 20 pounds that she weighed when you brought her back in April. Let me ask you a quick question. You know how much I hate to interrupt John Limley, but so he, the doctor sees the child is, I know this is not a correct verb. Everybody go ahead

and laugh. And he sees a child as malnutritioned. What does he do about it, John Limley? We really don't know that the doctor did anything, to be perfectly honest. No. N-O. Wait a minute. Right there. I'm not saying the doctor did this. Obviously, the mother did it.

All right. Ashley Wilcott, ChildCrimeWatch.com. Are you watching? You see this? What's with the doctor? Isn't it the law that doctors, school teachers, child caregivers must report child abuse? And doesn't that include starving your baby? Yeah, something's way amiss. So yes, he was a mandatory reporter in Georgia. He should have reported it, but take it a second step, Nancy. In 2014, the law was changed to provide in Georgia that a doctor can actually request or remove a child from a parent's custody if they believe that that child is being abused or neglected. So he could have even gone a step

further and refused to allow the mother to pick up the child. I would have snatched that child right out of that home. I mean, tell me again, John Limley, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What now? So the baby goes, Reagan goes to the doctor. She's taken by her grandmother, not mommy. And the doctor sees that she's underweight. Then she goes back and the child has not gained any weight whatsoever, or had the child lost weight? At this point, she was the exact same 20 pounds she had been six months earlier. This is before the final weight loss that led to her passing. Okay, take a listen to what the grandmother, Deborah Walton Moon, tells us.

Now, keep in mind, as you're listening, this child, this little baby, is dead. Mommy would leave the baby alone for 10 to 12 hours a night. 10 to 12 hours alone. Listen. I'm just so heartbroken because it didn't have to happen this way. We took her to Eggleston because she was, she was just skin and bone. And the doctor, the hospital said, yes, she weighs the same 20 pounds that she weighed when you brought her here in April. I'm just listening to that dead sound in the grandmother's voice to Dr.

Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of I.D.'s Fatal Vows. Brian, do you hear that? The voice is just like, just defeat, like she's gotten kicked in the stomach. Absolutely, and it's heartbreaking to think about what I think is the likely reality that this baby could have been saved had the doctor recognized and reported the malnutrition as child abuse at the time. I think one thing that is important for people to understand, though, is that when people bring children to us as health care professionals, even if, as in this case, a grandmother brings a child because they have concerns about what's going on in the child's house, they don't necessarily always present it to us that way. And so before I say, you know, the doctor should have reported this as a case of child abuse. I would like to know on that initial visit, how did the grandmother present it to the doctor? Did she present it as, I think my daughter

is neglecting this child? Or did she present it as, I think there's something wrong with the child and we're doing everything we can, but the child's not gaining any weight. In other words, leading the doctor to believe that maybe there's some kind of an illness or something. That's something I would just want to know. How was it presented to the doctor? Well, I think it would make sense to me, to you, Karen Smith, forensics expert, we would be able to determine that based on the doctor's prognosis. What does he say? What are his or her directions? Did he send the child for testing did he suspect some other ailment or did he come right out and say the child is not being fed enough and if so why was the baby put back in the home i mean karen smith forensically to look at

the home i would look to see if there was baby food there, if there was formula, if there was diapers, if the child's being taken care of. What sort of things would you look for? That is the first thing, Nancy. We go through the kitchen was the first place that I would go. I would open every cabinet. I would open the refrigerator. And inevitably, I would find one box of cereal, maybe some old milk, some old juice, and maybe some old milk, some old juice, and, you know, maybe some canned goods. And from the

sound of it, there probably wouldn't even be that in this household. And I'm wondering, you know, the family members obviously had concern for this child. Did they ever visit this woman's home or apartment where she lived? Did they ever look? And I'm not blaming them by any stretch of the imagination. This was the mother's fault. But But you know, to me as concerned family members, I would want to know that information. And certainly it would go to the abuse and now the murder charges. Let's take you from the top again, John Limley, I don't understand how weeks pass and the baby starves. Because I have these two photos that I carry with me in my backpack every time I travel. And they are little photos they gave me in the hospital of Lucy and John David.

And they're attached to these little buttons. And John David looks thin, but Lucy, as they're saying, she looks like she's skin and bones when she's first born at two pounds. And when you look at it, you know, I don't have to be an MD. For once, I can just get by as a JD. You know instinctively that something is very, very wrong. You can tell that this child is near death. Ashley, it's like when you see a snake slithering toward you. You know, instinctively, it's bad.

