Crime Weekly - S1 Ep18: The Murder of Missy Grubaugh (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

It was just before dawn on April 7th 1994 at the Holly Park apartment complex in Arlington Texas when the residents of one of the buildings were evacuated due to a blazing fire that had started in one of the units. It was a three alarm blaze that damaged eight units and left twenty people displaced, but as the tenants stood outside, huddling together and watching the flames engulf their home, they noticed that someone was missing. 19 year old Missy Grubaugh was not standing amongst them, but her neighbors saw her car in the parking lot. The fire department was able to get the fire under control within an hour so they could locate the source, but they did not anticipate what they would walk in on. Missy was found laying on her bed, naked, and stabbed multiple times through the heart, and police believed that whoever had killed her had started the blaze to cover their tracks and to destroy evidence. In today’s episode we will discuss what happened to Missy, who was just days away from her 20th birthday, and we will find out who did this to her, and why. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_NhRiyowalHnbKjveNQxxA Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Hello everybody, welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. And today we are continuing with part two of the Missy Grubaugh case. And just, you know, as a spoiler, in case anybody was worried there would be another part or five other parts, this is the last part, only two parts. So you are safe. You can enjoy this without anticipation

that there might be another part. Because I know people always say that. They're like, oh, you should tell us beforehand how many parts there's going to be so we can anticipate it. But yeah, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know.

We don't want to rush it. We just kind of, we want to, we want to go through the case the way we want to go through it. Sometimes we go off on side notes. That's what we enjoy it. We enjoy doing it this way. So when you get caught up in it and you're having, you know, a good time with each other, telling the story, but also diving into the details, it can run a little long to be honest. So we don't, we don't like to put restrictions on ourselves. But I feel like you are going to hear things here that you probably won't hear anyplace else.

So there's value there. I'm biased, but I agree. Well, today we're going to continue on. But before we dive in, do we have anything we need to address, anything we want to talk about? Well, no. The only thing I think before we kind of go over what we talked about in part one is we've been talking about all these speak pipes. We've been getting a lot of them. And there was

actually someone who sent one and it was like, hey, you say you forward all these to Stephanie. So I'm going to make sure I'm holding you to that. And you did get that one. You got all of them. But I randomly went through today, picked one out, just, you know, through the list. No, you know, we weren't showing any favoritism to anyone. So we're going to play that right now. And then we'll respond to it. Hi, guys. My name's Usher.

I'm from Manchester in the UK. Just thought I'd come on here and send you a message to say that I think you're both absolutely amazing. I'm really, really loving the podcast and I think it's even better now that you're on YouTube um Stephanie I've been following you for ages on YouTube you're absolutely oh incredible you're one of my favorite YouTubers ever and Derek that's how I found you through Stephanie um I'm true crime obsessed and you two just make it even even better so uh keep up the good work and uh yeah hope to hear more from you which I'm sure I will okay bye guys oh that's so nice thank you uh thank you so much Asha yeah that was good and we get a lot of those so I apologize if we didn't pick yours this week That's so nice. Thank you. Thank you so they say certain words. And it's, um, it's cool to hear from you guys.

Yeah. I like hearing how, how people speak in different ways because, you know, we all have accents, even though we don't, we don't know we do, it's all regional based. And, you know, so when you hear people even in America from different areas, I love accents. So cool. Yeah. We appreciate it all the way from Manchester. So, um, we appreciate you checking it out and we're going to Manchester United. Yeah. And we are we are excited to be doing the YouTube as well. So glad you're glad we're on the same page. Well, let's talk about Missy Gruba. So when we we kind of explained what happened, how Missy was found, who she was, which is this really great person. She had great moral fiber. She knew what she wanted out of life. She was kind, but she also could stand

up for herself if it called for it. And she was brutally raped and murdered. And then whoever did this to her set her apartment on fire to cover up his evil deeds. And we had talked about, I believe, three suspects, right, before in part one? That's we've and we've ruled out two of them because of the blood not matching uh the suspect so the dna they don't have a full profile yet but they were able to decipher what the blood was at least and the blood type for the suspect did not match two of our victims and i believe that was um ivan ivan via and also our friend jeff smith jeff smith yeah but charles is still in the wind still in the wind you know still on the radar was someone who was staying with her um and and the police have not spoken to him up to this point

so the the break in the case and i really don't think that the detectives would have come upon this person had Missy's mother not called a month after Missy's death. And Missy's mother, Patty, she remembered something that Missy had told her just a few days before her death. And remember, Missy and Patty, her mother, they're talking on the phone every day. So this is really great, actually, because it's almost like this living journal. You know, Missy's not writing everything down, but she talks to her mom at the end of every day and she talks about what happened, who she saw, what she did, what she ate, things like that. And so Patty is basically like this living journal of Missy's experiences on the day-to-day. And this is where suspect number four comes in. So Louis Arroyo Jr. was a 32-year-old man who lived in the same apartment complex as Missy

with his pregnant girlfriend and their small baby. Louis and Missy knew each other not only because they lived in the same apartment complex, so they were technically neighbors, but because they also worked together at the Pizza Hut on South Cooper Street. And Missy had done some babysitting for Louis and his girlfriend so that she could earn extra money because, like we said, she's trying to save up money for college. She's working a lot. So even when she's not working at her two restaurant jobs, she's doing these odd jobs like babysitting for extra money. So two days before her murder, Missy had called her mother, as she did every day, and she mentioned that Louis Arroyo had showed up unexpectedly to her apartment that night

and they'd talked for a while, but then their friendly chat had turned into a pillow fight. So some sources I read said that they were talking about Louis's relationship, like his relationship with his girlfriend, that it wasn't good, it was rocky. Some others don't specify that. So I don't know if that's for sure what they were talking about. Since I feel like the only two people that would know are Louis and Missy, exactly what they spoke about. But the whole pillow fight thing, Missy's mother had felt that this was strange. And so did the police, right? A 32-year-old father, he's a grown man and he's having a pillow fight with a 19-year-old girl in her apartment. It's just not something that you hear every day.

