Crime Weekly - S1 Ep36: Disappearance at Indiana University: Lauren Spierer (Part 3)

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

Check out Vodacast for this episode! --  http://feed.vodacast.com/55970855/Crime%20Weekly/36:%20Disappearance%20at%20Indiana%20University:%20Lauren%20Spierer%20(Part%203) “It is shocking that someone so loved could vanish without a trace, but entirely possible. It did happen and ten years later I still struggle. The space that once held hopes and dreams for Lauren will never heal. It is replaced by an ache fueled by the not knowing”. Those were the words Charlene Spierer wrote on the ten year anniversary of the disappearance of her daughter Lauren. When Lauren’s parents dropped their daughter off at Indiana University in the Fall 2009 for the start of her freshman semester, they had felt she would be safe to learn and grow and then she would come back home, ready for the next chapter in her life. But Lauren never came back home, and to this day, ten years later, no one has any idea where Lauren Spierer is, but her parents and many others believe that there is someone, or more than one someone, who does know more than they’re saying, and who could help bring the Spierer family some closure. Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Hello everybody, welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Arlo. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Today we are finishing the Lauren Spear case. We are just freshly back from Nashville. I know I'm a little jet lagged and tired and exhausted. Yeah, I think they're going to hear it in both of our voices. Don't say that. I know I hear it in my voice. I was telling you before we started recording, I hear a little bit more of a raspy. I have a raspy voice a little bit anyways, but I feel like it's extra raspy today. I don't know. Extra raspy. Maybe it's just me being self-conscious. I don't know. I fell asleep at like 11 o'clock last night, woke up at nine o'clock this morning, and that's a lot

of sleep. That's a lot of sleep for me. And I could have slept for way longer. I've been exhausted for days just feeling like I can't snap out of it. Yeah. Yeah, can't catch up. And it was only an hour difference in time, so it can't really be that. I don't know. No, but we put in the work, though. I mean, we were going, we were getting up early,

going to the speaking sessions. We were negotiating with all these, you know, the people at the exhibitors, I guess you would call them, right? Yeah. So, you know, it was a good week.

We won't go and, we won't bore you guys with all the details, but we did learn a lot. We got some possibilities with new equipment. We told anyone who watched the YouTube live feed, you already know all this. So now that we're home, in hindsight, it was definitely worth going. I'll say that much.

Yes. But I'm excited to wrap up this case today because it's kind of been on my mind and today I was I actually got a bunch of emails just this week from people who've been watching the show and listening with like different theories and stuff so we are going to discuss that in this video and I'm excited to dive into that but before we dive into the theories we do want to talk about a civil lawsuit that was involved in this case. So in May of 2013, Lauren's parents, Charlene and Robert Spear, they filed a civil lawsuit against Corey Rossman, Michael Beth, and Jason Rosenbaum. They alleged that Lauren's status was a result of their negligence,

considering that they'd been supplying an underage Lauren with drugs and alcohol, or allegedly drugs. And they said that they kept giving her alcohol, even though they could see visibly that she was very intoxicated. They claimed that they didn't really want to file the lawsuit, but they felt they had to in order to get more information from those who were with Lauren on the night she was last seen. Because if you guys remember, Lauren's parents were consistently feeling frustrated

that they wanted to ask these guys questions and kind of get a better understanding of what happened that night. And they weren't really getting the answers that they wanted. And with a civil lawsuit, what's happening is you're basically forcing these people to go under oath and testify. So they were hoping to get some more information they didn't have before. Now, according to the lawsuit, the defendants had abandoned Lauren in an intoxicated and disoriented state in the early morning hours of June 3rd in an area known for criminal acts. And this contributed to her disappearance and then her presumed injuries and or death. Now, attorneys for all three of these men argued that the lawsuits should be dismissed,