Or a tiger or a lion sneaking up on you. Or when somebody has a funny color to their face like they're sick you know instinctively something is very wrong you could not possibly and I'm basing this on seeing Lucy my child so thin nobody had to tell me that I had to devote my life to making her live, keeping her alive. Nobody had to tell me that. I knew that just by looking at her. So, of course, the doctor knew. Nancy, this is why so many instances of child abuse and death are preventable,

because not only would the doctor have known, I believe that there are other people who saw this child who would have known by looking at the child. And unfortunately, I see this as a judge over and over again in juvenile court. People do not report or take action for various and different reasons. They may be afraid. They may not want to get involved. But here's what I'm here to say. People have got to start getting involved, not be afraid and say something or do something because you do know when you see a child like that that something is amiss. I'm looking at this mom in a photo. I want to snatch that wig right off of her head. I am looking at Devin Moon, the mom who would leave her child allegedly for 10 to 12 hours a day, a night alone. Take a listen

to what else the grandmother, Deborah Walton Moon, tells us. She said to me, you called defects on me didn't you? I said I did. I said only because I care. Cared about you, cared about the baby. That's the only reason. She said, I hate you. I hate you. She said, you've lost a daughter and a granddaughter. And I have. I have. She didn't mean it. That's just killing me.

You know, I'm not so worried about losing the mom. I'm worried about the baby. It never had a chance. You know, to Vincent Hill, cop turned PI. There you hear it. That defects was called. I mean, what else can the grandmother do besides kidnap the baby and make a run for it? No, Nancy, I think the grandmother did exactly what she was supposed to do.

Unfortunately, I think she waited just a little too late because she had been around that baby since the baby's birth. So I think if she would have done that a little faster, I think we could have saved that girl. But I'm not faulting the grandmother here. It's the mother's fault. But I just think that call should have come just a little faster. Actually, Nancy, the fourth call to DFAX from the grandmother was the one that finally began the investigation, as mentioned, though it was too late. What did you just say the fourth yes call to defects you know what i feel like taking a fire hydrant and just opening it up and and letting it run through defects like you're flushing rats out of the bottom of the basement at the fourth call to defects the baby laid there and starved and defects sat on their thumb yet again till the

baby dies ashley wilcott i mean you're in the system you're the juvenile judge how many times do we have to scream out defects before they all get fired or put in jail listen you know what system fails system fails system fail i say this in cases like this where someone does act appropriately, does make the report, and you hear there are four reports. I don't know the circumstances around this particular case and how DFACS did or didn't respond, but I am going to say it's a prime example of where this system has failed a child yet again. Right now we know a mother has been charged when her taut girl dies, weighing just 14 pounds. I'm getting conflicting reports as to whether she was three or four.

Back to you, John Lindley. Tell me the rest of the story. She was actually just one month shy of her third birthday, and at the time of her death, her weight was only 14 pounds. So what happens then? The cops get there. Tell me how the whole thing unfolds. Well, investigators say that Devin Moon tells them that her daughter had a medical condition that didn't allow her to gain weight. And Deborah Moon says that Devin came to her the night of her daughter's death after she talked with police for the first time. An autopsy, of course, as we now know, later determined that Reagan's death was due to neglect and malnutrition. And that's when it began to emerge that this child was completely alone

at home for hours on end while the mother was at work. Okay, joining me also in addition to John Limley, Ashley Wilcott, Karen Smith, Vincent Hill, Dr. Brian Russell from Fatal Vows. Joining me from LA is Alan Duke. Alan Duke, what more do we know about the mom and their living conditions? Well, the mother was leaving this child overnight. It wasn't during the day. It was at nighttime. I guess she thought the baby would just sleep and be fine or cry alone and not be heard. And she was going off, allegedly, to dance in one of the local Atlanta clubs. By the way, this tears me up. This grandmother. I'm going to pick up my grandkids this morning and hug them.

You know, hold on a minute, Alan Duke. We've got a dead baby. me up this this grandmother i'm going to pick up my grandkids this morning and hug them you know hold on a minute alan duke we've got a dead baby and all you want to talk about is no well i think it i didn't say she's straight i said she danced we don't know what she well what we all know that means she's a stripper alan i i never go i never i never go to those clubs i have no idea what goes behind behind those doors but you know another thing let me just point this out. Ashley Wilcott, typically I applaud working moms, but whenever I would need a witness and I couldn't find a witness and I couldn't find anybody that knew anything, first I'd go to the jail and start interviewing people.