And I think that Missy, she was so innocent and she was so naive, she probably didn't think anything about it. She probably wasn't like, this is odd. She probably is thinking, oh, we're having a pillow fight. This is fun. This is cool. And she didn't think that there was something strange about it. But I mean, you, as a grown man, could you imagine yourself going into a 19-year-old girl's apartment and having a pillow fight with her? No. No, I can't. And then you add on to it that you have your family, specifically your pregnant wife down the hallway, very odd behavior. And I'm just glad that Missy's mother acted on this gut instinct because as we'll talk about, and you said it just two minutes ago, not every case is going to be solved by good police work. And in a lot of cases, good police work is predicated on good cooperation and people coming forward and the community getting involved or family police may be the missing piece of the puzzle. You just don't know it. And so it's always better. And I tell people this all the time.

Tell me everything you know. And if you don't know, just say, I don't know. But don't leave anything out just because you don't think it's a value. Let me determine that. And I'm so glad she made the call because we talked about it in last episode. There were multiple potential suspects. And so you could rely on that and maybe get complacent. But Missy's mom wasn't going to do that.

She wanted to make sure they had the full story. So even though this is seems odd, doesn't necessarily make him seem like a murderer. Right. But it was odd enough for her to bring it up. And thank God she did. Yeah. They say, if you see something, say something. And I think there's a lot of times where people will be like, oh, that's not important. I'm not going to bother police, waste their time. They don't care. They want you to do that. As long as it's not a fake tip

and you're just calling it in to be a pain in the ass and insert yourself into an investigation, if it's legitimately something you think you saw or heard, even if you are you're questioning it, absolutely say something because they'll they'll do. And I think that most police officers at this point, if they've been in the game for a while, they can determine right out right away, you know, if something's sort of like important or essential or potentially essential or if it's just kind of it's not. So no, no tips too small. Yeah. And again, it could have this case went differently, but it could be a situation where someone calls and says a name and the detectives write the name down. They put it on a board. Right. Just like you see in the movies. That's what really does happen. A lot of times

you throw them up on a board. Right. That person's up there until they're ruled out definitively based on exculpatory evidence. But now the detective receives two more calls from completely different people who have no relationship with your previous caller. And they also mentioned this person. Well, guess what? Where there's smoke, there's fire sometimes. So that person now gets moved to the center of the board because now, well, this person had an argument with them. Not that big of a deal, but this were, they also worked with them. Okay. A little bit more. And Oh, by the way, they were seen in the area that night. Well, guess what? Now we're going to talk to them. So again, at the time, even when you present it to the police, it may feel like they're not really into it because maybe they're not at that point. But that could be something that contributes later. So again, like you just said,

if you see something, say something. Let the detectives decide whether it's useful or not. And at first, the police probably did think like, oh, this is just an outlier. He probably had nothing to do with it because they did a background check and they found out that he didn't have a criminal record. Lewis was an army vet. He'd even been given an award for heroism when he stopped a robbery that was happening at the Pizza Hut where he worked. And the manager, his manager of the Pizza Hut, said that Lewis had been a cook there for over a year. He was a model employee. He was even on the employee bowling team. And co-workers said that apparently Missy and Lewis were friends, like work friends. Sometimes they would go out after work and

grab a beer. And it's also said that Missy didn't drink. So I'm not sure if she was drinking when they went out after work and they had a beer. And I don't think she was even, was she 21 years old at this point? No. No, she was 19. Yeah, so maybe she went out with him and they went to like an Applebee's or something where he can get a drink and she can't. But often Missy would hang out with friends from work after work because when you work so much that those are your people. You don't have the chance to make other friends. You don't have the chance. You don't have hobbies. You're not in like clubs.

The people you work with become your friends. So they would all go out after work and, you know, grab something to eat, whatever. And those were her friend group. So they said that Missy and Louis were friends and they were fine with each other. And there'd never been any reason to think that anything inappropriate was going on. You know, they hadn't had a fight like Missy and Jeff had. They didn't have bad blood. They seemed all right. The police did pay attention, however, when one of the employees said that they'd all been talking about what happened to Missy.

Obviously, she worked there. There's going to be discussions happening about it. And apparently, Lewis had made a comment that, quote, he hoped they caught the son of the bitch who had raped and killed Missy. And Lewis went on to say that they probably wouldn't because all of the evidence would have burned up in the fire. Now, this was interesting, obviously, because the police had not made Missy's sexual assault public. And of course, it's possible that Lewis had just assumed or guessed, but it's still enough

to bring him in for questioning. And I did think this when I was reading it, like I think it's fairly reasonable to make a jump from this young girl was murdered and then you kind of go to, well, she was probably sexually assaulted because sometimes it seems so hard to understand why somebody would do this to somebody if there wasn't a sexual assault involved.

Do you feel the same way? Yeah, no, I think that's fair. why somebody would do this to somebody if there wasn't a sexual assault involved. Do you feel the same way? Yeah. No, I think that's fair. And I mean, there's so much to unpack there because we just kind of foreshadowed it, right? Like last episode, we talked about guilt knowledge, right? And the main example that we gave for guilt knowledge was being in an interview room, you know, interrogating a suspect and them saying something that implicates them, something that they shouldn't know. That is a prime example.

But here's another example that actually combines two things we talked about, guilt knowledge, but also coming from an additional witness. So we had the mom who called in about Luis Arroyo earlier, and it was just a pillow fight, may have been innocent, little weird, but innocent, right? But then you also have these coworkers calling in and saying, hey, I don't know if this means anything to you, but we have this coworker, his name is Luis Arroyo, and he said something tonight that was a little weird. He said that she was raped and killed, and he really hopes they catch that person. Well, the person on the phone may not know this, but the detectives have already been contacted about Lewis.

So he's already on the radar. And then you add that to the fact that he's describing something about the victim that nobody in the public, to the detective's knowledge, knows about. And it's a big something. This isn't something small that you could guess. This is very specific information about the condition of her body at the time of her death. So yeah, without a doubt, it's enough to bring him in for sure. And even when he said, you know, they probably won't find anything though,

because the fire would have burned all the evidence you know obviously you know there was a fire but if you're not kind of in the true crime space where that's what you think about when you're when you're dealing with like the crime or a murder of somebody you knew you're not over here saying like oh the fire probably burned all the evidence like i would say that because this is what i do all day you would say that because you used to be a police officer so you would assume the fire set, but normal people, I think they're not like, yeah, the fire was probably set to destroy the evidence.

