Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - The mystery of Molly Bish: A mother never gives up searching for answers

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

Magi Bish is still searching for answers about what happened to her daughter 17 years ago. Molly Bush was 16 when she disappeared from her life guard job at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. Her murdered remains were found on a mountainside 3 years later. No one has ever been arrested in Molly’s kidnapping and murder. Nancy Grace revisits the evidence with Molly’s mom and sister in this Crime Stories episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. With every year, our bodies change, right? Less energy, more fatigue. I learned a major cause is a decrease in circulation. And if I start giving my body what it needs, I can get back healthy circulation and feel great. And that is why I tried Super Beats. Super Beats promotes the body's natural ability to produce healthy circulation

and increased energy. Only Super Beats is made from beets grown to exacting standards and concentrated into superfood crystals. Give your body what it needs. Call 800-516-0683 or go to nancysbeats.com. With the first order, get an extra 30 days of Super Beats free, plus indicator strips to see how Super Beats is working for you, plus free shipping. Call 800-516-0683 or go to nancysbeats.com today.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. To the man who took Molly Bish, does June 27, 2000 mean anything to you? It's been 17 years since Molly Bish vanished. Her remains were found on a central Massachusetts mountainside three years later. The case remains unsolved. It's an open investigation. We're constantly getting tips and leads on it. Initially, Molly's disappearance wasn't thought to be an abduction. There is ranged from Molly running away to being somewhere with her friends. I don't feel like she would run away and she was gone hiding out. I didn't have that feeling. There's pieces out there that we just need to fit together

that's going to allow us to move forward with the investigation. Does June 27 mean anything to you? Does June 27, 2000 mean anything to you? It does to me. That is the 17th year that we have all been looking for. Molly Bish. June 27, 2000. Every time

June 27 rolls around, I think about Molly Bish. And, almost every day in between. Why? What happened to a beautiful, beautiful young girl, Molly Bish? Joining me right now is a special guest, Maggie Bish and her daughter, Heather.

I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Maggie, I can't tell you what it means to me to get to speak to you again and to meet your beautiful daughter, Heather. Just, you know, it's funny. It's my honor to be with you. It's funny how you never think, I would never, when I was little, I would never have thought, wow, some of the greatest people

I'll ever meet in my life are going to be crime victims. You know, you don't think about that when you're planning your future. True. There's some kind of a bond between violent crime victims that I can't really explain it, but I'll start Maggie with telling you, I don't know if you know how many prayers

go up every day about you and Molly and your family. I'll just start with that. And then to you, it was Molly's eighth day at a brand-new job as a lifeguard. She was just 16. It was a hot summer day. Do you remember that day, Maggie? Oh, how I do. Again, we had just gotten out of school. I'm a school teacher, and we had cleaned your room. And I actually was a special ed teacher, and I had some IEP, some work to the day before, and it was kind of a little unsettling. We had seen a car that day parked in the parking lot, and there was only one white vehicle, and Molly got out, and she was very excited and said, Bye, Mom. I love you. See you later.

She had to get some supplies ready and go down to the beach. It was the first week of swimming lessons for the town kids. So we live in a very small community, only 4000 folks, one traffic light, beautiful town in the central Massachusetts. Well, Molly went off and I see this vehicle and this man and he ends up kind of staring at me and I get kind of unnerved and I said, I can't leave Molly here. What is this guy doing here? So I head to the beach and meet her and we sit and it is a very lovely little place. And it's kind of, again, it's down a main street, but it's also kind of isolated. And we sit, we talk, and I really, we haven't talked a whole lot about danger, but we talked about, you know, I said, I notice there's more men around maybe.

And she said, oh, it's just fishermen, Mom, not concerned at all. I talk about how nice the beach is. And then I said, I got to get back and do my reports. So I go to the car and this individual is still there I am so kind of awestruck like what is he doing he's just sitting there smoking a cigarette there's nothing to view it's woods and I get into my car and I'm looking I had not even taken my purse before so when I in, I'm pretending I'm getting something. And prior to that, I'm walking and he stares at me.