Then I'd go to the strip clubs. Between the two of those, somebody would know something very often. My problem at the strip clubs is, you know, so many of the strippers were so high on coke that I never knew if I was getting the true story and I never knew what would happen if I put them on the stand. You know, it was just a wild card. All I can think about, I don't care where she worked. I don't care where she worked I don't care what she did I just keep thinking about the baby because this didn't happen overnight it takes weeks for somebody to starve to death you can only go minutes without oxygen hours a couple of days without water it takes weeks to starve to death and that baby suffered Ashley, Ashley. Yeah, this is a horrible case. So A,

of course, somebody at the strip club or wherever she was working and dancing absolutely knew something. Yeah, Alan's the only one that seems to know. Go ahead. And then B, this is the issue I have. I don't care where mothers work, need to work, have to work, choose to work. There's no correlation between doing that and then starving your two-year-old to death. See, there's no way that the only thing this mother did to this child was starve the child to death. I promise there are other things she did and didn't do to neglect and abuse this child. And it's a horrific way to die if you talk to doctors about how it feels, or they don't know how it feels.

But all the consequences of being starved to death, it's a horrific, horrific type of murder. You know what, Ashley? I just want you to go about your business today with a thought in your head that all those strippers are stripping to put themselves through college. You know what? This is what I can tell you. I agree with you to the point that I don't care where she went or what she did, but leaving your child alone, this is a gruesome and horrible death what the baby went through. Horrible. When you shoot somebody, they bleed out and typically

die quickly. You know, a car crash, bam, That child, this little baby, was allowed to lay there and suffer alone. Alone. And you know what? Mommy needs to be put in jail for life. Listen. The investigator said that they had made arrangements that a nutritionalist would go by once a week and that D-Fax would make sure Devin was doing what she's supposed to do for rake. I beg them not to let her go. I beg them, please, just let her go with me. Please let her go with me. What happened to two beautiful young twin girls, Danette and Jeanette Millbrook?

It was a Sunday. The twins left where they lived to just walk up the street to their godfather's home on Forest Street. The sisters make the walk to Forest Street so their godfather could give them $20 to ride the city bus to and from Lucy C. Laney High School. That's what we know. Where are they now? With me, Laura Norton, Fall Line Podcast investigator and host. Brooke Hargrove, Fall Line Podcast investigator and host, Michael Whelan, Unresolved podcast host, and with me, special guest, Shantae Sturgis. Shantae is the sister of the twin girls, Danette and Jeanette Milbrook.

You know, their case was largely ignored at the time they go missing and has since become a closed file, unsolved, cold. I don't see it that way. First to you, Shante Sturgis. Ma'am, thank you so much for being with us. Do you remember the day your twin sisters disappeared? Yes, ma'am, I do. What happened? We went to church that morning, and I think we left church, I'd say, around by maybe 12, 30, and we made a home. Before we leave the church, the pastor at the church gave my mom money because she didn't have any money to feed us for that day. So he gave her money, and she sent them to Church's Chicken. I say around about one o'clock. They came home and they told, well, Jeanette told my mom a guy was following them in a white van. We don't know for sure if he was actually following them or not, but that's what they was thinking.

He was following them. So that's what they told my mom. They were 15 at the time. I was 12 when they went missing. Let me interject right here, Ms. Sturgis. At 15 years old, I may not have noticed a white van driving by, but I think I would have noticed if every time I looked up, it was right there. With me is Shante Sturgis, the sister of missing Jeanette and Danette. So they tell the mom they've noticed a white van following them on the way home from Church's Chicken. Then what happened?

Nothing really happened after they talked about it. You know, everybody just sat down and ate. And later on in the afternoon, I think it was like around about maybe 2.30, they was talking to my mom about getting to school that next day, which would have been that Monday. And she was like, she didn't have any money for them to catch the Monday. And she was like, she didn't have any money for them to catch the bus. And she didn't want them to walk, you know, to school from where we live that because the school that they live, that was probably like, I say about six miles or so from where we moved to, because we just had moved from the area they went missing from. She asked them to call my goddad on the phone and asked him could he give

them some money for them to be able to catch the bus back and forth for that week. They left the house. I stayed around about maybe three. So they made it to his house. From his house, they went to a cousin of ours house. They asked her to walk home, you know, with them. I'm not sure why her mom told her no. I guess, you know, they left and that's when they made it to my older sister's house. When they got to her house, they asked her, could she walk on home with them? At this point, we're not sure why they asked her. We're not sure why they asked my cousin, but we just found out recently, my sister's just now telling us is the reason why she think they asked her. She said because she think they probably was scared to

