Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - SOLVED: GORGEOUS PARALEGAL MOM OF 2 VANISHES: RING DOORBELL LAST PHOTO

Episode Date: January 21, 2023

Chrissy Powell is running late to work. After speaking with her mother and calling the office, Powell can be seen leaving her home through doorbell camera footage.  That is the last time anyone saw the 39-year-old mom of two. Family and friends check travel routes to work, hospitals and jails.  Investigators can't track Powell's phone, however, because she left her phone, and her Apple watch at home.   Three weeks later, Chrissy Powell's car is found in a parking lot of a shopping center. Inside is Powell's body in the passenger seat.  Joining Nancy Grace today:  Jason Campo - Chief Prosecutor, 138th District Court (Cameron County, Texas), 5 years in District Attorney's Office Family Violence Unit, Domestic Violence Task Force   Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, (Atlanta GA) www.angelaarnoldmd.com, Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital   Paul Szych - Former Police Commander (Albuquerque, NM), APD Domestic Violence and Stalking Unit, Author: "StopHimFromKillingThem" on Amazon Kindle, StopHimFromKillingThem.com, Twitter: @WorkplaceThreat   Stephanie Pagones - Crime Reporter, Fox News Digital, Twitter: @steph_pagones  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. A young Texas mom realizes she's late for work, grabs her bag and races out the door, and then disappears. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111.

What happened to Chrissy? She takes off, leaving behind her mom, who helps take care of her child, headed to her job as a paralegal, all dressed for work, and then seemingly vanishes into thin air. You can even see the ring doorbell cam. You see Chrissy rushing out with her bag slung over one shoulder. All of her work with her. But then what happens? The young paralegal and mother of two not even checking on her children. Then her mom realizes Chrissy didn't take her phone, and she left behind her medication.

For three weeks, family and friends desperately search for answers. How did this whole thing start? First of all, take a listen to this. Unknown is just the scariest part. So many scenarios are playing out in the mind of Lauren Liao. And she's not just a friend, she's a sister. Her friend Chrissy Powell, whom she's known all her life, is missing. Liao is speaking on behalf of the family. It's just been really hard to kind of wrap our minds around where she might be, what could have happened.

Liao says this is not in her friend's character to just vanish, calling this disappearance bizarre. Police and the family have even checked the jail and hospitals. We just want you home. You were just hearing our friends at KENS5 and the very best friends speaking out. And there's more. Take a listen to our friends at Liviny DeLaura. Listen. I actually have

the Nextdoor app and I reached out to her mother personally because she did post a thread on there about her daughter Chrissy Powell and this is from her mother. She let me know. Her name is Christina Powell. She left my house in Apple Creek, 1030-ish, Tuesday, July 5th, heading to work driving a black Nissan Rogue. Her office is around I-10 and Vance Jackson. She never showed up to work. Can you imagine so desperate you're reaching out on Facebook, Insta, Twitter, trying to get the word out about your missing girl? You are hearing from the best friend, but the mother, desperate, calls police. It takes them three days before they report Chrissy missing.

Why? First of all, let's get to the facts with me, an all-star panel, to make sense of what we know right now. I'm going to go straight out first to special guest joining me, Stephanie Pagonas, crime reporter with Fox News Digital. Stephanie, thank you for being with us and start at the beginning. Thank you, Nancy. Yes, so as you just mentioned, Chrissy Lee Powell lived with her mother. She woke up that morning. She was running late.

She told her mother. She runs out the door at the time, as you can see in doorbell footage. Her mother says she said, I love you and be careful before she left. But her daughter left behind some of her belongings, namely, according to family and reports, her cell phone, which she left on her bathroom counter. She also left behind medication and family later determined that they believe she left behind her Apple Watch as well. They believe that because when they went to go track down the watch later on after her daughter had not come home, they determined it was actually in the vicinity of the home. Hey, hold on just a second. Stephanie Pagonis joining me from Fox News Digital, special guest today.