And I have to tell you, it's like a mother bear. You just want to protect your child. You just say, what are you doing here? Go to work. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. And that just got me so unnerved. So when I went to the car to get my purse, he pulled out so fast that I didn't even think. I just got relieved. It was one of those immediate gut feelings. I just was uncomfortable. And that white car still to this day, we've never found, we never found the individual who was

driving it. Our case remains unsolved. And anyway, the next day happened, took Molly to work the same, talked to her that night about being safe, even offered her a little coubaton stick, which my husband had as a probation officer. She said, Mom, I don't need it. It's just fishermen. Don't worry. And that next morning after I drove her to work, there wasn't a single car in the parking lot. She said, goodbye, Mom, I love you. Our routine kind of farewell. And that was the last time I ever heard my Molly.

And I would have never, ever in my wildest dreams or sadnesses imagined that three hours later I would get a phone call from the assistant chief of police that molly had not been at the pond all morning her things were left on the beach an open first aid kit the police radio her shoes and her backpack all remained on the beach and nobody knew where she was. At that point, this was an unusual event for us. Molly was very conscientious, very kind of nervous. It's a new job.

They told me she probably went with friends. It didn't make sense. She left her shoes, she left her backpack, but she left the job at 10 o'clock when she just was starting. It just didn't make sense at all. So I called my daughter, Heather, and Heather said she would meet me at the beach. And I immediately got in my car, went to the beach, and I went. I'm still in disbelief, and I'm calling her and screaming her name on the beach, Molly, Molly, and people were coming.

There was no Molly, and people had said that she hadn't been there. There had been no lifeguard all day, and I knew I dropped her off. I'd seen her things, so I was very, very frightened. For me, the first gut reaction was something is really wrong here. I started to go toward the police station. There comes Heather, our new little granddaughter, and we go into the police station, and I say something's very wrong. I need this chief, the assistant chief, because he called me and my husband. And because he was a probation in the local area at the local court,

I said, call him. That's how upset I was already. I knew in my heart that this was not how Molly operated. And they told us to go in a little room. It was two young officers, and they figured out that, oh, she just went with friends. They weren't concerned. And that's when Heather and I, you know. that that they told you to go in the room and i i took off looking for molly's friends

okay well then i went from there yeah and then i went also to look for her other friend in the next town that was a good friend and she was accounted for and then I got my son returned to we returned to the beach and when we got to the beach we were aghast I mean people in a small town heard there's Molly was not at the beach it was on the scanners and there were people starting to come and Molly's friend's father was the head of the fire department. And nobody, I think this was the hard part, Nancy, nobody knew. Everybody felt something, but they didn't know what to do. And I really didn't see the police as I got there. It was the firemen had actually entered the pond thinking Molly drowned swimming.

And that was very frightful. They had those special dogs to determine if there was a body. I mean, it was like you were now really in a surreal, unbelievable place that you've never been. And it's heartbreaking because you don't know where your daughter is. Nobody knows where she is. And you're just watching this show progress. And it was scary and sad. And you worry what she's thinking.

You don't know what. Now that you have children, I know you can imagine how hard, what would your child do? And, you know, each child has their own personality. Molly was funny and silly, but she was also very shy. And if someone would hurt her, but she would also trust somebody because she was a good kid. And she had no reason not to, you know, if they dressed like a police officer or they dressed in some, you know, authoritative, she would go.

And that's how I know that we looked. There was no, nobody had Molly and we had everybody that she was, you know, friends with accounted for. And that was really our beginning of our horrible nightmare. I want to pause and thank our partner making today's Sirius XM 132 program possible. And here's my question. What's your story in 2018? The holiday rush is over. You have no excuse. Sorry to be so blunt. LegalZoom can help you make this a great year before all distractions take hold. Make this the year you get serious about launching, running your own business. Knowing your family's future is squared away with the right estate plan. LegalZoom has been helping people like us take care of dreams and business for over 16 years. Good news, they're not a law firm. But they have the resources to put you on the right path, including advice from a nationwide network of independent lawyers. And it's all at your

fingertips. Whether you want to take your business to the next level, start your business, or take control of your family's future with an estate plan, LegalZoom plugs right into your life so you can take care of things that matter the most. Get off to a strong start in 2018 at LegalZoom.com today. Special savings if you enter code Nancy, N-A-N-C-Y in the promo box at checkout. LegalZoom, where life meets legal. LegalZoom, thank you not only for being our partner today, but for what you are doing for Americans all across the country every day. Everyone with me is what I consider to be a friend. With me is Maggie Bish.