walk back home by themselves for some odd reason. I'm not sure why, because they're not here to tell their side of the story. So after they left my sister's house, my mom had called her and asked her had she seen them because you know it was already I say about 4, 3 to 5 o'clock and they still hadn't made it back home. You know it don't take that long to get to where they had to go and to get back. I mean they wasn't supposed to go to my sister house that day. They were supposed to go to my goddad house and come back but for some reason they went to her house anyway. She told my mom when they for some reason they went to her house anyway she told my mom

when they left there that they went walking towards the pumping shop store once they went walking towards the pumping shop store you know that's the reason why my mom stopped at that store because after they hadn't got home you know at the specific time and then she done called around asking people had they seen them heard from them she got worried so me and her went walking to go try to see if we could meet them or meet up with them somewhere or see them somewhere you know and by that time we made it down to the pump shop store and it's a lady by the name of Gloria who she knew us and my mom asked her had she seen them come in the store and she told them yeah they came in there. They brought candy, soda, and something to drink, you know, some chips.

And she said she looked away, you know, to ring up another customer. By the time she looked up, they was gone. So she said she don't know if they got in a car with somebody. So wait, we do know that they made it that far. Hold on. With me is a sister of the missing twins, Danette and Jeanette. And now the Richmond County Sheriff, the elected Sheriff Richard Roundtree, says this is a, quote, terrible injustice. And he has actually reopened the case of the missing

twin girls, Danette and Jeanette Milbrooks. Now, the very mysterious disappearance of Danette and Jeanette now reopened, sapped, unresolved for so long. These two just walking home from a convenience store in Augusta, Georgia. But unbeknownst to the family, investigators had not even looked at the case for over two decades. Why? According to the elected chair Richard Roundtree, the original case files are missing and not long after the two girls disappear, the girls were taken off the national database for missing children. Why? Why did that happen to Laura Norton Fall Line podcast? Thank you for being with us, Laura. But what happened? It took us quite a while to kind of unpack that. But what we have figured

out is the case was closed on hearsay. And that hearsay changes based on who is describing it. The original investigator. I don't know what you're saying. Hold on. The case was closed on hearsay. It was allegedly closed on hearsay. According to the original. I don't even know what that means. A case closed on hearsay. What does that even mean? Here's what the original investigator said. We actually did speak to him on the phone once. So we got some information there, according to him. He says that the twins were found and he based that judgment on, he alleges that a juvenile investigator or a juvenile

probation officer rather saw the twins. Now that is not anywhere in the case file. There's no support for that. He told the family the case was closed because the twins had turned 17 and they could no longer be made to go home. As we know, that's not the case. He closed it in 1991 in April, seven days after their 17th birthday. Then two years later. I completely smell a rat. You don't close a missing person, much less a double missing person, of young girls just because they reach majority. That's not even true, Laura.

Yep. That's why we were so shocked to hear Shante tell us that. Then when we finally got some information from NCMEC, when we spoke with them, he then called in and closed the case there in 1993. Why? Well, you don't know. And we can't find out. But our guess is that because that is the year he changed jobs, and he may have been going through his files and closing things out here and there. But that, of course, was a major blow to the case. Because for, you know, 20 odd years, nothing was checked against them. No DNA on file, nothing.

I cannot even imagine. Back to Shante Sturgis, the sister of the missing girls. I can't imagine the suffering your mom went through finding out the case was closed because somebody claimed they saw the twins. Is that true? Did somebody see them, Shante? No, nobody has never seen them um we actually don't even know if that is true about the probation officer being in contact with them the whole time because the same probation officer also told my mom that he didn't understand why

richmond county wouldn't go out here to look for. And he was going to try to help her because he didn't understand how two girls go missing and nobody does anything. Well, who was also joining me in addition to Laura Norton from Fall Line is Brooke Hargrove from Fall Line's highly popular podcast and Michael Whelan from Unresolved's highly popular podcast. Brooke, who is this person that says he saw the twins? What we found out, Nancy, about this individual, there were several cases that he was in charge of investigating

over the years of missing persons, but specifically missing children. He seemed to tire of these cases because he said that they would often find these children that were runaways, return them to their family only to have them run away again. So in his mind, these children were in that category. He actually referred to them as just two runaways in our call with him. He reported that they had been found when that was not true. We believe he was trying to clear the case out because he didn't want to investigate them. He seemed to just look at them as two kids from the projects, you know, just got into trouble and were runaways. Okay, that is breaking my heart

