Crime Weekly - S1 Ep10: The Disappearance of Michaela Garecht (Part I)

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

On November 19th 1988 two nine year old girls happily rode their scooters to the Rainbow Market on Mission Blvd in Hayward California. It was a beautiful fall morning, like many others in the Bay area, it was the weekend before Thanksgiving and the two friends were excited to be spending time together, and riding away on their own for the first time without a parent in tow. The market wasn’t far, just two blocks away from their homes, and they were feeling all grown up when they coasted into the parking lot and left their scooters outside the front door before going in and purchasing two Mountain Dew’s, two sticks of beef jerky, and two cherry flavored taffys. The two girls were so preoccupied chatting with each other as they left the market, they began to walk home, completely forgetting that they had ridden their scooters there. They hadn’t gotten far before they remembered, and ran back laughing, only to find that one of the scooters was missing. These two little girls were Michaela Garecht and her best friend, Trina Rodriguez, and within moments of finding one of the scooters was gone, nine year old Michaela would be snatched away from her friend, her parents, her happy and safe life, and she would never be seen again. Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Single item at regular price. On November 19th, 1988, two nine-year-old girls happily rode their scooters to the Rainbow Market on Mission Boulevard in Hayward, California. It was a beautiful fall morning, like many others in the Bay Area. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, and the two friends were excited to be spending time together and riding

away on their own for the first time without a parent in tow. The market wasn't far, just two blocks away from their homes, and they were feeling all grown up when they coasted into the parking lot and left their scooters there. They hadn't gotten far before they remembered and ran back laughing, only to find that one of the scooters was missing. These two little girls were Michaela Garrett and her best friend, Trina Rodriguez, and within moments of finding one of the scooters was gone, nine-year-old Michaela would also be gone, snatched away from her friend, her parents, her happy and safe life, and she would never be seen again. Hello and welcome to Crime Weekly, presented by i-D. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur.

On this podcast, we do talk about difficult subjects. We're talking about real crimes and real people. And due to the graphic nature of some of this content, listener discretion is advised. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. So Derek, what's going on with you today? Not much. Just catching up on some things. Just got back from a quick trip to Los Angeles for a pretty interesting true crime project that you know about, but obviously I can't share yet, but hopefully I will be able to soon. However, on my way back from the flight, I was reading some articles and I came across this new thing with Scott Peterson. Have you heard about it yet? I know he's trying to get a new trial and I know that a couple of months ago, his death

penalty, that was overturned. So what else is going on? Well, there's a few things, but I'll get into the one thing that really is interesting to me. I mean, I'm not a defense attorney, but it's compelling. So essentially when they found Lacey, they weren't able to determine exact time of death. But when the prosecutors went against Scott Peterson, they basically narrowed it down between December 23rd at approximately 8. p.m to december 24th around 10 o'clock in the morning that was the time frame in which scott peterson would have had to have killed lacy for him to do it and that's kind of what they hung their hat on what's interesting is lacy had a prenatal visit on the 23rd and the prosecutors at court presented it as if her son, Connor, her unborn son, Connor, was approximately 33 weeks in gestational age. When they found Lacey, they couldn't narrow down her time of death without being within a couple of months, three or four months.

But with Connor, they used his bones to measure his body and they estimated that he was approximately 33 weeks in age. So do the math. His last visit was on the 23rd. His bones didn't grow anymore. Therefore, he must have died very shortly after that appointment, right? Well, here's the problem. Here's the problem.

The doctor who conducted that prenatal exam right in Lacey's medical records does not say that Connor was 33 weeks. They say that Connor was 32 weeks. You might say, oh, well, Derek, Stephanie, why is that a big deal? Well, that doctor was objective. They weren't in the middle of a trial at that point yet. That was their professional opinion without any outside influences. And if they're right, that means that Connor's body, when found, was approximately a week older, suggesting that Lacey didn't die right away. I got to tell you, I'm not a lawyer, but that is going to be a big deal if there's a new

trial. And honestly, if they're able to poke holes in that case with that, I can see a jury letting him walk. I absolutely can. Yeah, I agree actually. And I mean, this is not the only probable, what do they call it? Probable cause or? Well, it's proof beyond a reasonable doubt, right? You need proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a court. And that is reasonable doubt. Yeah, that's not the only thing they have that has reasonable doubt with it in his case. So I think you're right.

I think there's a good chance that he might be acquitted, which would be crazy. But we should definitely do an episode about Scott Peterson at one point. What do you think? With the new news coming up, I absolutely agree. And there's so much more. There's a problem with one of the jury members now that was very vocal. It's a big thing. I know a lot of people were fascinated by this story. It's been 18 years and you know, with these new developments. Yeah, I think you're right. I think we may have to get into it at one point. Well, let's not think about that now because it's,

it's a scary thought and it's a little depressing, but let's talk about something really quickly before we dive in that I.D. wanted us to share with you, and it is Unraveled, the Long Island Serial Killer. It's a podcast that is being done by Billy Jensen and Alexis Linkletter, and in the podcast, they search for answers in one of the biggest murder mysteries in American history. It's been 10 years since 11 bodies were found on the coast of Long Island. Amongst a backdrop of police corruption and cover-ups at the highest levels of Suffolk County, co-hosts Alexis Linkletter and Billy Jensen reinvestigate the murders from a decade ago to expose the untold story of why the case remains unsolved. So after you listen to our episode today,

go over there and check out Unraveled, Long Island Serial Killer. Enough of that. I think it's time to get into our case, Michaela Garrett, right? Yep. Let's do it. Today, we are talking about the disappearance of Michaela Garrett, and I have covered this case on my channel. So those of you who are here from YouTube, they will recognize the case, but both Derek and I really wanted to cover it on the podcast because he was interested in the case, and I was interested in getting his point of view, the point of view of someone who's worked in law enforcement. After the case was called for over 30 years, someone has recently been charged with Michaela's abduction

and her murder. And I was interested in getting Derek's point of view because when I talked about it on my channel, I wasn't really 100% sure that they'd gotten the right guy for it. And although we do obviously want to see these cases solved and closed more than anything else, we also want to make sure that the right person is facing justice for it. Yeah. So this case came across my desk. I was doing my researching on different cases and Michaela's popped up because of the new suspect. And I'm always interested in how these cases are solved, or at least an arrest is made, what technology they're using, what police tactics

they're exploring to try and find these individuals after so many years. It's really fascinating. I did the same thing with the Golden State Killer. So we're going to talk about that today, but I also want to talk about a new technology that's emerging. It's still really new. It's probably not even being used by anyone yet, but it's called mass spectrometry. And we're going to talk about that later. I haven't even told Stephanie about it, so I'm looking forward to discussing it. It's pretty interesting. And if anybody thinks Derek sounds a little bit different, he is on the road this week. So he's not recording from home. He's recording from a hotel room.