You know, it could also be fishing too, right? Like he could have been in that conversation. We don't know the tone and intonation in which he said it, but could he have been saying it in a way he's like, oh, you know, maybe all, you know, I'm assuming all the evidence got destroyed

to get the opinions of the people around him. Like, oh yeah, you're probably right. Like, cause he's nervous. He wants reassurance yeah he's nervous he's nervous because he knows what he did and he he thinks he got away with it he thinks he did things the way it would be done to destroy the evidence but he's not completely sure yet you can't be sure yeah so don't commit crimes that you have to worry about after that's that's we we endorse that don't commit crimes that you have to worry about after. We endorse that. Don't commit crimes. That's Stephanie's new thing.

Don't commit crimes. Don't commit crimes, man. Don't come for me and don't commit crimes. Don't do both at once, though. I like how you said, would you say don't commit crimes that you don't want to get caught for? Don't commit crimes that you have to worry about later. Oh, that you have to worry about later. Make sure they're locked in. Make sure that you't commit crimes that you have to worry about later. Oh, that you have to worry about later. Make sure they're locked in.

Make sure that you covered your bases and you have no anxiety about it. I don't know. That's a t-shirt slogan right there. Don't commit crimes that you're going to worry about later. I just feel like you would worry about any crime though

because you don't know. Of course. You don't know. Of course. How like, you know, you hope that you covered it up, but especially as forensics, and this is 1994,

so forensics weren't even that like, was it in 1994, right? This was 1994 when they were, yeah, because we were talking about DNA and how long it takes to process. Yeah. So forensics aren't even that advanced at this point, but it was starting to become a thing. Starting to become a thing enough where he probably worried, like, did I leave a piece of me behind? And yes, he did. a thing starting to become a thing enough where he probably worried like did i leave a piece of me behind and yes he was worried enough to he was worried enough to burn an apartment down knowing there were other apartments in the building that could kill multiple people that's like i'm so mad about that i mean he had a complete disregard not only you know obvious at that point missy had already expired but everyone else surrounding it so So just to cover himself, he was willing to sacrifice all these innocent people.

It's such selfish, narcissistic behavior. It's just completely like, I don't care what happens as long as nothing happens to me. Exactly. Well, during his police interview, though, Louis Arroyo was the opposite of Jeff Smith. He was relaxed. He was respectful, polite, clean, caught. And he remained relaxed and at ease until the police asked him for a DNA sample so that they could exclude him as a suspect, at which point his demeanor completely changed. So obviously, at this point, when they're like, can we get some of your DNA? He's like, why? Why do you need my DNA? And he was like, I thought that the apartment had been set on fire,

so there's not going to be evidence to compare my DNA against. And Detective Lenore informed him that he was wrong. And I think in a documentary I watched, Detective Lenore was like, I went against what I usually do because this was knowledge that we had kept from the public. But I believe that Lenore at this point had a little bit of a sneaking suspicion as soon as he saw Lewis's demeanor change and how he got nervous. I think Lenore was like, okay, I've hit on something. I've hit a nerve here. And so he revealed to Lewis that they had found DNA. And this is the first person outside of the police department that's been told this at this point. And so Detective Lenore was like, no, Missy was raped. We retrieved semen from her body. And then all of a sudden, Lewis had someplace to be.

Like he had to rush out of there. He said he had to take his son somewhere. But he promised he would come back the next day and give a DNA sample. Now, once again, the police have nothing concrete against him. They can't just hold him on a hunch. So they had to allow him to leave. But when he didn't show up the next day to give this DNA sample, they called him and he made some excuse of why he couldn't come back

that day. And again, he promised he would come into the police station the day after to give the DNA sample. But when Lewis didn't come back the next day, the police went to his job to pick him up and bring him in. And then at that point, they were told that Lewis's girlfriend, Jeanette, his pregnant girlfriend, who's the mother of his son, she had called into his job and she said Lewis had to leave town for a little bit so he's not coming into work. But even more interesting than that is the fact that Jeanette was no longer Lewis's girlfriend. Jeanette was Louis's wife.

They'd gotten married the Monday before. The Monday he was supposed to come back initially to give the DNA sample. So he's at the police station on Sunday. They asked for a DNA sample. He's like, no, I got to go. I got to get my kid. I'll come back tomorrow and give you a DNA sample. But he didn't come back the next day. He got married to his girlfriend, Jeanette, instead. And why do you think he did that? What does this say to you? Well, you're asking me to get into the mind of somebody who's clearly disturbed. My hunch, and guys, weigh in on this as well. We love seeing your comments, but my hunch would be, he probably felt like he might've even confessed to her and told her like, listen, I did something.

I'm, I'm going away for a long time, if not forever. And I want to make sure that you and the baby are taken care of. You know, he was a mill, he was a vet, he was a vet. So he probably had a pension or retirement. Um, I don't know how that would work if she tried to claim it after he was convicted of murder, but I would assume that's the rationale because if he went away before that, I don't believe she would be entitled to anything. Only his son or daughter would be. So to give her the ability to control his finances, that's probably what he felt he needed to do.

So you're giving him a lot of credit. I'm giving him a lot of credit.'m giving him a lot of credit what is do you think it's simpler than that i yeah i think he got married so that she couldn't testify against him oh i like that i like that because now yes like the day after you know yeah i like that i think that's it's well so then we're so then okay because you're saying i don't think he cared if his kids and his his girlfriend were okay if he had to go to prison you know this is a guy who's gonna set self-preservation yeah he's gonna set an entire apartment building on fire to cover up a crime so he's not really caring about people on the periphery it's it's lewis lewis is number one and number only. a lot of people listening or watching this right now are going to agree with you because that does

you know sometimes the simple answer is the right one and maybe it was just like hey i don't want you being questioned about my whereabouts that evening you know so let's get married i wonder i bet you he didn't even say that i bet you he was like oh you know we have a kid together we got another one on the way you've been bugging me to pop the question. Well, I'm finally doing it, but I don't want to wait. Let's go to the courthouse now. I want you to be my wife 10 minutes ago, Jeanette. And she was like, wow, this is a change in your tune, but I'm going to go with it.