I want to go quickly to Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist, joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. You can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Dr. Angie, quick question. Have you ever been on vacation, okay, and you come back and it just happened to us. We took the twins on vacation. We came back. I raced in the kitchen to make the twins breakfast, and for my mom, I turned to my husband and go, did you feed the cat and the dog yet? He goes, oh my goodness, I'm out of my routine. The point is, she had just come off the July 4th break. She had, you know, maybe Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

This is Tuesday morning, July 6th. She's like, oh, dear Lord in heaven, I'm late for work. Very responsible, never late, never misses work. That's important regarding behavioral evidence. She even calls the job to say, I'm on the way. Here I come. I'm late. I'm sorry. Jumps into her Nissan Rogue. I believe it was a 2020. Stephanie, correct me on these facts if I've got any of them wrong and takes off. And mom sees her leave to go to work. 15 minute drive, seven miles, right? I think she forgot her iPhone and her didn't put on her Apple Watch because she was in a rush and she was out of her routine a little bit because of the break. What do you think? I agree with you, but I'll tell you something, Nancy.

One of the first things that came to my mind was that it also sounds like she could have been distracted. She could have been distracted. She could have had something on her mind that none of us know about. Someone could have contacted her. I don't know. But it sounds to me like she also could have been distracted. Okay. Well, number one, is there anybody on this panel that's not distracted?

But I understand what you're saying, something out of the ordinary. But that leads me to another issue. Jason Campo, chief prosecutor of Cameron County, Texas, five years in the DA's office regarding family violence. I mean, I could go on. Renowned lawyer in that jurisdiction. Jason, I'm really upset. Now, this is in San Antonio, and it's in a really low crime neighborhood of San Antonio.

I believe it's Apple Circle or Apple Orchard. Apple what? Apple Creek. Apple Creek. Thank you for the wrong information, Jackie, yet again. Apple Creek. And the reason I'm saying that is because let me just throw out New York City, okay, where I've lived for so long. There's Manhattan, and there's the Upper East Side, there's the Upper West Side where all the rich people live.

Then there are other areas that are high crime. This area, Apple Creek, on a cul-de-sac, I mean, this might as well be Beaver Cleaver. Leave it to Beaver. I'm sure you remember that. There's no crime there. It's not like somebody carjacked her as she's driving out of the driveway. Help me out here.

Throw me a bone, Jason Campo. There's anything that could have happened to her that morning. She only worked 15, 20 minutes away from there. I'm familiar with that area being here in Texas, anyhow going to San Antonio on a regular basis, but there's nothing in that neighborhood that would make you think anything suspicious would happen right there in front of her house. As far as leaving her watch and her phone behind, I think we've all been in that situation where we're running late for work and we're just trying to grab everything that we can and we leave things behind. You know what I thought

of Jason Campo? One time in 10 years, I was late to a calendar call. I was humiliated and mortified. My car started smoking out from under the hood at a red light. I'm like, that's not good. And I managed to get there really slowly. I parked the car on the street and raced in without any of my files. Jason Campo, you know what I'm talking about? This was an arraignment calendar call with 150, 170 defendants, all felony on it, waiting for me. I got in there. The courtroom was totally silent. Everybody was in place. The judge was sitting there. God bless him. He never said a word. And I started court. Oh, I'll never forget it. So that is just in my mind because this woman does not run late. She's a paralegal. You cannot be late

if the lawyer has a court date or something similar, Jason. Normally, we try our best. My paralegal is hardly ever late, but every once in a while, something might come up. You might oversleep, miss an alarm, especially coming off the long weekend. Your schedule is off and your mind is just not back in the place where it needs to be to get back to work on time. And another thing, Paul Zyke, joining me, former police commander in Albuquerque, domestic homicide, stalking, and author, stop him from killing them on Amazon. Paul, another complication,

and I don't want to refer to the children as a complication because they're the joy of her life. But when you have children, a 3-year-old and a 12-year-old, you've got a lot to do before you can get out the door. If one of them says, Mom, my stomach hurts, you've got to deal with that before you can leave. No wonder she left her iPhone. It makes a lot of sense that she would be in a rush

and, you know, I was having kids myself. You know, there's a lot of moving parts. It's almost like a small business. But I will say that when she left that morning she did have her purse on her shoulder she sure did as she exited and that just leads me to believe there could be a little more to the leaving the iphone possibly in the the the i watch behind it's the only trackable means that there would have been, and those were left behind. That's slightly concerning.

I'm also interested in her car. It's a 2020 Nissan Rogue, black in color, and we researched it as soon as I found out that Chrissy's missing. You have to buy the nav system, which is true in practically every car. You know how you buy a package? Do you want Series XM? Do you want this? Do you want that? Do you want carpet or leather? It's part of a package. And I don't know if Stephanie Pagana, she had that nav system. We don't have a cell phone.