because these girls, two sisters, didn't run away and stay away from their mother and their sister and their family all these years. That's not true. That is not true. If you have any information regarding Danette and Jeanette, please call the Richmond County Sheriff 706-821-1060. Repeat 706-821-1060. Michael Whelan, Unresolved podcast host. This is just one of those stories that I first discovered it. There wasn't really any major news coverage of the case, but I moved to Augusta about a year and a half ago, and I remember when I discovered the story was kind of like an article

that was covering Augusta's missing unsolved cases, basically everything dating back to the 1970s. And hidden right in the middle of it is the story of two twins that disappeared on the exact same day in 1990. To me, that just always stood out as something that, you know, sets this case apart from everything else I've researched. When you talk about missing people, it's normally a big deal. People make a big stink about it. And when two or more people go missing, it's, you know, like the Springfield Three is one of the biggest mysteries in America. And that's gotten tons of press coverage. It's gotten news articles. It's

gotten news clippings. And this just had nothing. It's just heartbreaking. Nothing. As the mother sat by with her heart breaking every single day. And I want them to know I love my girls, my family, and I'm hoping that we do get justice where there wasn't none at all. For those of you just joining us, we are investigating the sudden and mysterious disappearance of two young girls from Augusta, Georgia, Danette and Jeanette Milbrook. For some reason, within the police department, the case was closed.

The file disappeared shortly after their disappearance. It wasn't just lost. The two girls were then actively removed from the National Database of Missing Children. So that's not just accidentally losing the file, Laura Norton. It's not just saying, okay, it's a cold case. This is actively going to the National Database and removing them. It's no longer an act of omission. It's a decision to remove them from the databank, Laura. I don't understand it. It was a purposeful choice. And it was very strange because we have mentioned a probation

officer, but I want to be clear, the twins were not on probation. They were not in trouble. The probation officer lived in their neighborhood. And that's why their mother went to him for some help. And this is the man that was blamed after he'd already died for this problem by the original investigator. The twins were homebodies. They were sweet girls. And Danette actually was on seizure medication for grandma's seizures. Certainly not the kind of runaway that you might imagine. Back to Shanta Sturgis, the sister of Jeanette and Danette, the missing twin girls. We left off with the story. You guys went to church that morning. Your mom was broke. The pastor gave her money for everybody to go out for fried chicken lunch. They go to Church's Chicken. They make it to a

convenience store. That has been verified. And then at that point, Shante, what happens? At that point, my mom, we went back home. My mom called Richmond County and they told her that in order for her to report them missing that she had to wait 24 hours. So she waited the 24 hours. They still hadn't came back. She still was calling around asking people had they seen them. Nobody still had seen them at that point. That next week after is when they sent the investigator out. The investigator came out. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. A whole week passes? Yes, ma'am. Oh, Brooke Hargrove. Oh, man, that's bad. A whole week passes? Yes, ma'am. This is one in a string of outrageous actions against this family, frankly, by the local law enforcement. To Michael Whelan, host of Unresolved podcast, why a week? I honestly wish I could tell you that. That is what I've covered my fair share of missing

persons cases. But this is the first time where there's been the 24 hour waiting period to report two children missing and then days, if not a week, to come out and take statements from the family members. This is so unlike anything even for, you know, the 1990s. At some point when you start looking at it and hearing all this, it almost seems as if the investigators know more than they're saying because you've got them first saying, oh, you can't report them for 24 hours. Then the detective assigned to it goes, they're just runaways. Then he claims a witness spots them and actively closes the file. The file gets, quote, lost. Then someone goes to the next level of having them removed from the national database of missing people now we learn an investigator wasn't even sent out for a week michael i mean

is there any explanation for that i wish i could tell you unfortunately all the like you said the original case documents are gone so we can't even you know other than what the family has said since then there's no record of you know when they went out and when they started to actually investigate anything or even what they investigated. If I could clarify. Go ahead, dear. Nancy, this is Brooke. I'd like to clarify. After the 24-hour waiting period, they did send a beat cop.

He took down a few preliminary notes. Almost all of them were incorrect. He incorrectly spelled their name. He took down their birth date wrong, the wrong street they were last seen on, etc. After that, the family didn't hear anything from the police department for a week, and after that week is when they sent out an investigator who came out and said he would be in charge of the case. So a big cop comes, gets the wrong information, but still an investigator did not come for a solid week. I've been investigating the twins, and this is what I've learned. They were well-known and loved in their small community there in Augusta.