This is Molly Bish's mother. Molly goes missing one warm June morning, 2000. The search still on for Molly's killer. And when I hear you talking, I can't help it. It takes me straight back to when my fiance was murdered, and there's that feeling. I felt like a wild animal. This is the only way I can describe it.

I felt like a wild animal that couldn't form words. I wanted to break the window with my bare hands and just howl. I didn't even know words to say. And I'm thinking, I remember one night right before I was supposed to go on the air, my longtime makeup artist, Shazon, was with me. She got a call. She had her hands in my hair at the moment and put it on speaker, and her son was missing. Arlington was missing.

And everything just went berserk. And, I mean, I've covered all these cases. I know what to do. I know who to call. But when it happens to you, it's a whole other can of worms. In her story, he was found. Oh, thank goodness. Good.

And I'm just thinking about you at that pond. And they're looking in the water. And you see the first aid kit, and you see her shoes, and everything's there. Everything's right. Everything is present. But, Molly, when did you find out what happened to Molly? Well, you know, this was a whole new world for us, Nancy.

Nobody knows how to do it and i have to honestly say to any listeners that there's no right way or wrong way we have learned what is best practices for law enforcement because we live in a small town this happens often in large cities people need a plan there was no plan that day that's what was most frightening i don't i think everybody wanted to help but nobody knew what to do and so like we had the firemen in there but they had actually uh uh contaminated this crime scene because nobody really knew it was a crime they had come in with the dogs people were there i mean it was just confusing. By the end of that night, the state police came in and they overtook the case. But even in fairness, the state police do a lot of work with drugs.

And they really didn't have a plan at first either. I think it was just, you know, find out. We found out about Molly. We didn't believe there's a chance at all that she had just left with friends. We didn't think she would not call us. I mean, when we had to drive home, we would decide ourselves, how do you go home if you don't know if your child has food or is safe or is being harmed or held?

I mean, I think in all truth, that was one of the most horrible, exhausting, frightening days. And then what we learned, again, police helped us. You know, they were trying to do what they could do. And to me, I think we did get involved finally. We were on America's Most Wanted. And then the press came in. Our police had asked us not to do any. We did not talk.

We were isolated for two weeks. All I could imagine is parents begging people to help them with their kids, and I didn't understand that. And then once I started to open up and speak to the press and to the TV people, we had to get Molly's story out there. And that really became our burden. If we didn't do it, nobody would really know. I think people would just thought, oh, sure, she came home.

But we did 500 days. We did 1,000th day. We did her birthday. We had over 300 people that first year at her birthday. We started a foundation. We didn't know what to do, but even in our small town, they had said that this person could be from in the area. Well, that frightened more people. And so I was on the local school committee, so we went forward and we said we'd like to present a safety program so we got very involved with trying to

help children we learned right away that they needed a good picture and they needed a book a safety book an id so we created our own that we thought was small enough that dad could carry it even and had everything in it your picture fingerprints. We wanted to find that child before they were, you know, we didn't want a DNA kit to find them past. We wanted to find them beforehand. So that became our tool to help others. We developed the Molly Bish Foundation, and we went all over Massachusetts. We actually, I believe it was far beyond 35,000 that we had done in our time.

But we are always looking for Molly and trying to put on events. And I started the first Missing Children's Day in Massachusetts in our Boston State House, getting the families together, trying to connect with one another because there is, like you said, a unique bond, an unusual sadness, fear, you know, the unknown. So that became one important day that we would come together, but it also gave people, it made the legislators aware of our plight, what laws weren't being held that were good or bad, and we could change that. We actually helped with Senator Kennedy to bring in the Amber Alert here to Massachusetts. We worked on the child safety law with many good people that I know you know. And anyway, we got involved with the National Center.