and one individual was dropped from the case shortly after the lawsuit was filed, and that was Michael Beth. He hadn't given her alcohol that night. He tried to bring Lauren to someone who would take care of her, and that was Jay Rosenbaum. However, the judge on the suit, her name was Tanya Walton Pratt, she did allow the lawsuit to go forward against Jay and Corey. Jay Rosenbaum's attorney said that even if his client had a legal duty to ensure Lauren's safety, her parents couldn't claim

negligence because it had only been a few years and Lauren would not be legally presumed dead until she'd been missing for seven years. So the court couldn't even really presume at this point that Lauren was not alive and well, somewhere out there. On October 1st, 2014, a federal court dismissed the civil negligence lawsuit against Corey Rossman and Jay Rosenbaum, claiming that Charlene and Rob had failed to prove that either man was responsible for Lauren's disappearance. Jason Barclay, who was the family attorney for the Spears, announced that they would be appealing this decision, saying, quote, I'm heartbroken that the defendants at their team of defense lawyers will not allow the Spears to get a simple question answered. What happened to their daughter that night, end quote. This is an interesting one. And it's like, we can wear multiple hats on this because we obviously, we're here to work for the victims and their families, but we're also both parents. And it's easier for us to kind of be objective here because it's not our daughter, right? Because I probably would be doing the exact same thing they're doing, if not worse, I'd probably be in jail. But completely understand

where they're coming from without personally ever experiencing it and hoping that I never do. But as far as the law is concerned, looking at it from the other side, if Corey or Jay was my son, I agree with the court. I completely agree with the court. I don't believe that not deciding to walk her home, if that's what happened, rises to the level of negligence that you can say their decision to not walk her home is the reason she's dead or disappeared. And I think that's what happened here where it's like, listen, they made a decision to not walk her home. They didn't have a legal responsibility to do so. Ethically, as we discussed in part two, they should have. Man or woman, friend or not, you don't let a

young girl who's, what was she, five feet? I know she was 90 to 95 pounds. How tall was she? She was tiny. I think she was under five feet. Okay, under five feet. Like 4'11", maybe? 4'11", and I know that I've seen it all over the place, 90 to 95 pounds and clearly not under the right mindset to walk home alone in that area. So they didn't do what they should have done as young men in that situation, whether they were drunk or not. And as their father or mother, I'd be like, what were you thinking? You should have walked her home. But legally, are they responsible for not walking her home? I don't think so.

And I think that's where the court comes in here, where they're like, listen, we feel for you. We're sorry for your loss, but we can't force these guys to answer questions when it doesn't meet the threshold that we need to meet, even in a civil case. And the standard is a lot less in a civil case, but there still is a standard. And so without proving that their actions directly resulted in her disappearance and or death, that's why the case was dismissed. Yeah. Maybe it wasn't legally negligent, but you could say it was morally, ethically negligent.

And I mean, it sucks because they were feeding her drinks, right? Even though she was underage, even though she was clearly drunk, they were continuing to feed her drinks. But at the end of the day, she's over the age of 18, she's an adult. And there's some sort of accountability that needs to be taken there. And that's not her fault. I mean, she was drunk, so she can't make the decision to stop drinking. It's a really slippery slope. It's a really shitty situation because I think that they should maybe be held legally responsible i mean when you're when you're drunk like that you you don't have this adult decision making capability to be like i've had too much to drink and when you have people around you are supposed to care

about you and you know take care of each other to keep giving her alcohol when she was clearly had way too much was incredibly irresponsible and you know i think bordering on i don't know i don't know it was it was bad but and that's why i say it's a slippery slope because then if you held them responsible for this how many others can be you know i did a case not too long ago i can't say the names but people went out for a night of drinking and someone fell and they end up actually dying from it. And there was a civil case with it. Oh, you told me about this. Yep, I told you about it.