We don't have an Apple Watch to track her. I was thinking, does her Nissan have a nav system? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Chrissy, Christina Powell, goes missing from her own home. with Nancy Grace. Chrissy, Christina Powell, goes missing from her own home. According to Ring Doorbell Cam, she's seen rushing off dressed for work or bags slung over her shoulder. Mom gets worried when she realizes Chrissy didn't take her cell phone or her meds. But then the evening passes and Chrissy doesn't call back to check on the children or show up for dinner. What do we know about the morning she raced out of the home?

July 6th, it's 10 34 a.m. We know that because of the ring camera. She leaves. I've watched it 50 times. She's walking out very like, you know, walking down the halls of the courthouse. She's on her way, not dawdling, jumps in the car, and mom sees her leave. Then what happens? So that's correct. So this was actually July 5th, Tuesday, July 5th, around 1035 in the morning. She walks out the door, like you said. Mom sees her driving away. Mom said it seemed as though she was going to work. She said her mother

believed that she was going to work. And not only that, but her mother said she believed her daughter believed she was going to work. But then around noon that day, or I should say more around lunch time, one of her colleagues shows up at Chrissy's home. Her 12-year-old son answers the door and they said, is your mom home? We haven't seen her. Apparently, the co-worker wanted to check in to see if her mother might have, or to see if Chrissy might have fallen back to sleep. The 12-year-old, though, went to check to make sure, and of course, Chrissy was not home. The next day, Chrissy's mother called the police. Hold on, just a sec, just a sec.

You just said something that's very, very critical in my mind. Dr. Angie, the office, the law firm where she worked, realizes it's so unusual for her not to be there. They dispatch a female colleague that goes to Chrissy's home. Is your mom here? It's so unusual. I mean, when have you seen that happen? Not a lot. Never. The office sends somebody to the home.

And I've got to tell you, the relationship between a lawyer and the paralegal is very close. They work hand in glove. I compare it to my investigator, Ernest. We did everything together. We ate lunch together. We ate supper together. We did everything together. We ate lunch together. We ate supper together. We did everything together. We've been at the Georgia Supreme Court and strip clubs together trying to find witnesses and make our cases. So when your paralegal doesn't show up, that's a big

red flag. And it was so unusual. She's so reliable. They actually send somebody to the house. They don't just call the house. They send somebody. You know, Nancy, the other question that I have about this also is, has this ever happened before? Because isn't it odd that she asked, is your mother still asleep? Yeah, nobody would ever think I'd be asleep at 1034 in the morning. What do we know about that, Stephanie? Because if she's never missed being late to work before or skipped out on work totally, you know, I don't see any indication. But I did notice the question was, is your mom asleep? Or did they say, is your mom here? So that's a good question.

So this is coming from Chrissy's family who say that the co-worker came to the house because they thought she might have fallen back to sleep. Interesting. Interesting. Some things might have been lost in translation there. But Chrissy's mother did tell me that it is unusual for her daughter to be late and rushing in the morning. I mean, when you said Stephanie lost in translation, for all I know, the co-worker said, hey, is your mom here? And the little boy said, no, she's at work. But let me make sure she didn't fall back to sleep. I don't know how that got in the mix.

Guys, take a listen to our friend Isis Romero, K-E-N-S-5. Chrissy Powell called the law firm where she works last Tuesday to say she was running late. On that day, Powell was seen on video rushing out of her home, but she never showed up to work. Since then, there has been no sign of the mother of two. Leal even went down the route her friend would have taken to work to see if maybe she crashed, but nothing. Chrissy Powell has wavy shoulder-length hair. She is 5'2". You know, we know the female co-worker came to Chrissy's home around 1 p.m.,

so she probably came right after her lunch break. So, Stephanie Pagonis, when did mom, and I find this interesting that she lives at home with her mother and her children, literally on a cul-de-sac in Apple Creek neighborhood in San Antonio. Jason Campo with me, chief prosecutor out of Cameron County. Jason, you said you're very familiar with the Apple Creek area. Tell me about it. It's a kind of a small community there in the heart of San Antonio in like the bigger city. It feels like you're kind of in a smaller town. It's quiet, trees lining the sides of the roads. It feels like everyday American town that doesn't feel like it's part