I mean, I hate to say it doesn't say much about her intuition, you know, but yeah, I guess maybe she was really blind, right? Yeah. Great point, though. intuition you know but yeah i guess maybe she was really blind right yeah great point though well the police they actually they now are going to pay janetta visit right lewis's new wife um she's heavily pregnant with their second child and she told them that she'd been with lewis for two years and they'd just moved into the hollybrook apartments about six months earlier which makes me wonder if lewis moved to that apartment complex because Missy lived there. You know, I was seeing that because I was obviously reading some of our notes before this,

and it kind of popped in my head too. Like, was there something there where he was working with her, knew of her, knew she was living there, and ironically found an apartment available there? I mean, I don't think you're wrong in that assumption. I don't think that's completely out of left field where it's like, that's so hard to believe. I think it's a completely valid assumption. Yeah. It definitely doesn't seem like a coincidence. They're working together and then all of a sudden she's getting her mail one day and Lewis is like, what? We're neighbors? This is crazy. No. I had family in Texas and Arlington specifically. And there is an apartment

complex on every single corner in that area. And it's and it's like it's interesting that that's the one that he ended up in could be a coincidence. But I tend to agree with you. This is really why I wish I could talk to these people in the cases, because Jeanette, for instance, obviously hindsight's 20-20, they say. But after it happens and you ask her, like, you know, what made you guys move to the apartment complex? Like, what was going on? And then you would kind of see it like sort of dawn on her. She starts to ask herself these questions that when it was happening, she thought it was completely normal. There was nothing nefarious about it or underlying about it. And then all of a sudden you look at what happened and then you look back at all these instances and they suddenly have a completely different meaning.

They all start to make sense. Yeah. Well, they talked to Jeanette and she said, you know, they just moved in six months ago. And she remembered Missy because Missy did some babysitting for them. And she said Missy was a very sweet girl. And Jeanette also vividly remembered the night of her murder. According to Jeanette, Louis had gotten out of work at around 10 or 1030. And then he called her and he said he was going to have a few drinks with friends before coming home. She said Louis got home around midnight, at which point he showered and then left again. And this time he didn't get back until a little after 2 a.m. But

when he came in after 2 a.m., Louis was coughing. He smelled like smoke. She said he had soot on his nose. So obviously his wife's like, what's happening here? You know, Jeanette says, what's happening? What's going on? He went out for a run and now you're coming back like this. And Louis told her that he'd been jogging. And because that's always the first thing that you do after you take a shower, you come home, you take a shower and then you go out for a nice jog. Naturally. Yes. And he said he was running and he heard a scream coming from one of the apartments and it was Missy's apartment. So he ran in there and he found her on the bed and he said that the fire had already started,

but he went in anyways and he tried to give her CPR, but the flames and the smoke were too much and they were overtaking him. So he left and he went home and then he and his wife went to bed or he and his girlfriend at that time. Jeanette wasn't his wife yet, but they went to bed. And he claimed that he hadn't called the police because he didn't like the police. And apparently Jeanette didn't question this whole

scenario and they just went to sleep. So do you think that Jeanette knew more than she was initially saying? You know, I reading it and seeing it again, back to what I was saying about, uh, you know, could he have gone to her and confided in her? The story like this makes me think yes, where he might've confessed to her what he did. And that's why she agreed to get married. Cause it would make a lot of sense, right? She's either, she's very naive or she kind of knew more than she was saying. And she understood that she needed to get married right away because he was going away for something heinous. And so, yeah, when you see this description of what happened that night and how it's,

it's a strong attempt to clear him of any wrongdoing and even explain why his DNA would be on her body. There's some thought that went into that. So either A, Lewis came up with this whole alibi before going back into the apartment, which I have a hard time believing because you're under a lot of stress. You're trying to cover your tracks. Or this was conceived after he spoke to detectives and they came up with a story together. Oh, you think that they came up with this alibi together?

It would make sense because now Lewis knows that they have DNA. He knows that the detectives have something. And now it's like, whoa, I got to come up with an explanation for why my DNA is going to be on her because eventually I'm going to have to give them DNA. And, you know, he might have went back to her and said, listen, I got to tell you something. Now that said, do I think he told her that he was obsessed with her, wanted to have sex with her? She didn't. So he got upset and killed her.

Nope. But that's, that's probably the, you know, the, obviously that that's what I think happened, but his version was probably something much different. I don't even want to guess what his version would have been, but he probably had an explanation for why something happened and why she ended up dying. Um, that's not the truth clearly, but it was enough for her to believe it and lie for him right so i i think following that if that's what happened he probably said like oh no janet i don't know who did this but i went in to give her cpr and now i'm going to get this pinned on me

so we have to come up with something yeah we have to come up with something i don't think he went and he was like hey i just killed this girl and now I need you to lie for me and cover it up. You know, is it possible again, we'll never know, but is it possible that he goes in there and says, listen, I'm not going to lie to you. This girl was obsessed with me. And she told me she wanted to be with me. And I've been telling her right along that, you know, I have, I love you and I'm with you. And she literally, she killed herself, you know, like she killed herself. And she, cause she said, if I couldn't, if I wasn't going I'm with you. And she literally, she killed herself, you know, like she killed herself. And she, cause she said, if I couldn't, if I wasn't going to be with her, nobody was, you know, I wasn't going to be with anybody. Um, again, farfetched, but we're talking about

a psycho here. So we're, it's not too farfetched when you think about the type of person we're talking about. Again, it's, it's fascinating, right? Like it could be, it's so it's, it could be two ends of the spectrum here, right? It's either she knows very little and she's just very naive or she's helping him abate capture right now. Like she's trying to help him get out of a murder charge. Well, these cases like this, it really like redefines the whole the room where it happened kind of thing.