They loved music. They loved TV. They were happy. They loved school. They got great grades. They were never known to be troublemakers. They had no history of ever running away. There was no motive at the time for them to run away. It was a normal Sunday. They had no history of misbehavior. There was one instance because one of them was being bullied at a bus stop that they got into an argument. One time. And that is consistent with what Shante, the sister, has told us, no trouble, good grades, the works.

The mother, Mary Louise Sturgis, has been very involved trying to find her twins. Now understand this, Danette and Jeanette had eight siblings. And the mom has her hands full as she's trying to find two teen missing girls. Apparently getting very little help from the local police. And then the file gets lost and investigators drop the case without the mom knowing. It just seems to get worse and worse and worse. Shantae Sturgis, their sister, is with us now. Shantae, tell me about how their disappearance affected your mother.

It has affected her tremendously because, I mean, you know how some people get around and they're like her age. She's 63 now. They went missing when she was in her 30s. So she don't get around like most people do. It has took a toll on her pretty much. It did something to her, so sometimes she was giving up hope, you know. She kept trying to call down there to the police department to get somebody to help, and they would always tell her no. It was just before their birthday, the twins headed out to visit their family friend. Their little sister, then 12, Shante, begged to go with them. But being the

older sisters, they said no. Just like my sister and brother would tell me, we've pieced together the fact that they go to a local pump and shop gas station. It's also a convenience store, and it's there at the intersection of 12th Street and MLK Boulevard in Augusta. They go inside. They get chips and drinks. The store clerk positively identifies them being there and that they were fine. It was about 4 30 in the afternoon on a Sunday. The clerk got busy at the cash register. She saw the girls leave. She caught a glimpse of a vehicle outside, not enough to give a description or to say whether the twins got into the vehicle. But we know this, they disappeared. They disappeared and have never been seen again. To Laura Norton, Fall Line podcast host, since the case has been reopened, what kind of searches

are going on? None. So what's the point of reopening it? There wasn't. Well, that's what I wondered when I found stumbled across the case. I truly believe this is not the only case that had this sort of treatment in Augusta. I want to be clear about that. Many missing persons cases of minors were mishandled during that period. Enclosed prematurely, hearsay was involved, nothing has happened. An investigator was assigned in 2013 briefly, took DNA from Shantae and her mother and their sister, who was fully related to the twins in terms of them having both the same mother

and father best DNA sample, and began some preliminary research. But then she left the department. And at the time that we began looking into the case, no one was assigned to it and no further action had been taken. Are you suggesting that it was only reopened because of pressure from your podcast, Fall Line? It was reopened in 2013, and that was when the new sheriff was elected, Richard Roundtree. And Shantae directly contacted the sheriff's office at that point and asked them to do so. He was reaching out to the community, asking what he could do.

But between 2013 and June of 2017, when we began our podcast, nothing further had happened. Agree or disagree, Michael, with unresolved? Yeah, Richmond County so far has really done nothing to inspire any confidence that the investigation is going somewhere, in my opinion. I've tried reaching out to them. I've called. I've sent emails. I've even tried filing a Freedom of Information Act not too long ago, and I haven't even heard back on that. So as far as I know, there is no movement on the case, and I'm not even sure if anyone is openly investigating the case as of this moment. They are not. There was someone assigned, but they've recently been moved to another department.

We know because we do regularly contact them with leads and information that we develop, and there's no one currently assigned to the case. Back to Shante Sturgis, the sister of Danette and Jeanette. Shante, that day that you realized your sisters were gone, what do you remember about that day and that night as the hours began to pass and they didn't come home? My mom paced it up and down and we just kept asking. I kept, you know, I was up with her. My other sister was up with her. She just kept talking about it, you know, and finally everybody went to sleep and we got up to go to school that next morning and we got home from school. We asked them if they came back home and she was like, no, she haven't heard from them.

I said, well, have you heard from the police? Did they say anything? And she was like, no. That next week, when they did send the cop out there, they got the information about the clothes they had on that day, where they were going, and whoever they had contact with that day. Did they have boyfriends and things of that nature? He would ask her questions like that,

but we didn't really get no investigation out of anything, even when the investigator did come out. Only thing he did was go to the school and talk to the people at the school that they attended, which was Lusolana High School. He talked to some of the kids there. I think they said he talked to the principal there, and the principal's spokesman told him that he seen the girl standing on the corner, and when he called their name, they just took off running, but that was never confirmed. This is what the investigator said. But he never went to the convenience store to talk to Ms. Gloria. He never went and talked to my sister. He never talked to my cousin them

that day. Everybody they had contact with them the day they went missing, he never talked to. Only people he talked to was the people at the school that claimed that they saw them standing on the corner or they claimed he said they seen them in the bottom, which is a project that's called Underwood Homes. They were supposed to be down there. Then they said that they were supposed to have been at somebody's house, a project called Delta Manor, where my mom, she stays there now. They had a couple of friends that did stay down there, but they really didn't go to many places, you know. And whenever we did go anywhere, all of us went together. Just that particular day, everybody just had came home from church.