of the big city, but is also right there attached to it. I'm very familiar with it. My first cousin lived there forever as a cowhand, okay, running a ranch near San Antonio. Beautiful area. And why I keep saying cul-de-sac, and I say that Paul's like, because you ever jump down the cul-de-sac and you get to the very end and you think, wow, if I lived here, I'd live on that last house on the cul-de-sac. And I say that Paul's like because you ever jump down the cul-de-sac and you get to the very end

and you think, wow, if I lived here, I'd live on that last house on the cul-de-sac? Absolutely. No traffic. Yeah, it's not a cut or a cut-through to get from the shopping center to the grocery store. It's not a cut. There's not a lot of traffic.

You can't cut through a cul-de-sac. You don't have a lot of back and forth traffic there. And here she is at the end of a cul-de-sac in Apple Creek neighborhood, for Pete's sake, where nobody, people could probably leave their doors unlocked, which I do not advise. And that is significant here because there's nobody hiding behind a bush to carjack her at the mailbox. No, and there's no piece of information that would even suggest that. Certainly, right off the bat, the fact that no money is taken from her account, I think the financial aspect of that is taken out even low-level criminals um will you know if they're going to take you a gun point uh you know they're going to take you to the atm they're going to make you take money out they're going to you know they're going to pursue what they want is money you know obviously

to buy drugs um and the second real concerning issue is um the july 3rd text message threats that have been mentioned with her you know stephan Stephanie Pagonis, Paul Zyke, joining us out of Albuquerque, brought up an interesting point that nothing taken out of the ATM, which suggests to him a random carjacker didn't grab her and force her to go to the bank to withdraw money. But it also indicates something else. If you think about it, the flip side of that is if she were just going to walk away from her beloved children that she took care of and loved and lived with, she hasn't withdrawn any money to live off.

What is she going to do? What? Go forage in the forest? That's not happening. So that's a double-edged sword right there. Is there any indication she took any money with her, Stephanie? So far, her mother hasn't said whether she has actually taken money with her. But what her mother has said is that while they have been able to determine no money has been taken from her debit account,

they have had trouble and faced resistance in obtaining information about her debit account. They have had trouble and faced resistance in obtaining information about her credit accounts. They say that when they contacted the powers that be to get that information, they were told that it can't be provided to them because Chrissy is an adult. So that's something that remains to be determined more or less by her family. Chrissy, Christina Powell, goes missing from her own home. According to Ring Doorbell Cam, she's seen rushing off dressed for work, her back slung over her shoulder. Mom gets worried when she realizes Chrissy didn't take her cell phone or her meds.

But then the evening passes and Chrissy doesn't call back to check on the children or show up for dinner. The case seemingly goes cold. You know, Jason Campo, chief prosecutor, joining us out of the Texas jurisdiction. The mother has her cell phone. We know there's been no ATM activity, but that is concerning. And that brings me to the major point that police sat on their thumbs san antonio pd i'm calling you out sat on their thumbs for three days before they reported chrissy as a

missing person what i don't know if they put out a bolo for her before those three days if they were just uh be on the lookout for her. It's not a missing person. You put out a bow on an escapee from the jail, please. That's correct. Sometimes they do that in the first couple of days of a missing person case, too, to just be on the lookout, especially when there's nothing that shows right from the beginning that there's some kind of foul play as they're starting the investigation. So I don't know if maybe that's what they were doing.

And then once that led to nothing, that's when they switched it to a missing person case. But on top of the money not being moved, I think even if she wanted to walk out, she would have at least taken her medicine with her, right? Because that's not going to change. And so I think leaving the medicine that she needed at home too, just says that she was planning on coming back that day after work. I agree. I agree completely. And I want to talk about her two children, but first take a listen to our cut eight, our friends at crimeonline.com.