So if his audio isn't completely crisp as it usually is, it's just temporary. We'll be back to normal next week. Yeah, I apologize for that. What is it with us and audio, man? It's like we're struggling with it. We'll get it right. Yeah, we do apologize i think it should be okay it sounds good in my ears right now sounds good to you right stuff

yeah so i think we'll be okay but like she said if it's a little different apologies next week it'll be back to normal so i want to talk quickly about michaela's mother sharon merch and sharon has been a loud and constant voice in the search for her daughter throughout the years. And she's been keeping an online blog called Seekers Road. And Seekers Road chronicled not only her search for answers about what happened to her daughter, but her personal struggles as well, such as her battles with breast cancer. Seekers Road is a look inside the mind and heart of a mother who's lost a child, but it's also an example of the chaos and the frustration of the, you know, not knowing. I hope I never have to be in the position of losing a child, but I imagine it would be so much worse to not only not have your child with you, but also to

have no idea what happened to her, if she's alive or dead, if she's being cared for, or if she's being harmed. It just has to be a living nightmare day after day. And Sharon has walked through this nightmare with grace and hope despite all the many disappointments and setbacks. And I do want to give a shout out to her for never giving up, never backing down, and never allowing the darkness to overtake her. And you know, that really takes true strength and bravery. I don't know if I could do it. In her blog, Sharon talks about how badly she wanted a child before Michaela was conceived. And she and her husband tried for five years before she became pregnant. And when Michaela was born, she was really considered by her parents to be this miracle child. And although Sharon

would go on to have more children, Michaela did hold a special place in her heart because she was the first one to call her mommy. Sharon was described by some as being almost overprotective which as a mother I really feel like there's no such thing as being over protective of your young child especially when you're aware of the horrors that are out there walking around in the real world. When Michaela and her family moved to Hayward, it took some time before Sharon would let her children play outside of their own front yard because she wanted to make sure that the neighborhood was safe. On the Saturday morning that Michaela disappeared,

she had asked Sharon if it would be okay for her and her friend Trina to ride their scooters to the Rainbow Market, and at first Sharon said no because she was cautious, and although Michaela had been to the nearby market before, she had never gone without one of her parents or the teenage neighbors from next door. Michaela kept asking and begging to go, however, and eventually Sharon gave in because there's always this moment in life, or in the life of your child, where you recognize that you have to start letting them exercise their independence a little bit, even if you really don't want to and you usually really don't want to. As Michaela and Trina rode away, Michaela looked over her shoulder at her mother

who was standing in the doorway of the house and she said, I love you, mom, and then she rode off into the distance. Sharon watched until the girls disappeared from sight and then returned to the house to finish the breakfast dishes. In her blog, Sharon writes, quote, Michaela hadn't been gone long, not long enough for me to worry about her, when I heard shouting out in the street. Michaela's dad was working on the car in the driveway. A minute later, he stuck his head in the kitchen doorway. Someone snatched Michaela at the market, he said breathlessly. You call 911. I'm going there. Now, just hearing how this morning went down, it makes my stomach hurt. You know, Derek,

I've had mornings like this, having breakfast with my family, sending the kids outside to play while I clean up the kitchen. These are normal and happy mornings. And then for Sharon, everything changed in a matter of seconds. It's hard to even comprehend. Yeah, it really is. I think for most parents, our worst nightmare, the unknown and the idea that someone has taken your child from you and is possibly hurting them. It's always been difficult for me to work these cases i did a cold case i spoke about this case before michelle norris it's very similar actually happened in 1988 as well and although it's been very hard for me to work these cases i there is a silver lining for me at least because it's definitely changed my opinion of the world in a negative way, but a

positive way for the kids. And what I mean by that is I don't really trust anyone, nobody. I have neighbors that live next door to me and sure, I'll let my kids go over there and play and stuff, but I'm always very apprehensive and I never assume. And it's because of cases like Michaela Garrett that has made me that way. And some people may say, well, that's a really tough way to live, Derek, to never trust anyone. But my response is always, I'd rather be safe than sorry. So yeah, this is never going to be something that you get used to. We shouldn't get used to it. And I can only imagine what Michaela's mom was feeling in that moment. I don't think

it's a feeling that you can compare to anything else. So really difficult. And I can only imagine what was going through her head in that moment. Yeah. I'm a proud overprotective mother. I'm probably, you know, I take it to the extreme sometimes. Like I don't even really let my kids go with their friends, parents, you know, to places because I'm always thinking, what if they're not being watched? What if somebody grabs them? Like, I've just seen too many of these cases and gone through too many of these cases and had to put myself in the shoes of these parents to even want to even put myself in that position, obviously. So it's my responsibility as a parent to get my child to adulthood in one piece, safe and sound. And it's just tough. You want to let them live their life, but you also want to keep them in a bubble. Yep. I actually credit a lot of my

lack of trust for other people to my mom in a good way. She was very, very diligent in instilling in us that, listen, you never know. It doesn't matter how friendly the person may look. You can't trust them. And she would tell us stories, obviously the PG version as kids, but she would tell us about Michelle Norris. She would tell us about Adam Walsh. And again, not the graphic details of it, but normal kids like you and I, and she'd show us pictures and say, listen, they thought they were safe too. And so it always made me afraid as a kid to kind of wander away from my parents. But then also as I became a parent myself, I feel the same way now and even stronger after being a detective for so many years.

So unfortunately, these stories are going to continue to happen because it doesn't reflect in any way, shape or form on the parents. It's things that we all do. We've just been fortunate enough where we weren't affected by it negatively. I can sit here right now and tell you that there's absolutely been moments where I've probably been at a target with one of my daughters and turned my head for one second to get the other daughter. And that could have been a moment that changed my life. I've just been fortunate that it hasn't. So again, this is no reflection on the parents as far as their skill sets or the decisions they make. Because you just guys have to remember as you're listening to this, it can happen to

any of us. It really could. And that's the scary thing. You could do everything 100%, right? You could watch your kids like a hawk and it could still happen. That is the scary part. And we both grew up in the 80s, right? I think we were both born in 84. That's correct. So just a couple of days apart, both

in February. And we're going to talk about that a little bit because Stranger Things, you know, the, the Netflix show that was set in the 80s and it's got that kind of 80s vibe, but there was a lot of fear of, you know, missing children and abductions in the 80s. And, you know, that a lot of it did start with Adam Walsh and a lot of the other kids that went missing in the 80s. And we are going to get more into that. But at the markets, the Rainbow Market, when Michaela got grabbed, Michaela's friend Trina had seen it all go down. Once they figured out that one of the scooters was missing, the girls scanned the parking lot trying to locate it and Michaela spotted the scooter sitting next to a parked car that was only about three parking spots away from the front of the Rainbow Market. Michaela ran over to get the scooter but as she