Like I would love to be a fly on the wall in these situations because we can speculate, like, what did he say to make her go along with this? Did she actually buy it? You know, I mean, I know she could have just been naive, like you said, and very trusting in her husband. He may have been the dominating force in that relationship. And she was like, OK, if you said that's what it is, that's what it is. You've never given me a reason to not trust you before. But I feel like even a very naive woman if her husband showered and then went out for a run and then came home like smelling like smoke and with this bizarre story she might maybe second guess it and and it doesn't seem like jeanette did that initially no and i do think this is probably a point where we should qualify we're not going to do it it often, but this is definitely a point to qualify and say, you know, Jeanette has never

been charged with a crime. And as far as we know, she was not aware of what happened before, after, anyway. So Jeanette is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and it doesn't appear she's going to be charged with anything anytime soon. So as far as we're concerned, Jeanette is innocent in this whole thing. Yeah, well, what they wanted to do after they talked to Jeanette was they needed a search warrants to go into the Arroyo house or the apartment and look for things. But what they really wanted from that apartment was Lewis's dog tags, because your dog tags have your blood type on them, obviously, in case you're in war and the medic comes up and you've been exploded and you need a blood transfusion,

the medic knows what kind of blood to give you. So that's what that's for. But in this situation, it actually helped detectives match Lewis to the blood type of this human found on Missy without him being present because he's gone at this point. He he's flown the coop he's in the wind with charles him and charles are probably together having a beer and and talking about how they took advantage of missy and treated her like crap and he's not around so they can't get his blood um i was thinking though like if they hadn't had the dog tags could they have taken blood from his son? Or it doesn't necessarily mean that they're the same blood type, right? Yeah, I don't think they necessarily would be the same blood type. A serologist might correct us on that, but I don't believe it's always the case.

But I will say, for me, just thinking out loud, if Jeanette was not cooperative, I would have found out what branch of the military he was in and I would have went and subpoenaed. Now, granted, I will say anytime you're dealing with military, it's extremely hard to get anything through. But, you know, I would have went that route as well because I'm sure his medical records are readily available if you have the proper paperwork for him. Because the military is going to cooperate with you. They don't want those types of people representing their uniform. Have you ever seen A Few Good Men? I love A Few Good Men.

I love that movie. Tom's the man. But yeah, I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. They have their own like legal system, man. They get away with all sorts of garbage. Yeah. But if you go in there with the proper paperwork, you know, again, and I do agree with you,

it's hard because they have their own ecosystem, right? And so they don't usually like outsiders coming in. And, you know, and so I do agree with you, it's hard because they have their own ecosystem, right? And so they don't usually like outsiders coming in. And so I do agree with that. But in this particular case, if the wife, the now new wife, wasn't cooperative, that would have been my next stop is getting a court order for his blood type, his medical records. Well, the blood type, it was a match, right? So they figured, we haven't got the DNA profile back. At least we can eliminate or not eliminate Lewis with this blood type, it was a match, right? So they figured, you know, we haven't got the DNA profile back.

At least we can eliminate or not eliminate Louis with this blood type and then figure out what we do next. But the blood type was a match. And this allowed the detectives to get a rest warrant for Louis Arroyo Jr. But once again, they didn't know where he was. So they turned back to Jeanette. See, the police suspected that Jeanette did in fact know more than she was saying, specifically where Louis was, even though she told them she had no idea where he was. But they upped the ante. So they come back to Jeanette and they're like, we really need to know where Louis is.

And they use their trump card. They're like, listen, I know you know Missy's dead, but did you know that before Missy died, whoever did this to her had raped her? And then Jeanette was pretty much like yo here's the address do you need me to drive you can I can I come in will you hold him while I punch him you know or should I hold him and you punch him but for real though this makes me think that she knew that Louis or at least suspected you know obviously I don't know but I think that she may have suspected that Louis was the one who killed missy because if the police were like oh listen missy was raped janelle would have been like yeah probably by the same person who killed who killed missy not my

husband you know but the fact that they were like she was raped and then janette was like oh this is a problem for me like i'm really upset by this It makes me think that she knew that the rapist and the murderer were one and the same. Were interconnected. Yeah. And which even gives more credence to your theory that he gave her a version of what happened that night, similar to what he planned on telling the police. And he was basically trying to manipulate her into buying his story as well. So it wasn't something that would be contradicted in the end and also to cover himself because if he admitted to having sex with this woman, consensually, non-consensually, it's clearly rape. But if he had tried to spin it anyway, Jeanette would have turned on him initially. So he wasn't going to give that information and kudos

to the police for doing it because I will tell you that's a tactic that's used very often by police. You guys may not be a fan of it, but I'm guilty of doing it on many occasions where we'll have someone who, you know, the closest person to them is their wife or girlfriend. And, you know, when we're doing our, you know, our surveillance on them, we learn that this individual is unfaithful to his wife or girlfriend. And that is a trump card that we will go to when we need that pertinent information. And I will say more times than not, it'll work. I'll even tell you, there's been times where I've physically showed the girlfriend or wife, the text messages or images of our surveillance footage, you know, where we're like, hey, you're going to stick with them no matter what, right? That's what you're

telling me. Oh, well, was he with you last night? Because I was following him and he was with her. And just like this scenario, most of the time, it's like, what do you need and can I come? Exactly right. It's leverage. It's leverage, which I see the point in it. It's just about like, when are you using it? Are you using it for good or evil? If you're going to use it to catch somebody like Luis Arroyo, that's great. But if you're going to use it to, you know, like I know it's probably not real life,

but I've seen it in movies where they're like, listen, if you don't like inform for us, we're going to throw you onto the bus with your wife and you'll lose everything. Does that happen? Um, I don't want, well, you put me under the gun here, right? You don't have to answer, but that will speak volumes. No, listen, listen, but listen, I will, I'll tell you guys straight out, you know, listen, we have to work within, you know, the confines of the law always. And I'm never going to deviate from that because I got to be

better than the people I'm trying to catch. However, there is a gray line there. And something like you just said, that scenario where it's like, Hey, listen, we just arrested you with, you know, an ounce of cocaine. Okay. There's two options here. Option one, we're going to arrest you. You're going to get charged with this crime, you know, possession of, you know, cocaine over one hour, whatever it is. And you're going to go on with your life and you're going to handle it within the court process. You know, we have you, everything was on the up and up. That's one option. However, there is another option. And the other option is that you got

that ounce from someone, someone who has a lot more than an ounce. And to be frankly honest with you, I'd rather catch him because he's the bigger problem. So you have to make a decision if you want to go that route or not. If you're willing to come over to our side and inform for us and make a confidential purchase, we may be able to work with the attorney general to reduce your sentence or reduce the charge. And we'll be there on your behalf to say you cooperated, but it's your choice. But some people may see that as shady, you know, and that's the reality of it. But we sometimes have to do that to get the bigger fish. So does that kind of answer your question?