And without getting into the specifics, the family of the decedent wants someone held responsible. That was different though, because you're talking about bars here, right? So I think bartenders can legally be held responsible if they over-serve you. Yeah, and they were going after the establishment. And like I said, I won't get into how that played out because too much might give it away. And

I got to be very careful. But it's one of those things where in any case, the family of the victim, they want someone held accountable for what happened to someone they care about. So when you're in this situation and you have individuals who definitely contributed to her level of toxicity that night, you know, not toxicity, intoxication that night and toxicity, her level of intoxication that night, you definitely know that if they hadn't done that, she probably wouldn't have been in a situation walking home alone under that mindset. And so for them not to go the extra step of making sure she got home okay, at minimum, they're pieces of shit for doing that. But again, does that rise to the level that a judge can say, well, you're civilly

responsible for her death when we can't even legally claim her dead at that point? So it's a tough thing. It's a tough thing. But as much as I hate to say it, I think they got it right. It goes for men as well as women. If you send your college age child off to school, make sure you let them know. No matter how close friends you think you are or how much you guys are down for each other at the end of the day, it's only you who has your back. So make sure that you're constantly being aware that you are the person who has your best interest at heart. Nobody else, no matter how close you think you are, how much you think they're cool or how much, you know, Call of Duty, y'all play together at two o'clock in the morning.

I'm glad we brought the civil suit because this was another angle where, you know, we talked about it at length last episode where it's like, you know, they really wanted them to take the polygraph. They really wanted to interview them. They had Bo Dietl come in, which I have a side story about Bo Dietl in a minute. That's pretty interesting. But I don't know. It wasn't verified, but again, I went back to my Reddit people. I was looking on Reddit and I saw somewhere again, I don't know how, you know, I don't even know how they got this information, but I guess it's somewhere where these individuals

were interviewed by the FBI. The FBI did become involved at some point. And although these individuals didn't give a polygraph or an interview to the local law enforcement, apparently they all interviewed with the FBI. The FBI never released those findings, but it looked like it had been confirmed. Again, you Reddit people impress me sometimes with what the information you're able to get. So again, as far as the investigatory process, these individuals were cooperative with federal agents. And that might not be what the parents want. They may want to hear it themselves,

but they're not investigators. So at the end of the day, they're not entitled to that from a legal perspective, right? Although they are the parents of the victim. It would have been nice. So that was interesting. I think that's what they're feeling. Like it would have been nice to sit down and hear from the

horse's mouth what happened. And I'm playing devil's advocate tonight just for everybody who's listening. So I'm not saying I firmly believe this, but I keep going. I got to play devil's advocate because this case, these parents are extremely skewed, rightfully so. They want to know who's responsible for their daughter's disappearance. And I think no matter what Corey and Jay and Matt, whatever they said, these parents can't stand them. And so no matter what they say, they're going to contort their words. So I'm not even saying if I was Corey or Jay, if I were Corey or Jay's parents, I wouldn't allow them, especially after some of the things that were said by Lauren's family. I wouldn't allow them to interview with them personally.

You wouldn't allow them. They're grown ass men. They're over the age of 18. You wouldn't allow them. They're 18 year old kids, 19 year old kids. If they're living under my roof when they're not at college and I'm paying for their tuition, I would advise them, although they can do whatever they want. I would say, Corey, you're going to cooperate with police.

Jay, you know, let's say I'm Corey's father. Corey, I want you to talk to the police. We'll have a lawyer present. You have the right to have an attorney present. You're not taking the polygraph. Once the FBI becomes involved, you're going to interview with them. If they ask you to go in there seven times, you're going to go in there and you're going to help them in any way, shape, or form.

If you legitimately had nothing to do with this, We're never going to impede their investigation. However, if the family of Lauren wants me to have my son interview with Bo Dietl, who's a private investigator who's paid to work for the family, I would not let my kids interview with Bo Dietl, who's a private investigator hired by the family. I would never do it. I disagree with you. Tell Nev to come stay with me then. I know. I would never do it. I disagree. I disagree with you. Tell Nev to come stay with me then.