They helped work on our case. But it took three long years before we knew anything. And they were hard. And it was really tough for our whole family. And families suffer. You know, we used to have fragile Fridays if we made it another week. You know, how are we doing, checking in with each other? It was tough.

We didn't have small children. My children, my son was just in his first year of college, and Heather just had her first child. So we were a little older, which in some ways is easier, but still very difficult because every age has its own difficult acceptance of losing a sibling. You're so right about that. And there are so many phases you go through.

One, when you suffer a loss. My father passed away about a year and a half ago. Sorry. And I'm still a mess. He and I were, I guess, soulmates. I mean, I love my mother mother i'm extremely close to her i've always talked to her more i guess and i did my dad but he and i were just two peas in a pod and you go through it hurts me too much to remember what i went through when Keith was murdered, but the thing that phases you go through when you lose somebody, but I guess, I don't know what, I'll have to ask you because I knew almost immediately who murdered Keith and what had happened to him. But it was 2003, almost to the day.

It was June 9, 2003, before you knew what had happened to Molly. Do you remember that day? Well, you know, it is, oh, I can't tell you. It's awful. My, we actually, we had did the Missing Children's Day, May, at the end of May. It is. Oh, I can tell you. It's awful. Actually, we had did the Missing Children's Day at the end of May, and we had come home, and John had gotten a call, my husband, and he said we have to get home. And usually I'm saying thank you to all the people. We have two busloads of people that we take with us to Boston, and so I'm very grateful.

We put flowers. We put Forget-Me-Nots. You don't go out there. We do a big, beautiful program. So we were coming home with all this stuff, and John was saying, Hurry up, get home. We're going, we're going. And he was pushing me.

I was getting a little agitated. Well, what happened is one of the news reporters came to our house, and they had the pictures because somebody did not believe. Well well how it went is there was a hunter that had spotted something that he he wasn't familiar with but he mentioned it to this person who used to be a police officer and so they went and they were kind of on their own doing this and then i guess this this police officer didn't believe that the, you know, he was afraid the police would take credit for his find, I guess. And so he wanted someone to take pictures. He called in the press and the press did it. And so guess what?

What they do? They show it to us before the police even called us and told us anything. So I'm in my driveway and you know how in the press car, like the vans, they have all the TVs? Oh, no. There's Molly's. Yeah. This is how Molly's.

I've seen her bathing suit in the leaves, the old leaves. And John didn't remember. You know, my husband, he, you know, it's so funny. I actually went out with her to buy this special bathing suit because they didn't have the colored ones the the recreational person was going to order them so I knew exactly what it was it was a blue one but it was a special one and I knew right then and there my knees almost crumbled and I ran up the stairs and to our home and I mean there was three days that I could say, and when you were talking earlier, you do, it's like a primal cry. It's from the depths of your soul. I knew, and I didn't want it. You know, you want to find Molly, but it wasn't the way we had hoped, you know, and my, I mean,

I cried and it just, um, that was one of the worst, I have to say, days. And I howled, and every piece of me was spent. When you say it was a special swimsuit, and the moment you saw it, you knew what it was. You know, what's what's interesting, Maggie, is I remember that the morning that Keith left, he had been visiting our home. My family, my mom and dad were home. My sister was already off in grad school at Wharton. My brother was moved out and working. This was the three of us. And he had visited for the weekend, and he left that morning to go back to Athens where he lived and worked. And I just, I guess I just suppressed this or blocked it,

but it's only been in the last few years that I remembered that at the murder trial I testified and I remember coming down the witness stand it was a really tall one and where you go up and there's a landing then you turn left toward the witness standing up some more steps and I remember coming down those steps and I walked past the district attorney's table and I looked down and I saw a denim shirt covered in blood and I immediately knew that that was Keith's shirt that he had been wearing that day. And Maggie, this has only come back to me, I mean, it's been years later. And it came back with such clarity. But I remember just stopping and looking at that shirt, and I knew exactly what it was.