Yes. Yes. And, you know, I did talk about this recently in a video. There's like, you know, I forget exactly how many, but I think three or four things the police can legally lie to you about. And, you know, as long as the police are using these things to catch the bad guys who are out there hurting other people, that's fine. But what did you ask me the other day? You asked me the other day, like we were talking about something and you were like oh don't they we were talking about prostitution stings oh yeah sex if uh sex worker stings i apologize you said you went undercover and to to you know do these things and i said well um don't don't they have to ask you or can't they ask you like are you a cop and you have to say yes and you were like no that's just in the movies absolutely but that's that's to your point

those are the things that people don't realize but when i was doing um sex worker stings a lot of times the sex worker would get in the car the first thing they would ask me is are you a cop and i'd go no not and they go okay well i guess you're not so where did this fallacy come from do you think it was like put out there just so that people feel safe once they ask, are you a cop? And you say, no, they're like, okay, I'm good. I don't know. But they genuinely believe it because after, you know, after this thing goes down, they're

like, oh, but he lied. He didn't say he was a cop. So I'm going to, I'm going to beat this anyways. I'm like, okay. And, you know, so it goes on, but, but that is, there are a lot of things out there. You know, it is, there is policy and procedure too, where you get stopped by a law enforcement officer when during a stop, you can ask for their badge and name and yeah, they do have to give it, you know, but this is not one of those cases. So it says broadly speaking, law enforcement officers do not have a legal duty to disclose either their identities or their agencies of affiliation, even if asked directly. Right. But some departments, especially now, are demanding it. They're putting it into policy where if you get stopped by someone and it's a situation where it's safe and you can do so on a traffic stop and they ask for your information, you're going to give it to

them on a ticket anyways, just say it, avoid the issue. So I know some departments are transitioning to that. Because I thought it was like, I thought it was considered entrapment. If you pick up a sex worker under the guise of like a regular John and you're not saying you're a cop, it's, it feels like entrapment, right? It's very, it's a fine, it's a, even the transaction itself. Maybe we'll do a bonus episode or something on these types of things. Cause I think, you know, people come here for the story and I feel like I'm getting so far off, but it's like, no, it's not entrapment because the way the questioning gets asked. So if I'm stopping someone who's a sex worker, or I pull up to someone, that's a better thing. If I pull up in a car,

that person has to initiate the sex worker has to initiate the conversation of an exchange of a sexual act for money. So if I'm like, hey, I'll give you $100 for a blowjob. It may go in court, but I think there's an illegal argument there for the defense where it's like, hey, you brought it to my client and they disagreed to it, but they weren't soliciting you for sex in exchange for money. And I've seen cases like that get thrown out. So my policy was always, hey, what are you up to? You want to go for a ride? And usually when they get in the car, they would say, because it's an awkward moment, I won't say anything. They'll say, hey, so what are we doing? I don't know. What do you want to do? All right. Listen, for all the sex workers out there, you heard this.

All right. So when you get in the car, don't say shit. Wait for him to talk. Yeah, I guess so. Wait for him to talk. Yeah, I guess so. Wait for him to talk or her and then go and do your thing. All right. Because that's your body, girl. You get it. Or I know I'm just going to end it.

He's like, I am not winning this. I'm not winning that way. I know. Don't come for me. Don't come for me. Well, so I was I was in the wrong web page because I was looking and I was like what where did my how did my notes get so long yeah um yeah we definitely have a lot of stories we could talk

about it's right you and i could talk for hours yeah well so jeanette did give them the address where lewis could be found um the day after the arrest warrant for lewis had been issued his car was found in san antonio and it was set on fire. But Lewis's mother happened to also live in San Antonio and this is where they found him at her house, which seems really stupid. Because I feel like if you're running away from the cops and then you abandon your car and set it on fire, you probably wouldn't want to do that in the city that you're planning to stay in. You know, like throw them off, you know, go to like Fort Worth, set your car on fire, then go to San Antonio. But this is not what Lewis did. So he's really good at setting things on fire to try to get rid of the evidence, but really bad at it at the same time. Well, when they found him, I guess that, you know, the San Antonio police took him into custody and then

the Arlington detectives went to San Antonio to question him. And, you know, Lewis was no longer relaxed and pleasant and clean cut. He was an absolute mess. They said that he was curled up on the floor. He was sobbing. They thought he was having maybe a mental regression of some kind. And his story had now changed. So Lewis Arroyo said that he and Missy had engaged in consensual sex. And he'd been gentle with her since he knew that it was her first time.

And this really doesn't sit well with me or the Arlington police, because they knew, you know, they'd been there at that scene. They'd seen how Missy's body had been brutalized. They'd seen the reports with the injuries. They were present at the autopsy. So for him to say it was consensual and then for him to say it was consensual when she'd clearly been assaulted, for him to say that he was gentle with her because it was her first time, it was kind of like adding insult to injury. They

were not happy with that. And remind everyone, we talked about it quickly last episode there were you know there was yes there was a stab wound we know that but there were also signs that she was punched in the left eye yeah she was hit yeah she was punched in the left eye there's nothing can you know there's nothing nothing gentle nothing nothing gentle and nothing that suggests that's consensual right if you're going to that, there's something going on there where one party is not getting what they want. And they're trying to use physical force to get that or get or gain compliance. And so, yeah, he's he's he's full of it. I don't know about in every situation.

Like, I do know that there's people, OK, that that like to have rough sex, that that pay people to like abuse them like this. But consider the victim. This is Missy. She's innocent. She's, you know, 19 years old. She's a virgin. She was not even going to have sex with her own boyfriend who she'd been building something with for, you know, almost a year, I think.