I know. I would never because she's raised right. Okay. So like clearly you weren't. Oh, yes. If this is you in any one of these guys like positions and you know for a fact you didn't do anything and the parents are like so upset. They just want to hear from you for some sort of like and you know, who's even saying the private investigator is going to be there. They said multiple times that Lauren's boyfriend sat down with them. Jesse sat. Like, that's just a nice gesture to make. And it shows that like, yes, you do care. Like you want to see her come home. You want to help

in any way you can because you have nothing to hide and nothing that can that you can even say to them can be held legally against you. So what's the issue? You're not talking to the FBI. You're not talking to the police. So why not take the polygraph that it can't be used against you in a court of law? It's not admissible in most cases. Why not just take that to help? Well, that's different. How's it different? Because you're trying to help. There's like a documentation. Otherwise, if you just talk to her parents, as he said, she said, they don't they didn't want them to talk off the record behind closed. Well, then you can talk off the record behind closed doors. Let's talk. I don't want any private investigator. They're like, just sit down, have a cup of coffee,

talk like people. Maybe I would do that. But my impression is that that's not what they wanted. They wanted to have a formal interview conducted by their private investigator. And if I'm right, I would absolutely not let them interview with a private investigator who has specifically been hired for the sake. By the way, Lauren's family has made it no secret that they believe, and I agree with them. That's why I'm playing devil's advocate here, that Corey and Jay could have prevented Lauren from ultimately ending up the way she did. They don't like these guys, rightfully so. That's why it's tough for me to say, but they don't like Corey and Jay. So the purpose of interviewing Corey and Jay would be one to find out more the main linchpin of all of this the

main linchpin of why they suspect them so heartily today is how evasive they've been so if you weren't evasive and you had tackled it head-on would there be anything to say if you sat down and looked at them genuinely and said listen i feel horrible but this is exactly what happened like any way i can help let me know you're going to avoid all of this people don't talk to people i would i would have done it. For the sake of us going back and forth and people complaining that we're arguing back and forth, I'll say this.

We asked the polygraph question, completely agreed with you as far as it. We pose it to you guys. YouTube, if you want to comment on Instagram, if you were the mother or father of Corey Rossman, Jay Rosenbaum. If you were Corey Rossman, Jay Rosenbaum. If you were Corey Rossman or Jay Rosenbaum, grown ass men who live on your own. That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about if I was their parents. I never once said if I was Corey or Jay. What if you were them? If I were them and I'm 18 years old, I don't know what I would do. But now with my investigative background as a PI, a licensed PI right now, knowing what my job is when I go in there. If you're asking me, Derek, having all this knowledge at 18, I wouldn't interview with them. Maybe at 18, being naive and knowing that anything you say can and will be used against you

in a court of law, even if it's with a private investigator, then I would not. But my question would be to you guys, if you have children, if your son or daughter was involved in a situation and you know from looking at it, you don't like the way they handled it. Just because I don't think any reasonable person would look at this and say, Corey and Jay handled this the right way. They didn't, period. Nobody's disputing that. But would you allow your son to interview with a private investigator or even with the family if it was being documented in any way, shape or form? Am I framing that question right? Yeah, we'll go with your question.

If you were innocent. If you were innocent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you were innocent. That's a great way to cover it up. If I believed talking to my sons or son, they told me, dad, I'm innocent. I didn't do anything wrong. And well, for whatever reason, I believe them. Would you allow them to speak to police and whatever lawyer or private investigator was hired by the victim's family? Or would you

stick strictly to law enforcement and federal agents? Knowing you can bring your own lawyer to this meeting as well, which they all have because they all lawyered up pretty quickly. Yes, of course. And while you guys think about that question, we are going to go to a quick commercial break. And when we come back, we will talk about theories. All right, we're back. If you guys are going to answer this question and you're on YouTube, just throw it in the comments. But if you want to answer the question and you're just listening through the podcast, then go ahead and shoot us a message on Twitter or Instagram. It's at Crime Weekly. Money. Yep. Crime Weekly podcast. That one. Yeah. case where we're going to go over the theories, and there's definitely enough to spend the entire episode discussing them. Even 10 years later, new theories are still emerging, which we'll talk

about. Because like I said, I got all these messages, and I know you got a couple too, of people saying there's this new theory about Lauren Spear 10 years later. And Bloomington police say they're still receiving tips about Lauren's disappearance, even though none of those tips have brought her home. Now, former FBI cold case investigator Brad Garrett is part of the team of private investigators hired by Lauren's parents who have been looking into the case for years. So he works or worked. I don't know what he's up to right now, but he worked for Bo Deedle. And Brad Garrett believes that someone Lauren was with that night knows exactly what happened to her.