leaned down and grabbed the handlebars, a man emerged from the parked car and grabbed her and as she yelled out and fought, he forced her into his car, got into the driver's seat, and sped out of the parking lot and onto Mission Boulevard before getting lost amongst the heavy traffic. Years later, Trina looked back on this moment and said, quote, I looked up when I heard a scream, and I saw a man putting her in his car. She was still screaming. I just stood and watched, frozen in shock, end quote. Just moments for Mikayla, moments between being a happy child on her way home with snacks to being a prisoner, speeding away from any semblance of safety and comfort. It's truly terrifying how quickly these predators

can pounce. And we talked about this previously, a couple days ago, the scooter being taken from the front of the market and placed in the parking lot, this was strategic to lure one of the girls out. And it is important to discuss this because there are certain tactics that criminals use to make it easier for them to attack or kidnap. And we want to make everyone aware, not just for our own knowledge, but so we can teach our children what to look out for. I mean, when I was little, I remember the script for my mom was pretty much like, don't take candy from strangers. And that was the extent of the warnings I was given. Don't talk to strangers. If somebody says that they're

picking you up and they know me, don't believe them. I'll never send somebody to get you. But it really wasn't anything specific. It was just a stranger danger. Yep. And, you know, there's a broader version that we can look at when it comes to Michaela and what the suspect was doing. He was looking for a victim of opportunity, right? And he just took a victim of opportunity and increased his odds of pulling off the kidnapping without having her be aware of it. So what I'm saying is he saw two young girls unsupervised walking into a candy store or walking into a convenience store and he could see that they weren't really paying

attention to their surroundings, probably laughing, giggling, having a good time, and their guard was completely left down. So instead of putting himself in a position where they would have to make themselves more known to the front of the store, like you said, they pulled the scooter away and created a situation that distracted Michaela because she was focused on her scooter. At that moment, she thought it had been stolen or lost, and that's what she was concerned about. But this doesn't only apply to kids. This applies to anybody listening to this, male, female, young, old. I'll give you a quick scenario, and I'll pose it to you, Stephanie, but I want you guys listening at home to answer

this as well and see if you get it right. Let's say you're at a Walmart, okay? You're by yourself, you're doing a quick food shopping, it's late at night, and you come out to your car and there's a t-shirt wrapped around your windshield wiper. Stephanie, what are you doing? I'm going back into the store as fast as possible. Yeah, that's definitely an option. The only issue with that is if the person's in the parking lot and they're watching you at this point, they could decide that, oh, let me grab her before she goes back inside. Or if they're brazen enough, when you come back out with this store clerk, this person could attack both of you if they have a weapon. So my suggestion would be that if you come out and you see something tied around your windshield wiper, whether it's a t-shirt or anything else for that matter, immediately get inside your car, lock your doors before you even start the car, lock your doors and then drive off and immediately drive to your closest police station. For one, they're probably not going to stay around if you pull up

to a police station. But more importantly, if they decide to follow you, you might be able to get a plate or something so that you can relay that information to the law enforcement officers when you arrive. Well, yeah, that makes complete sense. I would anticipate if you see that anything is different about your vehicle when you approach it to kind of be suspicious about that just in general, kind of better to be safe than sorry. So if you see anything on your car that you didn't put there, you know, I would view it in a suspicious manner. Exactly. So again, you know, if it looks out of place at the bottom line, go with your gut. You know what I mean?

If you have an intuition about something, it's better to be safe than sorry. Don't second chance it. Don't second guess it. Go with it. Worst case scenario, it turns out you were wrong, but at least you know you're going to be safe. Yeah. And it's just so scary to think about, you know, we talked about this the other day when we were discussing the case on the phone, that it was just, you know, a matter of, a matter of chance that it was Michaela's scooter that got pulled over and not Trina's. And, you know, we both admitted that as upset as Trina's parents probably were that this happened, that their daughter's, you know, best friend had been taken. There was probably this little piece of

them that was thinking, you know, thank God it wasn't my daughter's scooter that was taken. And that's the difference or that's exactly kind of the scary thing is it's just this small piece of chance that keeps your child safe and somebody else's not. Yeah, you did. You did say that on the phone. And when you said it, it hit differently because it is it's like the decision to pick which scooter the offender took was ultimately a decision of, as we know it right now, at least of life or death. At minimum, a life altering occurrence for many people just by selecting one of two scooters. Yeah. And, you know, mistakes made by the Hayward police, it happened pretty early on in the investigation. Obviously, when a shocked Trina realized what had just happened, she ran inside the store and she asked the clerk, a woman named Rona Ronalin, to call the police. And then Trina called her own father and let him know what happened. It was Trina's father who stopped and let Michaela's father, Rod, know what

was going on as he was driving to the Rainbow Market. And by that time, the police had already been notified and were on their way. But when they arrived, the police did not question Trina, who was technically the only person who had not only witnessed the abduction, but who had seen the man in question clearly, as well as his vehicle. Instead, investigators took a statement from the cashier, Rona, and since she'd been inside the whole time, she didn't really have anything very substantial to offer. She told the police that she thought she'd seen a suspicious looking man peering into the window of the Rainbow Market while Trina and Michaela had been inside. She said he'd been walking by really slowly looking inside and

this had caught her attention because Rona felt that maybe he was planning to rob the store. Rona described this man as being in his 30s with a mustache and she said the vehicle he drove was dark colored, possibly burgundy. And so this description of the suspect and his car, that was the only one the police put out to other law enforcement agencies and to the public to be on the lookout for. They did not question Trina at this time. They allowed her to leave and go home with her father. They didn't even question her quickly to make sure that the person in car that Rona had seen matched the person in car that Trina had seen. Now, why do you think this was? Because she was young, because the event had already traumatized her.

If you were in this situation like this as a cop on the case of a child abduction, would you have done the same or would you have made sure to get Trina's version of events? What's protocol in situations like this? As you mentioned, I mean, she's really the key witness in this case, right? She saw not only the suspect, but the suspect's vehicle to extremely crucial pieces of information. If you ever would like to apprehend the suspect, possibly while Michaela Garrett is still unharmed. Again, maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. I would like to think that when the officers showed up, they said to her, hey, what color was the car? What was the car? What do you look like? And then they probably got in their cars and took off to try to catch up to this person if they

could. The problem is this, it's not in the report if they did. And so one of the first things you're taught as a police officer, if it's not in the report, it didn't happen. So that's all we really have to go off of when it comes to whether or not they spoke to her even briefly. The bottom line is they didn't take an in-depth statement from her. And the issue with that is it's a very traumatic event. And the best information that you would get from someone like that would probably be right away when it just happened. Because as that young child is listening to adults around them and thinking about the things, their imagination starts to come into it. And then it starts to get a little difficult because

it starts to get convoluted in their head between what actually happened and what they thought happened because now time has passed. So it's unfortunate that that was the case, although it does appear that when they finally did get some information from her, it potentially was very accurate, which is extremely impressive. Yeah. But I mean, for the first 48 hours, the most crucial hours in the case of a missing person, for two whole days, law enforcement was chasing after a man that either didn't exist or had nothing to do with Michaela's disappearance. And as they chased a ghost, Michaela and her did talk to Trina, in my opinion, it was a little too late. And I truly think that Michaela was already gone. I don't believe her abductor held on to her for more than a day or so.