But now she's going to have consensual sex with Louis Arroyo, her married neighbor who has kids, and then she's going to, what, ask him to hit her in the face? No, nobody's buying that. Nope. So Louis also claimed that he didn't remember killing her. He said he might have stabbed her, but he didn't admit to setting the fire either. And, you know, he didn't really confess to anything. That's what the detective, Detective Lenoir said in the documentary that I watched. Like, it wasn't really a confession. He was just sort of like, yes, I had sex with her. I might have killed her. I definitely didn't start

the fire, you know, and I think that he was trying to get out. And I don't know if it was you I was talking to or about this case or somebody else, but i think he was trying to get out of what is it called when you when you try to kill people um i'm having a really weird day today so there's how many people in this apartment building right and he sets it on fire so that's attempted attempted murder of several several people right so i think he was trying to to avoid that maybe because that's very serious and it was i think it can be considered can can attempted murder if you set up an apartment building on fire it's not just arson right yeah if you're intentionally lighting a building on fire knowing that there are other people in the building um it would definitely be i believe

the charge would be something more along the lines of like, you know, arson. Negligent homicide or something. Yeah, something. And again, Texas Penal Code might be different, but because like even Rhode Island, there's no murder charge. It's felony assault, death resulting. So every state is different.

But yes, to your point, the arson with an intent to destruct evidence, which could residually result in the death of others, which, yeah, they're going to throw the book at him for sure. Well, so Lewis didn't confess to doing anything besides having consensual sex with Missy. But the DNA did finally come back and it was a match for Lewis and he was charged with capital murder. Now, what police believe happened is that Lewis developed an attraction to Missy, and he'd gone there on the night of her murder thinking that their pillow fight had kind of been like her flirting with him or her opening the door for him.

Like, oh yeah, you know, this is possible. But then when she went there that night and he tried to convince Missy to have sex with him and she refused, he got angry. He assaulted her, and then he killed her. And then he set her apartment on fire to cover his tracks. And by the way, this is very common in a case where you have someone who is sexually assaulted and whether they're killed or not, you'll have the offender come in and say, oh,

I never had sex with that person. I don't know what you're talking about. But then once there's definitive proof, it always changes to, oh, but it was consensual. I'm here to tell you, after the fact, when you admit that, it's not going to fly 99.9% of the time. Because if that's the case, you should have said it initially. You coming to us after the fact when we have you red-handed, it's not going to help you. And again, that appears to be the case here. I think you're spot on. I think their analysis is spot on. I even think you bring up a great point as far as, you know, did he move to this apartment in the first place because of this attraction to her? And I think it's not a hard sell to say he felt some type of way the other night, you know, when they had the pillow fight he goes in there

with the intent that it's going to go somewhere further we've talked about missy you know in the first episode this episode the type of person she was she was strong in her faith but she was also someone who didn't take anything from anyone and i and i think when he pushed it she probably pushed back really hard that maybe that's where the the assault happens and then he him realizing what's going on he's going to take what he wants from her in that moment and you know we don't have to go into the details but he does and then he realizes he can't he can't leave her around right because he knows what what's going to happen then and he goes the the length that he goes but i think they nailed it i think it all makes. And you talked about the pieces starting to connect for the wife or girlfriend. I think they connected for everyone.

Yeah. Well, it's just crazy because Lewis's manager at the Pizza Hut, he could not believe that his model employee, this guy who won an award for heroism, for stopping a robbery, couldn't believe that he'd done something like this. And the manager said, quote, it's shocking. It's very surprising because it doesn't fit. He doesn't fit the mold, end quote. And I think that this is really an important lesson to learn. There were several suspects in this case, and each one of them had the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Some of them had criminal records. Some of them had actual reportable arguments with Missy, like Jeff, threatening her life. And it really makes me sad because it seemed like Missy, who saw the best in everyone, had been involved with so many people

who didn't have much good in them to see. She let her friend live with her, Charles. She let her friend live with her when he didn't have any place to go and he stole the money she'd been working so hard to save for college. She was in a relationship with Ivan, who knew that she wanted to wait until she was married to have sex. She was upfront with him about that, but it didn't stop him from becoming frustrated when they didn't have sex. And he probably made her feel bad about it or tried to make her feel bad about it. She worked with an absolute asshole, Jeff,

who did something wrong and then threatened to kill her feel bad about it. She worked with an absolute asshole, Jeff, who did something wrong and then threatened to kill her when she exposed him. Like you did something wrong and now it's her fault that you got fired and you're in trouble. And by the way, Jeff Smith, he served four years for kidnapping his girlfriend, Kristen, four years in prison for that.

But the real culprit, it ended up being Louis, an adult man who had a clean record. He was a veteran. No one had a bad word to say about him. He was apparently a devoted partner and father. And this man was so intent on covering up his evil deeds, he was willing to set fire to an apartment building that had dozens of people sleeping inside of it,

including small children. And the level of selfishness and evil in that man is just, it's unbelievable. He'd gone his whole life without anyone ever seeing that he was capable of something like that, without anybody seeing the evil, the darkness in him. And the scariest part is he might have gotten away with this too. If he hadn't closed that apartment door behind him and starved the fire of oxygen, the fire would have ripped through Missy's apartment. It would have burned everything, including her body, which had the evidence on it. And it breaks my heart, you know, to think that Missy, who gave so much to

everyone else, the one thing that she had kept safe from the world, that she'd kept for herself, it was her virginity, her perceived honor. She was saving that for the person that she loved. And Louis Arroyo not only stole her life from her, but he brutally stripped her of her virginity. And those were the last moments of her life. And there's nothing, there's no way around it. I don't care what his reasonings were or what his justifications were that's evil and and he probably you know he should stay in prison forever and i think that's the plan i don't think maybe something should be cut off i don't know i'm not gonna say that that it should be but maybe just snip snip i will say prison rules are different when you're inside the prison they have a lot of uh

prison's a weird place man you can kill someone um that's another adult and it's you know it's okay but when uh people go to prison for um child molestation sexual assault even the prisoners don't like that sometimes sometimes but you you know the thing about prison is i understand it's a punishment it's a punishment for some people, but some people thrive in there, man. Like they are happier behind bars than they are out in the open. They have their meals for them. They get together their little gang of friends. They have clout and power in prison. They call shots in prison. It's a whole different culture and they thrive there. And I've heard stories of people who are going to be released and they're like, no, I don't want to be released. What's out there for me? I'm nobody out there.