What was it that you knew beyond a doubt that was Molly's swimsuit? No, I really don't know to analyze it. I think it's just that I was the mother. I picked it out. It was the color. And I think there was a little bit, she was going to the training for the lifeguards, and she needed a certain kind of, you know, a tank suit type. So I knew that material, and it was blue.

But it had some, you know, it had to be a little bit cool. So it had some mixed colorings in the middle of different things. And I seen it. I knew. I just knew. And knew and you know again they had to send the police in they had to send the search party and they had and i mean that began a really another whole experience because the first day they came home with one bone you know or yeah it was a shin bone and but it could possibly be someone in Molly's age range.

The next day they had rib bones, and then by the third day they had her skull. I mean, what mother sees, you know, we actually did say goodbye to Molly and kissed her goodbye, but we only had 24 bones that were found. But because of that, we were able to get her dental records, you know, so that they had to certainly make sure it was Molly. And I think that was the only way we were able to, they were able to say the police, but I knew, you know, and it was just confirmed. The moment you saw the swimsuit, you knew. The moment everything happened, you knew it was bad. Heather Bish is Molly's sister.

Heather, what do you recall of this time? Well, I think, you know, again, it was still that it couldn't be possible that Molly was abducted. I thought in the beginning that it had to be a mistake. Sort of the same thing, that this couldn't be right. There's got to be an explanation for this. And then as the moments and time kept passing and Molly didn't pop out of anywhere, that's when we realized her peril. She was in a great deal of peril so you know we became increasingly anxious i think when even when we found the

bathing suit for me i you know i think it just kind of just hold on to hope like i don't know maybe maybe he stripped her and threw the bathing suit in the woods or or something you just want want to believe something as terrible as her loss isn't going to be what the final end of the story is. And for me, I can remember the day that the state police actually came up to the house on June 9th when they did find Lisco, because people were coming over to my mom's house every day. And I been living in in western mass at the time and driving out every morning with my three-year-old and it was about a 45-minute drive and for a three-year-old that has to go potty all the time that's like two potty stops you know so never never an easy easy

trip but we were doing that daily to to um ensure that we were we were all together and I remember we had just gotten there on June 9th, and there were people in the driveway, and mom was talking, and in the distance I could see the district attorney and the head of our investigation walking up the driveway, and they were wearing suits. And it was, you know, the beginning of June, and I was thinking, geez, it's a real, really hot day to be wearing a full suit like that. And then I, it just, I just knew, I thought, I just knew like, this is it. This is, this is the final. They're going to tell us now. You know, what's interesting that you're saying, and I hate

to keep projecting, but what you're saying is like striking so many chords in me. You know. You know. Because I recall that day I had come out of a statistics exam. I was still in college and was walking to my job. I worked all the way at the other end of Mercer University campus in the library, in the back of the library processing books and I stopped midway of course this was before cell phones to use the phone the pay phone in the student union to call the library and say my test went over like 20 minutes I'm almost there just hold on like there was some emergency processing books okay so anyway and when i did the head librarian

miriam said you need to call keith's sister right now i knew right then that he was dead i knew just like you just when you saw those guys in the suits, you knew. And I just really wanted to run away, to be honest with you. I didn't even want to hear what they were going to say. I just thought if I could run, I would be able to outrun the truth or the reality. It just felt like everything's going to change now our whole life everything and i wasn't sure if we'd ever feel this again that you your mind tries to get around it or or or bend with it because i remember i would wake up in the mornings and i would think that Keith was still alive and this had been some elaborate ruse

and I would dream, I would dream, and this is so, I don't know exactly what this means because I never saw a shrink about it. Probably should. I would dream that Keith wanted to get out of the engagement and so he had faked the whole thing because, you know, this close to us getting married he had decided that in my dream and i'd wake up and i go oh thank god he's alive and it's just

you know and then i'd wait wait a minute i would have i would have dreams that molly was still alive but she would be you know she would have gone off with her friends to Florida or she went on a, you know, she went on a trip and she was just back and she was going to see her old boyfriend. And I'd be, I remember in the dreams feeling like, no, you can't go on. I'm desperately want to be with you and hang out with you. And generally that's not how 20-olds feel about their teenage sisters. So I've always sort of thought about those dreams later now in life and thought, geez, you know, maybe Molly was trying to tell me in some capacity that she was okay, you know, and it was just me feeling this desperate feeling. Listen to this. To the man who took Molly Bish, does June 27, 2000 mean anything to you? I remember it as a warm summer day.