From what you know about this case, do you agree? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I did some research on this case. And one of the't know i don't know i mean i i did some research on this case and one of the things i did was go back and watch your youtube video on it and you bring up some really interesting scenarios about other suspects that held on to their victims for years and raised them you know and actually brought them in as like almost a significant other so i do agree with you in my gut that's what my gut tells me she it would be too difficult to

keep her for an extended period of time without them finding him or her, whoever the killer was, and finding Michaela. So I do think that it could have been something that occurred rather quickly. But I guess internally, I always hold out a little bit of hope that she is still out there somewhere and it's just a matter of time before we find her. I mean, in your experience, is it more typical for a suspect or a predator like this to hold on to his victim, especially a child, for an extended period of time or kind of do what they need to do or want to do and then get rid of the victim? I think, unfortunately, it's the latter. You know, I mean, it's one of those things where they go from being something of value to them to a liability and a connection between them and the crime itself. And, you know, it's very difficult

to keep someone, whether they're a child or an adult, in captivity for an extended period of time without something eventually going wrong and that person possibly getting away and exposing you. So yeah, the obvious thing is, you know, once they're done with whatever gratification they wanted to achieve out of it, they would expose of what's no longer valuable to them. And that may be because they're just a scumbag or it could be for, you know, religious reasons that they're justifying, you know, they're actually purifying the child or something like that, something crazy like that. So unfortunately, I do agree with you. It's more likely than not that they would dispose of the individual after doing what they wanted to do. And I'm not saying that if they'd had accurate information from the get that they would have definitely apprehended this person and brought Michaela home safely.

That's not what I'm saying. I just think they would have had a better chance of doing that. Yeah. And I would even go as far as saying they probably still wouldn't have because even that small window, whether it was 6, 12, 14, 20 minutes, whatever it was, you got to think about how much time that would be to leave the area in a vehicle in California, no less. So, I mean, by that period of time, they could be out of city limits and in the mountains, you know, it's that simple. So would it have made a difference? We'll never know. Um, but I will say that, you know, once they get out of that immediate area, if they're not on foot, it's going to be very difficult to, to, you know, you know, circle off a gridded area or something where they're going to be contained there. How big of a perimeter do you set? And then more importantly, the resources to actually secure that perimeter, state police, you'd have to have everyone basically mobilized within a matter of minutes in order to secure a perimeter that is without a doubt outside the limits of how far the suspect would have been

able to travel within that period of time. Very, very difficult. Set up roadblocks and things like that. Everything. Every single, you imagine how many roads, how many personnel it would take to do it. And then again, to also be able to do the math, right? If they're going 60 miles per hour, 70 miles per hour, how far in mileage could they get in that amount of time? Very, very difficult. Well, Trina gave a completely different description of the man who she'd seen take Michaela. She said he was in his 20s. He had long, scraggly, dirty blonde hair and what she called boils on his face, which I believe was probably a form of cystic acne or scars from severe acne, which can resemble like craters. Tina said he was driving an older model tannish

gold colored sedan which was boxy in shape and had some kind of body damage and may have had mud or concrete splatters on it. He was slender wearing a white t-shirt and she said she couldn't forget his eyes which were shaped like fox eyes. Trina said she didn't see anyone else with the man, that he was alone, and as the car sped out onto Mission Boulevard, Michaela was not visible in it, as if she'd been pushed down to the floorboards. A composite sketch based on Trina's description was created,

and it was sent out to the public, and after this, it is reported that some of the parents in Michaela's neighborhood told police that their daughters had been accosted by a man who resembled this sketch. One woman even claimed that the man had tried to force her own daughter into a pickup truck just days before Michaela's abduction. Now, the following investigation was pretty typical. I think the FBI jumped on board and they compared the sketch to registered sex offenders in the area. This is pretty standard when a child goes

missing, if I'm correct. Unfortunately, when a child is taken by a stranger, it's usually for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Now, do you think in these situations, police are going to compare the sketch to suspected sex offenders as well as registered sex offenders? I think it would more be registered sex offenders. I think you could possibly run into a situation, again, not a lawyer, but a situation where hypothetically they have a suspected sex offender, no actual charges against them. They use them in a photo array and a victim IDs them. I could see a defense attorney saying, well, what was the reasonable suspicion behind using my client's face in a photo lineup? Now, the justification, the articulation behind that would be, well, we have someone who

identified you as accosting their child a few months back and it fit the MO of what we're dealing with here. But I could see some problems there. But I would also say this, if I'm doing the case, I'm going to compare it to anybody I want. I don't really care if it gets prosecuted at the end right away. I just want the child back. I'm just saying that from a personal note. First and foremost, let's find Michaela and then worry about the paperwork. So when they do photo lineups like that, where they show, you know, an eyewitness pictures of people, are they, are all those pictures people who are suspects or, you know, people who have been in prison before?

Do they throw some random ones in just to kind of dilute the pot a little bit? Usually they're from a database, an internal database. So in my police department, we have an internal database of thousands, tens of thousands of people who've been arrested. And the reason why we do that is because our policy is to make sure that the backgrounds are all similar. And that's why in my police department, you might see the movies where it always shows like the heights and stuff on it.

We don't use that in my department. We use a gray background. And the reason why that is, is because when we decide to use those photos from our database in a six pack or an eight pack, which is what we refer to it as, how many photos, all their photos are gray backgrounds. So it doesn't suggest that that person has been arrested before, right? It's more, it's more in the middle, it's more objective. And so, yeah, we're usually pulling them from a database because all the photos we take are taken from a certain distance, they're cropped a certain way database because all the photos we take are taken from a certain distance. They're cropped a certain way and they have the same background.