I'm everything in here. People look up to me. People respect me in here. Why am I going to go out there? I hope that's not the case for Lewis. That's for sure. Yeah, I hope so too. Being convicted of capital murder. He's got a life sentence. He better get comfortable there.

Hopefully he does have some connections in there. Cause otherwise it's going to be a, it's going to be a long stint for him. No, hopefully he has no connections and he's miserable. Miserable. I agree. That was sarcasm on my part.

I def, I definitely agree. I hope he's not enjoying any second of being in there. He's got a light prison, but look, his next parole review date is May of 2034. So. Which is crazy to me. Which is crazy.

And it's Texas. And, you know, Texas is known for just shooing people out the door because of prison overcrowding. Well, let's hope not. You know, a couple of takeaways from this episode, uh, you with, with, with Lewis again, you know, the, the pizza hut manager said it, you know, as far as, you know, sometimes you can have a good person become a bad person very quickly, or they're at least able to hide it. And my takeaway from this case is I don't necessarily believe that Lewis went to her

apartment that night with the intent on killing her. He went there with the intent on having sex with her. And although he might not have been a murderer in that moment, when she didn't give him what he wanted, his true side came out and it just showed the lengths he was willing to go to not only get what he wanted, but to also come out of it unscathed. And so yes, the Pizza Hut guy didn't see that at work, but he also didn't see the type of person Lewis became when he was told no. So that's my big takeaway here on this is, again, the police did a good job, but the real hero here is Missy's mom. That's the hero because her getting the ball rolling by bringing lewis to the to the table um i'm sure played a factor in in the detectives you know decision

making process when at a later date these co-workers came forward with the same name and having another piece of information that didn't paint Lewis in the best light. And so who knows, there might've been a real scenario where when this mother and you know, she, when Missy's mom initially called the police said, ah, you know, the pillow fight, it's not good. We'll look into it, but it's, you know, could be nothing. But again, by her putting that in their mind, she played a huge factor in ultimately this case being solved. And it was a community effort. It was Missy's mom. It was the coworkers. It was everyone coming together to point detectives in the right direction so that they could do what they needed to do, which was get the DNA, compare it, get him in a room, squeeze him a little bit,

get him to start making some mistakes and ultimately land him in jail where he is today, you know? So it was a good job by everyone. Yeah. I mean, I think it says more. I agree. I don't think he went there saying I'm going to murder her tonight. But I think it says more about his temper. And I don't I don't usually like to get into the whole toxic masculinity talk because I think it's a it is a generalization that I'm not comfortable with. But with him, that that label is very accurate, right? This is a man who feels entitled to what he wants. She never told him she wanted to have sex with him. So they have a talk and they have a pillow fight.

And in his head, he's thinking, this is her telling me that she wants me, like I want her. But because he was already obsessed with her, in my opinion, that's what I think, he was already obsessed with her. So the smallest thing would have made him feel like, oh, it's on. And then he goes there and she says no. And he has the balls to be surprised by this. Like what? After the pillow fight?

How dare you? And then he snaps at that point. So this is, like you said, not only a man that can't hear no, but he's entitled to something that he feels entitled to something that he's not actually entitled to. So he's not even hearing no about something really. He's hearing no about something he should have already known it was a no about. And then you snap. So it's even worse at that point because you feel like this is a girl and she should be throwing herself at you. And then you make your move and she's like, no. And you take that personally. I think it was his ego. Because

when a man's ego, a toxic male, not all men, but when a toxic male's ego is bruised or wounded, his response usually is violence and anger. It's not ever like, oh, is this about me? Did I do something to cause this reaction? It's like, oh, how dare you? And then they lash out. And that's very dangerous. Yeah. And unfortunately, we see a prime example of it with Missy. And again, if Missy's family, anyone hears this or sees this, our thoughts are with you guys. Um, you know, Missy seemed like an amazing person. We're glad to see that, you know, her offender, um, is in prison where he belongs. Um, maybe he's actually getting off easy, you know? Um, but he's, he's not going to do it to anybody else. And there's no, there's no positive side to any of these stories, but at least you have some answers to what happened to your loved one because a lot of people don't even get that.

And it's, you know, what is it, 40, 50% of murders go unsolved in this country. So, again, we're thinking of you guys. And it's also, I don't usually, he's going to have two kids, right? So Louis has two kids. And it's not. Their lives are but sometimes you wonder like are they better off to not have to grow up with this man than to not have a father you know like are they better off to never have known their father or don't remember him like

probably right but i don't know it's still sad because they didn't ask for this like they didn't no you make a great point because they they are also they are also victims in this case because they are going to be affected for the rest of their lives and that's a burden i can't imagine being a child of a murderer but that's something i'm sure that weighs weighs heavily on you so again there's a lot of people in here that are affected by it i will say this i don't know if we mentioned it but a side you know one positive thing is that nobody was killed in that fire. Nobody because of his negligence and everyone got out of there okay, even though it was a close call. They got that ambulance happened to be passing by.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a sad story. Sad story. Another one. But it's good to see that the justice system sometimes works and gets it right. And hopefully he stays there. That's the big thing here.

I'll be writing letters. I got the address already. I'll be writing letters every day. You guys can too. You guys can too. Yeah, we're not letting him out. No. So that's all we got.

I think that's it for this week, right? Yeah. Another week in the books. Yeah, we'll be back with a new case next week. Send your case requests because you never know. There's going to be times when we're milling around like, what should we cover? And we might just see the one that you just shot over. It'll be right timing, and then we'll jump on that one.

So we've got a new case next week. Thank you guys so much for being here. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Don't forget to go to our website, CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com, so you can leave us a speak pike, speak pike, speak pipe, like the one we played at the start of the episode. Thank you guys so much for being here and we'll see you soon. Bye. See you later.