We left home, we picked up the police radio, and then we arrived at the pond. The sand truck was there. We watched, mesmerized like little children, as the sand fell gently to the ground. Molly and Mom, for the last time. Molly said, goodbye, I love you, and ran off. It was her eighth day on her new job as a lifeguard. That was the last time I saw or heard from my Molly. I have held those words wrapped around my heart

to sustain it from breaking into a million broken pieces. It's been 17 years since Molly Bish vanished. Her remains were found on a central Massachusetts mountainside three years later. The case remains unsolved. It's an open investigation. We're constantly getting tips and leads on it. We're moving forward and going through the beginning to now. we started talking to some of the original investigators just bring them in as a group and we also have a district attorney assigned to the case so they came in and we just started going over their observations their notes

their feelings you know things like that maggie bish could never imagine a moment that she'd never see her daughter molly ever again molly could very shy, and she could be very silly. There was two sides of her. In her comfort zone, she was silly like Lucy. I mean, goofy silly. We were just beginning our adult relationship when Molly disappeared, so I often wonder what that would have been like to have known her as an adult. I want to pause and thank our partners that are making today's Serious Sex M132 program possible.

It's super beats. It's all about energy. Wouldn't it be great to have all the energy you want all day long? Well, that is not going to happen, okay? I know that. You know I get up between 5 o'clock and 6 o'clock every morning. I still can't get everything done. Fatigue gets in the way. happen. Okay, I know that. You know I get up between 5 o'clock and 6 o'clock every morning. I still can't get everything done. Fatigue gets in the way, even sometimes for everyday activities,

and you know it's true. It gets worse every year. I see my 10-year-olds running around, and it takes all I can do to keep up with them, and this is why. When you're 20, your body has a natural ability to maintain healthy circulation. But that ability decreases by half by the time you're 40. You feel tired. I know I do. So what can you do to increase a youthful, natural circulation and fight fatigue? Here's your answer. Drink Super Beats. Super Beats actually promotes the body's own natural ability to produce healthier circulation

for increased energy and stamina all day. Super Beats, made from beets grown to exacting standards and then concentrated into super food crystals. If you want to increase your own natural energy, call 800-516-0683 or go to nancysbeets.com. With your first order, listen to to this you get an extra 30 days of super beats free plus these indicator strips to show how super beats is working for you and free shipping call 800-516-0683 or go to nancy's beats.com today nancybeats.com today. nancysbeats.com today.

Super Beats, thank you for being our partner today on Sirius XM 132. With me is Maggie Bish. This is Molly Bish's mother. Molly goes missing one warm June morning, 2000. The search still on for Molly's killer. And I'm trying to imagine your view. You know, you pull up and you at a distance see all these guys in suits in your driveway. And I'm trying to imagine what Maggie what that what that was when press a van

pulls up and they run up what what did they have a picture of her swimsuit Maggie well you know what I guess this like I said this person didn't believe it so they had six TVs going on there were six TVs in that van and there was every vantage point that they could take the picture. I mean, it truly was a small piece of bathing suit that was peeking out from underneath twigs and old leaves and it was just taking in different views. It didn't take me but seconds to gather that information

in a second and I ran up the stairs because I knew I closed my door in my room and I began to howl I was on my knees and you know John was down there talking and I just like could this be I mean because again we had just missed children's day for the

folks in Massachusetts it was a beautiful day. We were coming home feeling at least we're doing something positive. And, you know, we always will miss Molly. But to see this was, it was too close to knowing that this was not good again. Tell me something, Maggie. We are now hearing rumblings that DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid tests, are stirring little seeds of hope. What do you know about a potential DNA test? You want to talk, Heather?