So there's nothing in the six photos or eight photos to make one stand out more than the other. And then obviously the most obvious fact about it is we're probably using people who fit the description of the person and also have a background that may be suggestive of them carrying out an act like this in the first place. So technically, if they were trying to prosecute it and the lawyer said, well, what do you have my client in this lineup for? You could just say, oh, he was arrested and we just threw him in there because we need an extra photo. And it just happened to be that he's the one that she picked. Well, if they're putting someone in there who they suspect might be involved, then it would be on me to go into the database and enter the person who I believe is involved. I would, the weight, the color of their skin, the color of their hair, their eyes, et cetera. I want five people that look just like them because if my witness is able to identify the person that I think it is, even with those

similar faces, then we know we got something. That's interesting. That's interesting. That's what I wanted to know. I didn't know how those pictures got chosen. And we will try to, if we have a photo of the person who's suspected and they've never been arrested, it does get difficult. I'm not going to lie to you. It gets difficult to make that photo pack if there's no booking photo of that person. But I will say this, in most cases with a crime like this, this isn't the first time this person's been arrested. It does happen. There are outliers, but usually with someone like this, this is an escalation or a pattern of behavior. And there's probably something in their past where they've been apprehended before, which makes it even worse because that just tells you in that moment, this all could have been

stopped. Right. Your first criminal offense is going to be kidnapping a child. Right, right, right. Not in most cases. There's an escalation that leads up to maybe cruelty to animals, looting a lascivious axe where you're showing your body, things like that, that lead up to it, maybe, you know, cruelty to animals, you know, looting a lascivious axe where you're showing your body, you know, things like that, that lead up to this. So you probably have a record of this individual for a lesser offense. But again, it's a sign of things to come.

Well, the 80s was a crazy time, right? It was the height of the missing child panic. And it seemed like every time you turned on the television, opened a newspaper, or poured milk into your morning cereal, there was the face of a missing child staring at you, reminding you that whether you lived in a big city or a small town, no one was safe. Adam Walsh had been kidnapped in 1981, and his parents, John and Reeve Walsh, founded the Adam Walsh Outreach for Missing Children just four days after their six-year-old son's funeral. And John Walsh went on to be the host of America's Most Wanted, which premiered in October of 1983. In 1984, Newsweek published a cover story on missing children, including the case of Kevin Collins, who disappeared in San Francisco that year, not far from Hayward. But

going into the 80s, this was all very new, and law enforcement was still trying to iron out the details of how they would handle cases of abducted children. Congress enacted the Missing Children's Act in 1982, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children opened in 1984. But the recovery rate, meaning how many of these children were brought home, it was still very low, between 62 and 64 percent. When Mikayla went missing, the parents of other missing children from the Bay Area, such as Kevin Collins and the parents of Amber Swartz-Garcia, they offered Mikayla's parents their support, and Sharon went in front of the news cameras as the days passed, begging

whoever had taken her daughter to please not hurt her, and to just drop Mikayla off on a street corner somewhere so she could find her way home. A massive search was underway in the Bay Area and the surrounding areas because the police and the FBI believed that whoever had taken Mikayla was local to the area. According to the FBI profile, Mikayla's abductor probably worked or lived in the area and didn't have strong social behavior when interacting with women his own age. It was believed that this man had suffered some emotional disturbance shortly before snatching Michaela, such as a rejection of some kind, and he likely used drugs or alcohol to lower his inhibitions. Part of this psychological profile also gave some insight into what McKaylor's abductor could have done with her once he had her. It was believed that he would bring her somewhere isolated, away from public view. Helicopters with infrared cameras equipped on them flew over the

miles of hills and canyons, searching for heat signatures that would show if there were people hiding out somewhere. All they found were animals. Law enforcement and volunteers went out on foot, horseback, and with dogs looking for any sign of the little girl. Special attention was paid to the areas of Guerin Regional Park and Niles Canyon, which were heavily wooded areas located within just minutes of where Michaela lived. These areas would certainly qualify as isolated and out of the way, and some hikers had stumbled upon two sets of footprints that they believed belonged to an adult and a child. Now, the hikers had followed these footprints, and it brought them to an area where a blanket had been laid out with some fast food containers. From this lead, they ended up

finding nothing. There were a lot of other leads, plenty of tips being called in, and law enforcement followed everyone that they could, but all of it came to nothing. The missing children's program sent out over 50 million cards with Michaela's face on them to homes all over the country, hoping someone who had seen something or knew something could help break the case, but nothing solid ever came of that either. So what's your overall opinion of the investigation? I'll say this. No investigation is perfect. So who am I to sit here and judge the investigators that worked this case and pick it apart? Hindsight's always 20-20. There was probably a sense of urgency when they arrived that day and their main priority was the same as mine would have been, which is to get back in the car and try to track this guy down before he gets too far away. So was it perfect? No. But overall, I think they did a very good job getting the information out. And as you just laid out perfectly, they really scoured the area. They consulted with the FBI, which sometimes it's not as easy to think because their ego's involved. And that doesn't appear to

be the case here. I think they really wanted to find Michaela. I think they did whatever they could to try to find Michaela. And I'll say this because it's coming up very shortly. The processing of the scene at Rainbow Market was very well done, exceptionally well done when you consider that this happened in 1988. So we're going to get into that. And overall, I'm very satisfied with the way they conducted themselves. And I think they did the best they could. And I'm sure if we had the opportunity to speak to many of the people in charge of this investigation, they would tell you the only regret they have is that they weren't able to find

Michaela. And the FBI came in very quickly, actually, which is, I think, a testament to how the Hayward Police Department handled this. Because like you said, dealing with the FBI as a police force is not always the easiest thing. You kind of don't want to turn over responsibility of the case to somebody else. They probably come in in their suits looking like the men in black, acting all fancy, trying to act like they're taking over. And the Hayward Police Department did bring the FBI in, I believe, the very next day, very quickly. It was over the weekend that this happened. It happened on a Saturday. And I believe that the FBI were in on it either that following Sunday or Monday. So I do have to give them credit there. And I just want to double back for one second,

because we're giving a lot of credit to the officers involved with this case, rightfully so. But let's also give a lot of credit to Trina because you and I may not be discussing the case in the way we're going to be discussing it as far as some of the new developments if it wasn't for Trina. So to consider how young she was when this happened and to consider that we're sitting here today with these new developments, we can thank Trina for that. Yeah, she was nine and she gave an amazingly thorough description of this guy and his car to the point where I don't even know if I would have been that observant. I've never been in that situation. But typically on the day to day, I'm not looking at somebody's car and saying,

oh, there's some body damage. There's maybe mud splatters on it. Like I'm not paying that much attention to my surroundings. I probably should. But yeah, absolutely. Trina did an amazing job and she held it together. Yep. And there was a lot of different avenues this case took over the years. But again, Trina stood steadfast in what she believed she saw that day and good for her. Yeah. And over the years, there were plenty of suspects as well as some, I don't know, quasi confessions. So let's go over a couple of them one by one.