So the first theory we're going to explore, which seems to be the most popular one, it's centered around the last individuals to see Lauren Spear alive. In 2016, Brad Garrett told ABC News, quote, I think I am one interview away from putting this case together. When something happens to someone, it's usually from their own circle, end quote. Do you find that to be true? By the way, I was curious when I was writing this. I was like, I got to ask Derek that. I mean, let's read that again. When something, I'm seeing your thing, when something happens to someone, it's usually from their own circle. I do agree with that, that most of the time,

when something like this, especially a situation like this, there's usually someone in there that they're close with who's responsible or contributed to their situation. But not to pour water on this, this situation is a little different because, yeah. When kids go missing or get killed, usually a family member. Oh, yeah. It's usually a family member, a friend, a relative, someone who they trusted. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely with kids. So this is a pretty confident statement. Like it's usually from their own circle. He's suggesting something here. And this statement was made after the alleged jailhouse confession of a man who was once a student at Indiana University himself.

And this man's name is Corey Hammersly. I think he's also known as the Naked Bandit, but he used to be like actually a pretty good football player at the school, but he got into drugs. So apparently there does seem to be a big, a pretty big problem with drugs at IU. And like in bigger picture terms, there seems to be a rising issue with drugs in Indiana, the state in general, not just at the college. Drug overdoses have nearly doubled from 2010 to today. And Indiana's drug-induced mortality rate quadrupled between 2000 and 2014. And that means that now more Indiana residents die from drug overdoses than car accidents. That's kind of

bananas. In 2018, a former IU student faced drug charges after police began investigating him for dealing drugs out of a fraternity house. And just this year, an IU sorority was investigated after claims of sex and drug-related hazing rituals. And both of these stories are actually very interesting, but I'm not going to go in-depth here, especially the sorority one that happened in 2021. It's kind of bananas. Almost a year after Lauren went missing on the evening of May 10th, 2012, Corey Hammersly and some friends, they did what Lauren and her friends are doing. They did what all these college kids are doing. They went to the bars, they drank, they smoked weed. And then apparently for some reason, Corey allowed his friend, whose name is Sprout, to use a medicine dropper to administer liquid LSD into his mouth. And he was

like, I don't know how much I took. Like, I didn't give it to myself. I just let Sprout put all this LSD in my mouth. And after that, Corey doesn't remember what happened, obviously. But multiple witnesses do remember very, very clearly. The next morning, on the morning of May 11th, Bloomington police confronted Corey Hammersly on East 15th Street. He was naked except for a ball cap and a pair of sandals, and he was running through this neighborhood, shooting at cars and shooting into the air. When the police arrived, he began shooting at them before he was shot once in each leg and then taken into custody. Corey was sentenced to 28 years in prison, and it was here that he allegedly confessed to a fellow inmate during a game of cards

that he knew what had happened to Lauren Spear. Apparently, the story from the cellmate is that they were, like, in their cell playing cards, they were watching TV, and then a picture of Lauren flashed on the screen, and Corey said, quote, Man, I knew the guys that did that, end quote. According to Corey, Lauren and the men she'd been with that night had been drinking and taking ecstasy, but Lauren OD'd and the guys that she was with, they got scared. So they got rid of her body in the Ohio River. Now, Brad Garrett, remember he's the PI that works for Lauren's family. He interviewed Corey in 2016, and Corey kind of backpedaled.