Yeah, sure. I have been sort of headlining the investigative efforts for my family, but about a year ago they took, and every so often they'll take pieces of evidence and submit them for DNA testing, and they'll try to compare it when they have a, a few years ago they had a really, I don't know, quote, unquote, good person of interest down in Florida, and they had taken some DNA from there and submitted it, and then nothing was sort of a hit. So I guess our hope sort of lies in the science and technology that sort of helping investigators solve these older cases.

And so last year they took 24 pieces of evidence um to retest and so they don't exactly tell us what it what they took or where it came from but we know it was 24 pieces of evidence um and they resubmitted them for further testing you know as they like i said the technology increases and the touch DNA becomes available, they will continuously keep resubmitting for particularly these older cases because they've been able to, you know, solve cases based on this DNA. I mean, even right now we have a case in central mouse. It's not an older case, but they've been using DNA to sort of point the direction. Let me ask you, so the seeds of hope are that DNA samples have been taken and they're being reexamined with new techniques that were not possible at that time.

I mean, that is a huge big deal because i recall trying rape cases murder cases you name it with no dna you know what i'd have i'd have blood a blood sample and i could say well the suspect is a positive and the perpetrator was a positive that was it or maybe a hair. And I could say the rapist or the killer is a Caucasian male with X hair. I mean, that was it. There was no nuclear mitochondrial touch, nothing. So this is a major development that they are doing this. I want to ask you about this deep ground sonar test that's being done. What do we know about that? Yeah.

So, you know, over the years we've, you know, because law enforcement is, you know, they sort of work on their own and, you know, they don't necessarily report to victim families. That can become very frustrating for victim families um and because we you know felt very strongly that we wanted this to be solved we wanted our community to feel safe we wanted our friends kids to feel safe you know we've all grown up here we're you know in some capacity family to each other what do you think they hope to find, Heather, with the ground-penetrating radar? And it's on a private property in an undisclosed location in Worcester County. What could that mean? Was that where the swimsuit was found, Maggie, in Worcester County?

No. No. It was where we received a, so I'm just trying to put the backstory here. We, some friends in the area, a person who has a PhD in criminology, and I sort of formed this sort of investigative team. It kind of came off through our fundraisers

and things like that. We developed this little team. This little team developed these campaigns. So one year we did billboards. Another year we did ads. Each time we do one, we do a tip campaign. And so we had a Just One Piece campaign because the state police had always said we're one piece away from solving this crime. During our Just One Piece campaign, we received a number of tips on a particular person who stayed at this particular campground in Worcester County.

This next year, we had another campaign and we called it Just One Car because we were trying to identify this white car. Was it tied to this person that we got? Okay, so the location, the location is my question. So let me understand. The location is my question. So let me understand. The location is the campground where a potential suspect stayed. Okay, got it. And what do you think, Maggie, they are looking for with the deep ground search? Well, I understand that it has the potential to be able to recognize metal or rock or anything, and especially if there was something of some size. You know, burying a car is quite big. You know, how deep could they go? So this radar has a way to analyze the depths and how significant that, you know, if it's metal or something that, you know, I guess that's what they do.

They do some kind of a computation and it determines. So from what we understand, there were three places that they felt some interest. Now, you know, again, they have to hand that information over to the state police, and the state police have to, you know, decide if it's worth digging or going into. Now, again, it could be, it's like this whole story, again, you always get hopeful, but you have to kind of protect yourself from disappointment. You've got to, you know, you don't, you want it, but you're scared. The emotional battle within is unbelievable because you've been doing this so long now that you want it, but we don't get to choose any of it.

Now, isn't it true, Maggie, that other girls similar in age to Molly also were kidnapped. Yes, we have a girl that was 10 years old, a little bit younger, in Sturbridge, which is a 20-minute distance from our home, and she was taken before Molly, maybe seven years. There had been some cases, maybe even a little older, that were in northern Massachusetts, near the New York border. And there was a gentleman that they thought was a serial killer up there that might have been involved. I mean, you know, it's so sad. I mean, you hear