There was a man named Roger Haggard. He was 39 years old and he was an inmate serving an 11-year sentence in Indiana for burglary and theft. Now, he had been trying to contact the FBI and he kept telling them that he knew who had killed Michaela because he'd been there when she was buried. But at first, the FBI ignored him because they didn't take him seriously, and that kind of pissed him off. So he contacted a reporter with the Rocky Mountain News to tell his story. Haggard's story was that he'd escaped from prison in 1989, and he'd fled to Hayward, California, where he hooked up with a man named Slam Davidson while working at a bar in San Leonardo. Now, he claimed that he and Slam would drink together and use cocaine together in Slam's trailer, which was allegedly located behind an old auto body shop near the same market that Michaela had been taken from. And I guess randomly, while they're drinking and doing

drugs, Slam Davidson one day told Roger Haggard that he'd fled from South Carolina where he was wanted for kidnapping. Now after this, just randomly again, Slam Davidson drove Haggard to a field in Hayward where he had previously dug a shallow grave, and Roger Haggard claimed that he watched Davidson put Michaela's body in the ground, but then he got sick and he couldn't watch the rest. The next day, Haggard said goodbye to his new friend, Slam, who got on a bus and headed to San Diego, and then less than five months after this, Haggard turned himself in and he returned to prison. Now, Roger Haggard's description of Slam Davidson did match the composite sketch

of the suspect in Michaela's abduction, and Haggard said that Michaela's body had been wrapped in a tarp and tied with a cord before it was buried, and that Slam Davidson had been hiding it somewhere in or near his trailer. Roger Haggard also claimed he didn't know how Michaela had died, but he claimed he saw several stab wounds on her body in her upper right chest, which I'm not sure how he would have seen stab wounds if she was covered in a tarp. And if he did see stab wounds, I think it's pretty evident how she died. Once Haggard began to go public with the story, the FBI had to take notice and his claims were looked into. They discovered that he had worked as a cook and a handyman for eight or nine months in 1989 at a sports bar in San Leonardo called Ricky's. The owner of this bar,

whose name I shit you not, was actually Ricky Ricardo. He said that Haggard seemed like he was street smart and he didn't like to make any waves, but there was an incident that made Ricky question what kind of past his new cook had. During a Super Bowl party in 1989, Ricky couldn't find the key to a display case that he wanted to get into, and he said that Haggard came right over and got the lock opened up with a pocket knife. Ricky said, quote, until that lock picking incident, I thought I could trust him, end quote. A cocktail waitress at Ricky's named Kelly claims she always thought that Haggard was bad news, saying, quote, he was kind of a lowlife. He was a real smooth talker, but you didn't know if you could believe this or

believe that when we talked. He was kind of weaselly, end quote. The trailer that Haggard claimed Slam Davidson was living in was also located behind an abandoned auto body shop that had once been called Western Body and Fender Shop about a half a mile away from the Rainbow Market. When all of this came out, Michaela's father, Rod Garrett, gave a statement to the San Francisco Examiner saying, quote, I don't believe a single word he said. I think he made up a story because he knew it would get him out of jail and back to California. The guy is an escape artist, end quote. Now, Haggard was flown from Indiana to California so he could testify in front of a grand jury and also so that he could lead authorities to the alleged burial place of Michaela Garrett. After testifying at the grand jury,

Roger Haggard led police on a four-hour, 100-mile wild goose chase around the Bay Area before finally coming clean and confessing to having made the whole story up, claiming that he felt it would look good for him in front of an appeal court in Indiana. Now, I happen to think that Rod Garrett was probably correct that Roger Haggard was just hoping for another opportunity to escape because he wasn't asking for a shortened sentence, so I can't imagine what else his motive might have been for doing this. He was only supposed to be in prison for 11 years, but because of his incredibly insensitive hoax, he was given another six years in prison.

And he was also ordered to pay Michaela's family $7,000 for the pain and suffering that his false hope had caused them. And this was decided by a U.S. Court of Appeals in 1994. Yeah, I will say I'm sure Rod Garrett had more information than the public had when all of this was coming out. And that's probably why he was so confident in saying that this guy was full of it, basically. And as far as the punishment given down to Haggard, obviously, our sentencing is supposed to be a time for rehabilitation, not a form of punishment. So I get why it was six years, but I would have liked to see it be even longer.

And I would hope in addition to the $7,000 that were given to the family, that there was also a reimbursement owed to the law enforcement agencies for overtime, traveling expenses, et cetera, like in the tens of thousands of dollars for carrying this all out that Mr. Haggard also had to pay. So bottom line, he's a scumbag and he's an opportunist and who knows what his motive was. It could have been just because he was bored, but nevertheless, very unfortunate for the family to give them any type of false hope. Um, but even more, uh, unfortunate that we live in a society where there are people like this and they're, you know, as genuine as we may be listening to this, wanting the best for Michaela and her fam, their, her family. There are people like this on the other side of it that just have no, no conscience and there's no level of how low they'll stoop. Yeah. He was actually ordered to pay more money. It wasn't in the tens of thousands. I had the court documents up earlier. There's several pages. I believe it was under $7,000 that he was ordered to pay for reimbursement to law enforcement. Don't quote me on that, but it definitely wasn't much more than that.

That might make sense because, again, I'm forgetting we're talking in the 80s and that 7,000 that back then is a lot more than it would be now. Probably equivalent to like 14, 15, maybe 20,000 now. So that, you know, it makes sense. And again, it's unfortunate. The whole situation is unfortunate because although Rod publicly might've been saying, I don't believe a single word, I'm sure there was that little kernel of hope that maybe he was hoping he was wrong. I mean, at this time too, Rod and Sharon, Michaela's parents, they were obviously still

hoping that she was alive. Absolutely. Yeah. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. Roger, if you listen to this, you're an awful person. Bottom line. I don't know what to tell you, bud.

We like you, Roger. Yeah. If you're still alive, well, that's unfortunate for all of us. I don't know. Probably actually out by bud. We like you, Roger. Yeah. If you're still alive, well, that's unfortunate for all of us. I don't know. Probably actually out by now if you think about it. Yeah. I mean, unless he's a habitual offender and he's back in there for something else, which wouldn't be a surprise to any of us.

But yeah, there's no place for people like that. And it's unfortunate. And I wish I could say it's like a one-off. It's an outlier. But it happens more than you think. Well, if you don't like Roger, you're really not going to like the next guy that we're talking about. And I'm not going to use this man's real name, but we're going to call him Mr. X. And Mr. X is somebody that I think his real name should be used

because I think he should be watched 24-7 because he's a creep and I think that it's safer for everybody if there's eyes on him at all time. But his name kept coming up, not only in connection with Michaela, but with several other missing children from the area. Now, like I said, this guy, we could talk about this guy for hours because it seemed as if Mr. X liked to insert himself into many cases and situations. He first came on law enforcement's radar in 1991 when he was 43, married and working at a sewage plant in the Bay Area. Police were investigating the case of several missing girls in this area, and his name just kind of kept coming up to the point where they could not ignore it. Many parents in an East Bay area neighborhood reported to police that Mr. X had been sending their young daughter's letters in cards in an attempt to, I guess, try to strike up a friendship or connection with them, which is creepy right off the bat on its own. One letter turned into police was written backwards, so it could

only be read if it was held up to a mirror. Another one had a Bible verse written in it that said, I have chosen you. Be with me where I am. So creepy. Sometimes the letters would have small gifts or money included. Just in general, something that's inappropriate for a 40-something man who's a stranger to these underage girls to be sending. So the police brought him in and they questioned Mr. X on why he was sending the girls these letters. And he responded that he felt that the girls were lonely and he thought that they would be happy to get his correspondence. Investigators began looking into his background and they discovered that in 1985, he had been working as a claims adjuster for the U.S. Department of Social Security.