Family members say they have checked Powell's bank account and there's been no spending activities or withdrawals. Her mother was able to access the account from the phone that was left behind they have been unable to look into her credit card activity however her route to work has also been checked the distance from her home to work is roughly seven miles and takes about 15 minutes to drive powell's friends and family have retraced the possibilities looking for for a possible crash. Local hospitals and the county jail have been covered too, but no sign of Chrissy Powell. This is what I've determined they need to be doing. Number one, get other ring doorbells in off that cul-de-sac. You know, they've all got them leading all the way out of the cul-de-sac, and then red light cams if they exist, parking garage or parking

lot evidence at work. Did she make it that far? Did someone accost her when she got there and take off in her car? Check intersections for evidence, including evidence that her car may have been hit. You know, there is a scam where somebody will run into your car, you get out to check on it, and then they carjack you in the car. That's possible. I would be checking those intersections and the entire route along the way. When I circle back to you, Stephanie Pagona is joining us from Fox Digital. I understand the family retraced her route to work and found nothing, but you need a crime scene analyst going out there, possibly even a reconstruction, an accident reconstructionist to look to see if there is any taillights or broken glass or broken

plastic that they could find from that sort of an attack? Also, was she a moving target? Did someone somehow jump in at a red light, jump in at a stop sign? Also, is there any key card information? Did she try to get into the building but couldn't? Also, is there nav information, navigation information that we could obtain? Also, gas station information, fast food joints along the way. Does she drive through Starbucks to get a coffee? Also, tag grabbers. Tag grabbers. They're those little poles you see on the side of the interstate or the road with a metal horizontal strip,

they're grabbing your tag license. And thank heaven they exist. Those are just a few things that I want to throw out. But to you, Stephanie Pagonis, could you address that, please? Yes, absolutely. And I do want to point out that one of the things I found, I noticed in this case, I should say, in the missing endangered adult flyer that police released, at least the one that they sent to me, they did not even include information regarding the kind of car she was driving. Oh dear Lord in

heaven. You know, I love Andy of Mayberry, but what is this, Barney Fife? What? You've got to put the car in there. I mean, there's a great picture of her standing by the car, but normally they do a mock-up, Stephanie Pagonis, of that make and model that year in that color, as best as they know it, with a big picture of the tag number.

That's a good catch, Stephanie Pagonis. This girl is no dummy. Take a listen to our cut nine, our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Chrissy Powell is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. She graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and works as a paralegal. News reports looking at Powell's social media posts say that Powell is the mother of at least two boys, ages 3 and 12. Powell's longtime friend, Lauren Lael, says she took pride in being a mom. In 2018, Powell posted a photo promoting domestic violence awareness.

But her latest social posts are on a more happy note, posting a puppy update with photos of her two dogs, Oliver and Chevy. So this woman has a psychology degree at University of Texas, San Antonio. She's originally from New Haven, Connecticut, and she's made a real life for herself. It's not like she's out turning tricks and buying crack on the corner. That means a lot, Dr. Angela Arnold. Explain why her lifestyle is significant. It sounds like she's a very responsible person. And of course, we don't know a lot of her background. It seems like we don't know a lot of her background, her different relationships that she's been in. But she

certainly seems very responsible at this point. Because like you said, Nancy, I'm not sure how many people are aware of the kind of job that a paralegal does, but it's a very important job. And you have to be really good at that job for somebody to keep you around because the lawyers depend very heavily on their paralegals. That's my understanding. So she's got two children. She's living with her mother. She's got a new car. She's got a full-time job. She's got a good degree from college. It's not easy to get a psychology degree, okay? So all of these things indicate a stability in her life. Okay, I was waiting for you to make the connection to victimology. Jason Kimbo, what I'm looking for, everything that Angela Arnold said is

true, but it all equals to one thing. Low crime risk. Absolutely. She seems like a low crime risk type of a victim. She is somebody that is reliable. She's somebody that you can count on. The fact that they sent somebody to her home tells me

that she's worked there long enough that they think that she is odd or out of her behavior that she wouldn't come in. We do the same thing here at our office. If we can't get a hold of somebody by nine o'clock, 930 in the morning, and we haven't heard from them, we send an investigator or somebody to their home to check and find out what's going on. Because in order to maintain these jobs, I think you have to be a reliable type of a person. And when you do something like that,

it sends up red flags right away. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace what happened to chrissy she takes off leaving behind her mom who helps take care of her child headed to her job as a paralegal all dressed for work and then seemingly vanishes into thin air. Another thing that's very troubling is this. Take a listen to our cut 10. Our friends at CrimeOnline.com. New information shows that Chrissy Powell and the father of one of her two children argued over text messages.