these horrible cases, but you don't understand them. And certainly I wasn't one that, you know, really understood any of this. You know, now I know all these families who have struggled and who keep struggling, you know, to find their loved ones and how they deal with it. And it is very, very hard. So, you know, again, there possibly could be serial killer out there and that's what worried us because this to me honestly nancy how does a normal person do something this horrific and that is so it's like when you throw the rock into the river and the ripples it has caused so much pain to molly's friends our family out into the community the fear that he's somewhere, you know, and

that's what's always scared me. It's really captivating me about this one guy, and he has simply been investigated. He has not been indicted. He has not been charged. I'm talking about Rodney Stranger. Rodney Stranger had been living in Southbridge at the time Molly goes missing. He relocated abruptly to Summerfield, Florida, a few months after Molly was kidnapped from her lifeguard position. Now, what really interests me about him, not just that he relocated, but a woman that had known him, sister Bonnie Kieran, told police about a phone call from her sister, who was then murdered, where the sister suggested that this guy may

have been involved in murders in Massachusetts. Now, this is based on something I read in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. He alluded to Bish, Molly Bish, and another girl, Holly Peranin, who disappeared in 93. That from Sturbridge, which was directly adjacent to Southbridge. What do you know about that call? I know you know a lot more than I do, Maggie. Oh, wow. You want to go ahead, Heather?

Go ahead. Well, you know, Nancy, we actually have about seven people with the same kind of circumstantial evidence surrounding them. Rodney Sanger was just brought forward in the media.

So that's the greatest struggle for us because we know about Rodney, but the public only knows about Rodney. But we know about the six other guys just like Rodney Stanger that are out there. And that's why we put together this movie about Molly most recently. And it was basically to solidify the events of June 27th that we knew for sure. What's the movie? Tell me the movie's name. Missing Molly. What?

Our new movie, Mom, that we just did, Missing Molly. How can I see that? We've been sharing it on social media. It's up on my YouTube page. Hold on. Missing Molly movie, and I can find it on YouTube? Yep. It's about a three-minute movie, and we had contemplated.

Oh, 7-8. I'm sorry, Heather. Yeah, that's okay, Ma. No, go ahead. Go ahead, Ma. I just wanted to say that it was an opportunity that we could share. Heather, again, young people are so conscientious of social media, but we could share it even by Facebook.

Somebody knows something. Hey, I didn't even know about it. This is something new to me. That just came out. Would you mind if I put this on our website? No. I'm going to direct everybody to it because this is something new for me to learn through. Hold on.

I lost my track. Okay, so Missing Molly, and it's on YouTube, and you're going to give me the info, and I'll put it on crimeonline.com. Absolutely. And again, this is a case where, I mean, we had this bad thing happen, and it was horrible, and it has changed our lives completely. But every single day, every day almost, somebody comes forward and does something amazing or helpful or gives us something. And, you know, this, this Peter Massey, who came up with his ground penetrating radar to look at the campground a couple of weeks ago, that was something that we organized on the side. I organized with a person that's a criminologist that I know who was, you know, worked with him and, you know, it was a long shot halfway down the basketball court, sort of throwing the ball at the basket. But this person was generous enough to come up here and donate his time, his skill, his knowledge to help us.

You know, and again, maybe it was a long shot, but I mean, long shots are really all we have left at this point. And so, again, the movie, a friend of ours, Kathy Kern from Channel 5 News, and I were talking one day. I said, you know, I really think I should make a movie about Molly and solidify what happened so people aren't confused. Because often people will think, well, they got that guy in Florida. He must have done it. Or, oh, I heard about that guy in Western Mass. You're absolutely right, Heather. And no one follows up the story.

And so I wanted to make sure that I imprinted it somewhere, that here are the facts. Well, you know what I'm about to do? I'm about to log on and find Missing Molly's movie that you orchestrated. And another thing, everybody, please write this number down. 877-298-5155. Toll free. 877-298-5155. Toll free 877-298-5155. One day this case will be solved. Molly Bish, still on our minds, still in our hearts.

Thank you, Matthew. Maggie, Heather, thank you guys. Thank you. I appreciate it. I can't thank you enough. And you will always be one of my most special people in the world.

And I appreciate it so much. And you're helping so many people. And you're still continuing. And from my Molly, we thank you with all our hearts. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.