And in this capacity, he'd collected the names, birthdates, and addresses of approximately 40 young girls in Colorado, and he then used this information to send these girls $50 on their 14th birthdays. When his supervisor found out and asked Mr. X why he had done this, Mr. X claimed that he'd seen a television show where a man gave money to strangers, so he copied this, hoping to bring some happiness and the element of a fun surprise to these girls' birthdays. Now, he was fired, but he was rehired 16 months later after he got a lawyer who argued in court that Mr. X had not used the information he had gained through his job for personal gain. Therefore, he had not violated his terms of employment, and it just blows my mind. He had not violated his terms of employment. And it just

blows my mind. He had not violated the terms of employment because he didn't use this information for personal gain. But the fact of the matter is they were minors. Like that should matter somewhere, somehow. They were minors. So he shouldn't have been taking their personal information and sending them anything, period. Definitely shouldn't have gotten his job back. It had also been reported that Mr. X drove a light blue van with a vanity plate that said, love you, and love is spelled without the E, so L-O-V-Y-O-U. Now, allegedly, every inch inside the van was covered with pictures of children, crayon drawings that looked as if they'd been made by children, as well as Bible verses. Mr. X was also once arrested for attempting to lure two girls into his van of nightmares, but the charges were dropped, and the only thing that ever stuck to Mr. X were charges of public drunkenness. It has also been said that Mr. X once worked at a crematorium,

and he liked to spend his evenings hanging out in cemeteries repairing gravestones that no one had asked him to repair. Mr. X had forced himself into the lives of at least three families who were struggling in the aftermath of having a child be kidnapped. He would go to their houses and introduce himself, claiming to be a good Samaritan that just wanted to help in any way he could. Three days after seven-year-old Amber Swartz Garcia disappeared from Pinole, California in June of 1988, Mr. X knocked on the door of her home and told her mother, Kim, that he'd been searching the nearby woods for her daughter. I wanted to be the one to save her. I wanted to be the one to bring her home to you, After this, even though Kim made it clear at some point that she was not interested in his help,

Mr. X continued to call her house to talk to her about her daughter Amber, mentioning that he believed they were looking for a dead body. In 1988, Mr. X sent a letter to law enforcement speculating that the next girl to disappear would be nine years old, and just a few months later, nine-year-old Michaela Garrett was taken from outside the Rainbow Market. After this, Mr. X showed up on Sharon Murch's doorstep saying he wanted to help. Sharon said he brought a map and showed her where he wanted to look for her daughter. Now, another little girl went missing from this area. Angela Bouguet was five years old when she was abducted from Antioch, California,

and she was later found strangled to death and sexually assaulted. Her family mourned her loss and they buried her, but Mr. X could not allow little Angela to rest in peace. Her gravesite became one of his favorite places to hang out, usually very late at night, and while there he would allegedly clean her gravestone. It is reported that Mr. X visited Angela's grave at least 80 times, and he later told a forensic psychologist who was interviewing him for a book that was being written, he told this psychologist that he fell in love with Angela's picture on her stone, saying, quote, you're not supposed to be in love with a dead girl, end quote. Someone should have probably told Mr. X that you're not supposed to be in love

with a five-year-old girl either, but okay. Now, Angela's death was eventually solved, and it turned out that her mother's boyfriend was charged with her sexual assault and murder. Many believe that her death triggered something in Mr. X, because just days after Amber Swartz Garcia went missing, Mr. X, who was under FBI surveillance at this time, was seen visiting Angela's grave and kissing the headstone, and he then simulated a sex act. After some of his visits to Angela's grave, police dogs were brought in, and it's reported that they picked up the scent of Amber Swartz Garcia, as well as another missing girl, Nikki Campbell, at Angela's grave. Now, it seems that Mr. X was aware that he was under FBI surveillance because in December of 1991, he sent an FBI profiler a Christmas card,

and that card had a picture of a little girl on it, and she was holding up four fingers. That same month, four-year-old Nikki Campbell vanished on December 27, 1991. The family members of these girls, the ones he had offered to help, they always believed that his true intentions were to taunt them and to cause them more suffering. Not one of them ever felt that he genuinely wanted to help. Mr. X also contacted a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News, a woman named Linda Golston, and he wanted her to interview him. And I'm sure it was the most bizarre interview that she'd ever given. She said she picked him up at 4.30 a.m., which was the time he had insisted on for the interview. And as they drove to the spot where he wanted the

interview to be at, which ended up being the cemetery where Angela Bouguet was buried, she asked him to play her his favorite song, which he did, and that song was Jesus, Here's Another Child to Hold. Linda Golston also reported that Mr. X spoke openly with her about how he believed the girls' abductions and murders had gone down, saying he was just guessing, but he felt one of the girls had been submissive and another had fought back. Golston claims Mr. X said, quote, well, you know, one of them was sweet and shy and didn't say a thing, but the other went kicking and screaming, end quote. And then he was like, I'm just guessing. I'm just guessing that that's what happened. He continually referred to them as his children. Now, like I said, this interview

happened at the Oakmont Cemetery at Angela Bouguet's grave. Mr. X also told Linda Golston that if he had to guess what their abductor was thinking when he took the girls, he would say the man had felt he was saving the girls and that he had convinced himself he was rescuing them and delivering them to Jesus. It's also worth noting that Nikki Campbell lived in the same Fairfield, California neighborhood where concerned parents just months prior to her abduction had contacted police about letters their daughters were receiving from a man named Mr. X. Now that forensic psychologist that had interviewed him, his name was John Philbin. He's a criminal psychologist who spent over a thousand hours interviewing Mr. X for a book that he was writing about child abductions in the Bay Area. And he said that the fact that the scent of both Amber Swartz Garcia and Nikki Campbell were detected by police dogs at Angela

Bouguet's gravesite was a coincidence that he's never seen in 25 years of investigative work. After Mr. X introduced himself to Kim Swartz, Amber Swartz Garcia's mother, she called the police and they encouraged her to keep the lines of communication open between herself and Mr. X. And they wanted her to do this to sort of see if he would say something or do something that would implicate him or kind of give an indication of what had happened to the missing girls. Kim said that Mr. X suggested she read the book Crime and Punishment and in this novel this one character that keeps showing up ends up being the one who committed the crime and this among other things convinced Kim that Mr. X viewed the whole thing as a game and she said,

quote, he was walking that fine line knowing exactly where he can go with it. I think he was getting off on taunting me and my family, end quote. Now Mr. X told ABC News that he was just trying to be a good Samaritan and help locate the missing girls, letting them know that after the 1989 earthquake that happened in California, he was actually given an award for heroism by the California Highway Patrol for his assistance with their rescue efforts. But as the years went on, Mr. X did not stop inserting himself into crime cases. He allegedly misrepresented himself in order to get on the jury that convicted a 43-year-old