You know, my mom was getting everybody ready for school the next day. She wanted to feed everybody before they went to bed. And she sent them out. And it ain't like, you know, people might say, okay, why would you let two 15-year-olds walk? But I used to walk, and I was 12 years old, and we used to walk going to friends' houses or whatever back then. Also, we didn't think that nothing was going to happen.

Well, I did too, Shante, all over the neighborhood, out in the middle, really, of nowhere. Here's a question to Brooke Hargrove. Brooke, apparently it's believed that the girls got enough money to take a bus to a high school. Do we know if they got on the bus? Did that happen? No, ma'am. So they were collecting some money from their godfather to use to take the bus to the high school each day the following week. The last time they were seen was at the convenience store, which would have been around 4 or 5 p.m. They were

never seen again. Any reports that they were seen came directly from the original investigator, who it has been shown that he has fabricated some details in the past in order to be able to close the case. We don't believe they made it very far past the convenience store, and they certainly never got on a bus and went to school again. My question is, how do two teen girls just disappear at the same time? I mean, it would be very difficult to control two teen girls that don't want to get in your vehicle or don't want to go with you from the convenience store to their home, to my understanding, is less than a mile. And at that time, it would have still been daylight

outside. So how in broad daylight do two girls on a very busy street get dragged into a car by a random kidnapper? It says to me it had to be somebody that they knew. What about that, Laura Norton? I think that's the most likely scenario. The only other and less likely option, there was a serial rapist operating in the neighborhood at the time who was you mean washington yes ma'am and take george uh sorry joseph patrick washington and he was taking people off the street busy times a day with a gun but once again as you say two people so the most likely scenario is it would be someone that they knew um they did not take rides from strangers they were were not hitchhikers. Now with Washington, would this have been his MO compared to victims, time of day, a Sunday,

and weren't the victims found with Washington as opposed to Jeanette? Jeanette never found. Well, it kind of was across the board. They would have been in the victim pool in a large and broad way. they were a little younger um the time of day was a little later but some of washington's victims were found where he left them but a few people were found fairly far away but you're right as far as we know they were found question back to shantae sturges the sister of the missing girls danette and jeanette millbrooks i know that you finally took it over from your mother because she was just exhausted with trying to get the police to act in this case and that you call them, call them,

call them incessantly until a sheriff finally agrees to look into it. I only discovered the case had been closed for years. When you would call them, Shante, when you would call police, what would they say to you? Crazy stuff. That wasn't true. I called down there a couple of times. They told me my mom's kids had got taken away from them.

I needed to call the effects office to find out information from them. Well, that wasn't true because you were there with your mother and all the eight brothers and sisters. They were not taken away. And there have been no claims of child protective services in that home. I can't believe one of them even said that.

Okay. What else? After I called, I did what they said. I called D-Fax. D-Fax told me to call a foster home. They probably was adopted out or something. They gave me a phone number to call some adoption agency that was in Atlanta, Georgia. I called that adoption agency and they told me, well, I don't know why would they tell you to call us because we wouldn't be able to give you

any information anyway if they did. But they told me because I was the sister, the only way they would give me information is I filled out paperwork and they was going to mail the paperwork to me, which they did, but I never filled it out or sent it back because I already knew what was stated wasn't true. Wait, let me understand what you're saying. Are you telling me Shantae, police told you to call

an adoption agency like your teen sisters were adopted that day? The police told me to call D-Fact. They said, because from their recollection, but they saying the case file was closed now. They didn't have him in the file, but from whatever he was saying, the guy that I talked to, I don't know his name, but he told me from what he was saying that my mom's kids had got taken away. Maybe you called the defect office

because they probably, by by now they probably been adopted out because they had been so many years from 1990 to the time that I started looking for them. Oh, oh, oh, that's killing me. That's killing me. Brooke Hargrove, she's trying to find her sisters and police say call defects. They all know that children are in the home. The other eight children are in the home. They know the children have not been removed from the home. And then they suggest, D-Fax suggests, the girls were adopted. That's ridiculous.