And he was like, no, I never said that. I never met Lauren in my entire life. I didn't help them get rid of her body. I don't know what you're talking about. However, Brad Garrett believes that this theory is still the best one, saying, quote, The idea is very simple. One of the mistakes in most criminal cases is that we, investigators, try to make them too complicated.

Many times at the end of the day, they end up being quite simple. The simplest is she died at a party in Bloomington and somebody got rid of her, end quote. Yeah, what facts do we have to support this theory? There's the fact that Lauren had a heart condition. We talked about it a little bit in part one. It was called long QT syndrome, and this can cause uncontrollable and dangerous arrhythmias.

So she would be more at risk for an accidental overdose, especially when you start mixing up alcohol and drugs. We also have the fact that all of the young men involved, they lawyered up pretty quickly after she went missing, which has always seemed odd and suspicious to many people, including Lauren's family. We also can look at the surveillance cameras outside of the townhome complex that both Jay Rosenbaum and Corey Rossman lived in, because remember, Jay and Corey lived a couple doors down from each other. Corey lived with Mike Beth, his roommate, and Jay lived a couple doors down from him. The security cameras, they weren't working that evening.

So there's no evidence that Lauren ever left five North townhomes that evening. Or if she did leave, we don't know how she left or whose company she was in when she left. We only have the word of Jay Rosenbaum, who claims that he witnessed her walking away in the direction of her own off-campus apartment. But as her parents have pointed out multiple times, no surveillance cameras on that route captured evidence of this. And I actually have a picture that I'm going to put in for the YouTube version of this, which shows her route home. And it shows you how many security cameras were peppered along that way, and none of them ever captured her. So what do you think about this theory? Yeah, I think there's two theories for me that are very plausible and I completely agree

with Garrett as far as, listen, sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. You don't got to overcomplicate things. And for every reason you just said, had a heart condition. We know she was heavily intoxicated that night. If she continued to drink, which she appeared from multiple statements, wanted to continue drinking, it could have got to a point where something happened. You have all these guys around and now they're thinking, oh, we're in trouble. This happened inside of our apartment. We can't just tell the police because we're going to go down for this. So they make a decision to dispose of her body and they, you know, make a pact that they're not going to ever speak about it again. And so for the reason you just said about the cameras on the way home, that is one angle that

would support it because you would expect to see her at least walk a little bit of the ways. But, you know, again, without having all the facts about this case, because it is an open investigation, I would love, you know, we always talk about these cases and having access and being able to find certain things. I would love to find out how, how invasive they were with the search of the building, you know, like did they bring in, you know, scent dogs, cadaver dogs, did they bring in something of Lauren's, you know, and, and if they did, how quickly after she left, did they do that? Did they put the scent dogs on the, on these guys' vehicles? Not only the vehicles of, uh, Jay Rosenbaum, but also the vehicle of, he had a couple of buddies

up from Michigan, right? Like, did they go and did they, you know, you're writing, so you might already know the answer to this, but did they search their cars with dogs as well to see if a scent? Because here's the thing, hypothetically, these two individuals from Michigan, if they went and talked to them and they had a dog that had something of Lauren's belongings, clothing, and that dog hit positively on one of their vehicles, they got some questions to answer. They're in trouble. So I wonder if those things were done. I hope they were. And if they were done, if they're not being held for something right now, maybe the results were

negative. I don't know. But those are some of the questions that run through my head. But I do think the scenario is very plausible. So I know they checked the vehicles. I don't think they brought in dogs. That's not mentioned anywhere. They just said that they went into Corey Rossman's apartment and they checked his car and things like that. As far as the Michigan friends, we don't even know if it was two people. It could have been five people. Yeah, we don't exactly. We don't know how many people. But they had to get back to Michigan somehow, right? Well, remember that somebody said they saw a bunch of kids packing up the car really early in the morning. So they took off. So I'm assuming they identified those individuals and they went and spoke with them. And

even if it were a day or two later, investigators, I would be driving up to Michigan and I would be enlisting the help of a local department or even a federal agency to have them search the vehicle with a canine. I'd bring something of Lauren's and conduct a cursory search. Obviously, I would ask for consent and try to see if there was any hit there just to say, hey, listen, you didn't know Lauren. You kept telling me you don't know her. You never met her. You never hung out with her. But our dog just hit on your trunk of your car. What's up? So we didn't hear from law enforcement directly that they had talked to the Michigan people.