Turkish businessman in 2009 for the murder of his 16-year-old son. The defense lawyer of this businessman, Rebecca Brackman, she filed a motion for a new trial claiming that Mr. X had concealed his identity during jury selection, including the fact that he was a high-profile suspect in the kidnapping investigations surrounding the disappearances of Amber Swartz Garcia, Mikaela Garrett, Nikki Campbell, and another girl we haven't mentioned yet, 13-year-old Aileen Mishloff in 1990. Mr. X claims that he answered all the questions that he was asked honestly, but he says that they didn't ask him the right questions, which would have revealed these facts about his background. Now, I don't believe that the motion for a new trial was approved,

and this Turkish businessman, he was sentenced to 15 years to life for the murder of his son, but still, I did read the appeal paperwork and the questions that Mr. X were asked. I mean, there was many times where you could argue that Mr. X was not completely honest. He was asked if he'd ever been fired or laid off from a job, and he answered, yeah, but just due to lack of work, not because he'd written down addresses of underage girls to send them creepy birthday cards. He was also asked if he knew any psychiatrists or psychologists, and he said no, but he'd been interviewed by a criminal psychiatrist for, you know, over a thousand hours, so that's not true either. He was also asked if he had any knowledge of police procedure or methods,

and he said no, but I think one could argue that he definitely did have knowledge of these things. He was also asked if he'd ever been accused of a crime or charged with a crime or convicted of a crime, and he said no, but he had been interviewed many times in relation to more than one child abduction case. And he was even under FBI surveillance for a time for this reason. So I think it's safe to say Mr. X was not completely honest, even if he was just lying by omission. Yeah. And I mean, what you just laid out about Mr. X, very extensive. And clearly, I think most people would agree, not a coincidence, right? There's a lot here. What it means, I guess that part is open into interpretation. Is this individual possibly connected to the abduction and or murders of

one or more of these children? Or is he just really out there? And again, we're not psychologists, so I won't go there, but is there some underlining issues there that are deeper than just a personal choice? I would go with that. I would go with that. There's a problem here. This is not normal behavior, right? In one circumstance, it wouldn't be normal, but he has a pattern of behavior that shows this is a repeatable offense that he continues to commit and insert himself in these investigations. When it does appear to be, at least in some of them, he has no actual connection to it. So very troubling. Again, this is another circumstance in this story that we're talking about where I wish this individual was an outlier, but I have to tell you, I've had people like this, not to this extreme in my cases back in Rhode Island, right? Where not to this level, but it just seems like whenever a case comes up and I'm trying to get information from the streets about what happened, there's always that one person who knows what happened. And then I interview them and they don't know anything, but they always portray it as if they do, like they're in the know. This individual took it a step further when you talked about the grave sites, the things that were happening there, really, really sick stuff, if it's true. And so I can completely understand why this individual was considered a suspect in

Michaela Garrett's disappearance. And I know right now we're about probably about an hour into it. There's two more potential suspects we still have to discuss. And then we have a whole different direction to take it. And that's an arrest, how that arrest occurred, what was the evidence used to assist in that arrest. And I want to take it a step further and talk. I'm sorry, are you going to say something, Stephanie? Yeah. Is it technically an arrest if the guy's already in prison? It's still an arrest? You can be arrested when you're already in prison? Arrested and charged. Yeah. Well, you're charged with a crime. I mean, you're already in prison arrested and charged yeah well you're charged with a crime i mean you're not re-arrested but you're charged you know it's it goes down as an arrest report absolutely and this this whole thing like i don't know if you've seen um that new movie with denzel washington on hbo max the little

things of course i did yeah did you see it i watched it last night yeah it's me of jared leto's character you know yeah there is some similarities there there is absolutely some similarities he knew things that he shouldn't have known and you know kind of like to insert himself and as he's being interviewed he's like oh i'm a true crime buff like i know this stuff you know do we think that that was the case with mr x no there's something wrong with this guy. And I'm not going to hold back and say there's something severely wrong with this man. And like I said, I would pay for a private investigator myself every day, 24 seven to just follow this dude around to make sure he's not hurting anyone or messing with anyone because- Well, I'll tell you this much, you can save your money because I'd be willing to bet my pension that the FBI or even local

agencies were following this individual for a very long time. And if there was anything there to charge him with, they would have did it just to get him off the street. So clearly that wasn't the case. But again, I think it's important to bring it up because there are probably still people out there, probably people listening to this episode right now who are sitting there going, oh, this guy's involved. And that's why I think it's important

to end this episode here because we still have two more potential suspects to talk about, an arrest, the science and the evidence behind that arrest, and also what it means for future cases, what can be done in future cases like this to maybe solve them. So still a lot to discuss.

I think it's probably a whole nother episode, right? Is that fair to say? Okay. One, even if he's not involved in what happened to Michaela, right? He's definitely involved in something. Two, I think you're giving the FBI way too much credit, but that's just my opinion. They probably stayed on him for a while, but then they were like, what's next? But three, yes, we definitely have to stop here and finish it in part two.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's, we'll end it here. There's a lot to digest. Do that, you know, go back, play it again, because I can tell you this. There's a lot more to this case. There's some recent new developments. If you decide to look them up, you'll see what we're talking about. And we're going to dive into those details in part two of Michaela Garrett's disappearance.

Don't look it up yourselves. Wait for us to tell you about it. You heard it from her. Okay, that's going to be it for this week. We'll be back next week with part two and the conclusion of the Michaela Garrett case. Before we go, though, we love hearing from you guys. We have the ability on our website for you guys to send us and leave us voice messages. So we do love hearing from you guys. We have the ability on our website for you guys to send us and leave us voice messages. So we do love hearing from you guys. And this week we heard from Ashley,

who gave us a great case recommendation. Hey guys, love the show. I just wanted to make a suggestion. Phoebe Hanschuk. She's a woman that fell down a very, very tiny trash chute, still unsolved. You guys are going to get lost in this one if you don't know it. And you guys have great chemistry too. Love you guys. Yeah. And yeah, Stephanie, we looked it up pretty quickly after we got the recommendation. We listened and watched everything you guys send. It does look like a fascinating case and also appreciate the compliments. It's always good to hear that you guys are enjoying the episodes. Thank you so much, Ashley. We love you. All right, guys. And don't forget, if you're a little shy and you don't want to leave a voice

message, you can always go to our social media, which is Crime Weekly Pod on all social platforms. Or as Stephanie said, you can go over to crimeweeklypodcast.com, leave us a message. We'll see you guys next week. Bye. Crime Weekly presented by i-D is a co-production by Audioboom and Main Event Media.