Powell had left her phone at home the day she disappeared. Her mother, Claudia Mobley, told the son that her daughter had argued with the father of the three-year-old. Mobley says she doesn't know what the pair were arguing about, but she adds that it wasn't unusual. Mobley says that she doesn't think the ex could have hurt her daughter, and he has spoken to the police. When Chrissy Powell didn't show up at work, one of her colleagues went to her apple creek home to check in on her powell's oldest son 12 years old answered the door when asked if his mom was home he replied she's at work in a span of just three hours chrissy powell disappeared claudia mobley says her conversation with her daughter that morning was nothing out of the ordinary they exchanged

morning greetings followed by i'm leaving i'm, and be careful, I love you. Mobley saw her daughter drive away. After the colleague's visit, and when her daughter didn't return home, Mobley reported her daughter missing with the San Antonio Police Department the next day. You know what's interesting about that? Well, so many things. Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist, joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. And you can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Dr. Angie, the dichotomy of it being a normal morning, grabbing your stuff, running out the

door, you're late, saying, bye, love you, be careful. It just brings back to mind the day I learned my fiance had been murdered. I had been in a statistics exam. And I walked out. And inside it was an old building at Mercy University. And it was dark in there in the hallway. And I walked out and it was sunny and bright and beautiful. I thought wow! And started walking

to work. The dichotomy between what feels to be a normal day and then all of a sudden your world blows up. Nobody is ready for this. That mother and those two children are not ready for this. It changes everything. Well, and it knocks them off their guard also.

So first they're in shock about what's happened and they're kind of learning what's happened all along, right? It's not like you go, oh my God, she's been kidnapped. Oh my God, she's run away. No, every day they're wondering in their mind, oh, what in the world happened to her? Why would she do this? So people are trying to gather evidence, but at the same time, there's a level of shock that's going on with the family.

The answer is the car. We now learn Chrissy's vehicle first spotted by security guards in the parking lot of a nearby shopping strip mall, Huebner Oaks Center. They walked past the car over and over. Take a listen to KENS5. According to SAPD, on Saturday evening, a security guard checked on a suspicious vehicle. SAPD says the car had been parked in the same location for about a week. The fact that this car might have been there for up to three weeks and it wasn't, you know, reported until the last week, it's just, it's hard for me to understand leo says the

shopping center is not close to her friend's work unknown is hard but i think trying to put all the pieces together is even more frustrating um was her car there this whole time where if it wasn't where was it and so just pray that we can find out the details. Now we learn what happened to Chrissy. Her body discovered in the passenger seat of her own car, the one she left home in, parked outside the Salt Grass Steakhouse. It's there, not far from home, at the Huebner Oaks Shopping Plaza. Now, a security guard says they've been sitting there for a week. As he got closer, he sensed a foul odor coming from inside. Wait a minute.

He passes a parked car with a woman in the front seat, and it sits there for a week until her body starts to decompose take a listen to k-e-n-s-5 developing at 10 the case of a missing mother now a death investigation three weeks ago chrissy powell was rushing out of her home to get to work but she never made it. Police say Powell's body was found in her car. It was parked at the shopping center at Huebner Oaks. KENS 5 reporter Henry Ramos is live there now. And Henry, do we know how this mother died? This is the news that the family feared,

and now they're left with so many other questions. How long was Powell here, and how did that mother lose her life? For the last three weeks, it's been hell. And it isn't getting any better for Lauren Liao. She just found out her best friend, who was more like a sister, is dead. It's very hard. Just so I'll never see her or talk to her.

San Antonio police say Powell's body was found in her car at the parking lot at Heimner Oak Center. According to SAPD, on Saturday evening, a security guard checked on a suspicious vehicle. Once he got closer, he smelled something foul. He looked inside and saw a body in the front passenger seat and called 911. At first, police sources tell us they didn't know how Chrissy had died, but they knew her body showed no signs of trauma. Then we learn they stated it could be a number of things, carbon monoxide, heat exhaustion, medication. You had to wait for the autopsy report. We now learn the official cause of death for this gorgeous young mom of two, hyperthermia, got too hot in the car that she was sitting in, complicated with ethanol poisoning,

which is from drinking. After days of suffering, Chrissy's mother, Claudia, gets the horrible news her daughter a gorgeous young mom of two paralegal is dead. She had been begging for information that could lead to the whereabouts of her daughter. She ultimately posed she was quote heartbroken by the discovery of Chrissy's body. Well, the case file may be closed, but this family, including her mother and two little children, are left with a life sentence without Chrissy. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Goodbye, friend.