Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Will There Ever Be Justice for Murdered Molly Bish: 25 Years Unsolved

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

Molly Bish is 16 when she disappears from her life guard job at Commons Pond in Warren, Massachusetts, 25 years ago. Her murdered remains are found on a mountainside three years later. No one has ever been arrested in Molly’s kidnapping and murder. This is a case that Nancy Grace has closely followed for years. Molly’s mom and sister join Nancy in this “Crime Stories” episode to revisit the evidence and discuss renewed efforts to find justice for the lifeguard teen.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. June 27, 2000. Every time June 27 rolls around, I think about Molly Bish. Why? I think about Molly Bish. Why? What happened to a beautiful, beautiful young girl Molly Bish? It's been 25 years since teen lifeguard Molly Bish disappeared just minutes after her mother dropped her off

at Commons Pond for work. Molly's remains were found three years later. 26 of her 206 bones were found five miles away from the swimming area, but her murder remains unsolved. Rodney Stanger, a Southbridge man who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, was once a potential suspect,

but more recently, DA Joe Early said another man, Frank Sumner, a sex offender who died in 2016, is a person of interest. Let's just revisit. What happened? 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. 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 cleaned your room and I had I actually was special ed teacher and I had some some IEP some work to complete and so we were all kind

of buzzing a little bit. You know Molly had a new job. My son had just trained her and I had taken her to work the day before and it was kind of a little unsettling. We had seen a car that day parked in the parking lot and it was only one white vehicle and Molly got out and she was very excited and said, bye mom, I love you, see you later. You know, and just 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 4,000 folks, one traffic light, a 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 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 noticed there's more men around maybe and she did. But just fisherman 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 go 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 wanna protect your child. You just say, what are you doing here? Go to work, it's 10 o'clock in the morning. And that's 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 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 kubiton stick, which my husband had as a probation officer. She said, Mom, I don't need it. It's just Fisherman. 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 sadness as 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 and 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. I didn't, 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 seen her things, so I was very, very frightened. For me, the first gut reaction was something that is really wrong here. I started to go toward the police station. There comes Heather with our new 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 they told you to go in the room and I took off looking for mommy friend. Okay, well then I I went from there. 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. then I got my son returned to it 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 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 priest as I got there.

It was the firemen that 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 are 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 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. Everyone with me, 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 you, 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, Shazan, 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, whole nother can of worms. In her story, he was found. Thank goodness. 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? 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. 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 was 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 and I'm still a mess. He and I were I guess soulmates. We were just, I mean, I love my mother. I'm extremely close to her. I've always talked to her more, I guess, than 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. Well, you know, it is, oh, I can tell you. It's awful. My, we actually, we had did the missing children's day, May, 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 are coming home with all this stuff. And John is 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, how it went is there was a hunter that had spotted something that 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 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. And 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 seen her bathing suit in the rough 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 He's 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 into 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 That was one of the worst I have to say days and I Howled and I every piece of me was spent And spent. And then you know that was... When you say it was a special swimsuit that in the moment you saw it, you knew what it was? What was it that you knew beyond a doubt that was Molly's swimsuit? No, I really, I 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 a 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 again, they had to send the police in. They had to send a search party in. And that began really another whole experience, because the first day they came home with one bone. It was a shin bone, 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's, 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 fake the police, but I knew, you know?

And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. And it was just confirmed. Crime stories with Nancy grace.

What happened to a beautiful, beautiful young girl, Molly Bish? 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. You know, I thought in the beginning that it had to be a mistake and, you know, sort of the same thing that this couldn't be right. There's gotta 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 we became increasingly anxious. I think even when we found the bathing suit for Mia, I think it just kind of just hold on to hope, maybe he stripped her and threw the bathing suit for me, you know, I think it just kind of just hold on to hope like, I don't know, maybe they maybe he stripped her and threw the bathing suit in the woods or something. We just 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 the skull because people were coming over to my mom's house every day. And I had been living 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 an easy, easy trip. But we were doing that daily to, to ensure that we were, we were all together. And I

remember we had just gotten there on June 9th and there are people in the driveway and my 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, it'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 just saw those guys in the suits, you knew yeah, and I'm just I really I just I just really wanted to run away to be honest with you I didn't even want to hear what they were going to going to say I just thought if I could run I would be able to outrun the truth or the reality or you know, it just felt like everything's gonna change now our whole life, everything. It's really odd Heather, that we'd ever feel this again, that you, your mind tries to get around it 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, wait a minute. 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 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 year olds feel about their teenage sisters so I 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 27th, 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. 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 bringing 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 be 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. ["Dreams of a New World"] Crime stories with Nancy Grace. With me is Maggie Bish. This is Molly Bish's mother. Molly goes missing one warm June morning, 2000. The search still on foriley's killer. And I'm trying to imagine your view. 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 was when press, a van pulls up and they run up. What did they have? A picture of her swimsuituit 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 But they could take the picture and 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. And I mean, it didn't take me but seconds to gather that information, you know, minutes

like it. 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 adjusted missing children's day for the folks in Massachusetts. It was a beautiful day of great we were coming home feeling at least we're doing something positive and you know we're will miss Molly that's what we but to see this was it was too close to knowing that this was not good. Molly goes missing one warm June morning 2000 the search still on for Molly's killer. 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, quote unquote, good person of interest down in Florida. And they, you know, had taken some DNA from there

and submitted it. And then nothing was sort of a hit. So as, so I guess our hope sort of lies in the science and technology that, you know, sort of helping investigators solve these older cases. They took 24 pieces of evidence to retest. They don't exactly tell us what they took or where it came from, but we know it was

24 pieces of evidence, 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, the seeds of hope are that DNA samples have been taken and they're being re-examined 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 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 ex-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 wanna 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.

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, and 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? What was that where the swimsuit was found Maggie in Worcester County? No, no, it was where we received it a so so just trying to put the back story here we

some friends in the area person who has a PhD in criminology and I sort of Form 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 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 a 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 light car.

Was it tied to this person that we found? Okay, so the location. 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,aring a car is quite big. How deep could they go? So this radar has a way to analyze how the depth and how significant that, if it's metal or something that, I guess that's what they do. They do some kind of a computation, and it determines. So from what we do, they do some kind of a, you know, 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 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 really 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 you know so 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 Stirbridge, 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 Michigan, 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 to find their loved ones and how they deal with it. And it is very, very hard. So again, there possibly could be serial killer out there. And that's what worried us.

Because 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 their ripples, it has caused so much pain to Molly's friends, our family out into the community, the fear that he's somewhere. If you have information on the abduction and murder of Molly Bish, contact the DA's office at 508-453-7575. One day this case will be solved. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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