Absolutely. Even if children have been removed from the home and attempted to be adopted out, the biological mother has to sign paperwork terminating her parental rights, which, of course, Shante's mother never did. It's totally absurd. I don't understand why they would even say that. So, Shante, you know DFACS, Department of Family and Children's Services, and we have confirmed this, was never called to the home.

The children were not put up for adoption. And the fact that they would say this is another black eye to the police. Why would they have said that instead of talking to you about the investigation, Shante? Exactly. That's what I asked them. I said, and then furthermore, why didn't y'all give her a chance to get her kids back if y'all felt that any of the kids was in danger? Why y'all left the other kids and just took two kids out of the home? I said, that doesn't make any sense, sir. Well, it's all a big lie because we know the current sheriff has reopened a missing person possible homicide case. So that's

totally a lie. That brings me to my question, Laura Norton, why the lie? Well, I think that this is a long culture of apathy and incompetence. And when we speak to the adoption case, there was someone in the system with a similar last name. There was not enough effort put into checking that to look at the first name and see, of course, it's not the twins. And I really think in this case, although it seems horrible and unbelievable, it has simply been a long string of incompetence, apathy, and not caring about young, poor girls of color in Augusta, Georgia. Shantae questioned, do you believe your sisters are alive?

At this point, I'm not sure. I want to believe they are. I always had hope all these years that they are. But right now, I'm not sure. Years and years, it's like almost 30 years now. And we still haven't found anything. And I think had the Sheriff's Department did something back then in 1990, we probably wouldn't be where we're at. We probably know something by now. But I never give up. I said, I'll keep on going and keep going until

we can at least find something out because somebody out there knows something. They just disappeared and nobody knows anything. And I got contacted on Facebook by Brooke and Laura. And from that point on, they've been doing the investigation. It hasn't been the police department. So I think if they contacted me, we'd still be back in 1990, which I still feel like we are because they still ain't doing anything. Brooke Hargrove, one of the producers of Fall Line Podcast, along with Laura Norton, with us now, Michael Whelan, host of the Unresolved podcast.

Brooke Hargrove, I understand an investigator agreed to meet with you after you uncovered new leads. But on the condition, you don't discuss the case. And you were not allowed to ask any questions. The family could come, but only if they asked no questions. Is that true? That's true. And unfortunately, when we did show up for the meeting, it was myself and Laura and Shantae and her mother, Ms. Louise. Once we showed up, we were told there were too many people, that only two people would be allowed to attend the meeting.

So I had to go in and make the evidence presentation. Shantae went in because she's been heading the case since age 19. And Miss Louise, who had never had an in-person meeting about her children's case since 1990 ever, she's never had one ever, was made to sit in the lobby and wait while this meeting took place. I just don't even know what to say to that, Brooke, how horrible it is. Brooke, you, on behalf of Fall Line Podcast, have developed new leads. What are they? We have several, Nancy. We started first looking into the Joseph Patrick Washington connection because his victim profile is very similar to Jeanette and Danette. There have also been some Jane Doe's

recovered in the Aiken, South Carolina area, which is very close geographically to Augusta. They're kind of like sister cities. One of them, Shante saw a reconstruction on the news in the, I believe, late 90s. And she thought to herself, my goodness, that person looks so much like Jeanette. She called Richmond County. She said, I just saw a Jane Doe reconstruction on the news, looks like my sister. They said, oh, no, that wasn't the twins. Although they could never explain to her how they came to that conclusion, because they didn't have any materials for testing until 2013 when they reopened the case. We were able to contact the coroner in Aiken County, South Carolina, and he is currently running a comparison between that Jane Doe, who is still

unclaimed, and Jeanette. We're waiting on results. To Michael Whelan, what do you make of it? At the moment, it's just really hard to overlook, you know, how many leads there were, how many suspects that police should have investigated, but they spent 23 years not following up on any of them. There were so many different, you know, serial offenders that lived in the surrounding area, and none of them were really investigated. Right now, I'm looking at some cases from around the vicinity of where the twins lived. And it's like you said, it's just hard not to get frustrated with how much is out there to be investigated and police did none of it. To Laura Norton, what is your fall line podcast tip line?

Our tip line is that 404-590-2975. And Michael Whelan with the Unresolved podcast. Michael, do you have a tip line? What is it? Yes, I do. It is 831-200-3550. The FBI needs to be involved in this disappearance and the investigation of what went wrong within the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. Shante Sturgis. The FBI was contacted by my mom and they told her they couldn't do anything to help her because the original investigator said they had been found.

Well, you know what? Since that's not true, maybe they can reconsider. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.