But I believe it was Corey Rossman's lawyer who said, oh, yes, they know that there was people there and they've identified them. And that's the extent of what we know about these people from Michigan. And I would, I mean, I think we're all sitting here hoping that the police did that. I mean, that would be a huge- At the very least, right? Yeah, that would be a huge misstep if they didn't identify these guys, which I'm assuming they did. But yeah, to just focus in on this particular theory as we go through them, the idea that maybe this wasn't a premeditated thing, or maybe it

wasn't even as extreme as like a murder, right? It was more of something where because of the things she was taking, we don't know what she was taking while she was there. She had a reaction. She had a negative reaction. She expired from that reaction. And now they're feeling culpable because they didn't do anything. And, you know, we've seen this happen before. So it's not like this is like a crazy theory. It's completely plausible. And it would be the simplest explanation. She went into the house and she never left alive, period. She went out and like you said, very small girl, um, 90 pounds wouldn't take much to put her in a duffel bag or a suitcase or something like that and go out the

back door with her or something because the cameras weren't working. So it wouldn't be that difficult to do with those hours in the morning. It would take a little bit of luck because you would have to do it without any outside witnesses, maybe another college student or whatever, crossing your path while doing it or being in the parking lot while doing it. But that can happen. Criminals aren't always the smartest. Sometimes they get lucky. And it was the end of the semester, remember? So a lot of people- Right. So that's not all students there. A lot of people had already gone home. Lauren stayed because she was waiting for Jesse to finish up his classes. A lot of people weren't there. I would also be curious to know when,

when did the surveillance cameras stop working? Did they stop working that night? Right? If they stopped working that night, that means something because you'd have to know that they weren't working to feel safe to be transporting a body into like your car and driving around, right? The other thing I would say is, although the cameras weren't working immediately there, and we don't want to get too dug down on this theory, but I think it's important. You talk about all the cameras in the area, right? And how they would have picked up Lauren. Well, the same holds true for their vehicles. So if they had put her in any type of vehicle, you would assume it was one of their vehicles. So you would have to, they would have to put her in the vehicle and then leave that area

going through traffic lights, going through downside streets, going through all these areas, which is very hot populated with cameras without their vehicle ever being seen leaving the area. If that's what they told police. Now, if they told police, oh yeah, like two hours later, we went for a joyride, or they could track their phones with GPS. There's all these things they can do to discredit or corroborate what they say they did that night after Lauren allegedly left their apartment. So, I mean, they could use those cameras against them as well, and also their GPS coordinates. Or they put her in the truck that night and they didn't leave until the next morning and go about their normal schedule.

You know what I mean? Right. Well, if I was the investigator, if that's the case and to your point, they say to me, hey, we left the next morning, went back to Michigan. I'd be like, okay. Okay. Would you mind consenting to a search of your GPS coordinates? Because I want to see that you drove from IU back to wherever you said you

did. If you took a detour at any point towards our body of water, a forest, anything that's- Yeah, but this is the Ohio River in Indiana. It's like everywhere. So I mean, you would drive by it at some point, right? But their ping would hit multiple spots. So if you stop at any point for longer than a couple minutes, you'll get a continuous ping as if you were stationary for more than a couple seconds because it hits pretty quickly. I wonder if you can walk to the Ohio River from there. From the road? I'm sure there's some spots where you can see it. Or you just leave your phone at home because it didn't necessarily have to even be the Michigan friends.

It could have been Jay or Corey who lived there. They could have just been like, yeah, we were leaving. We went to class or we went to get breakfast. You know, we forgot our phones at home because it didn't necessarily have to even be the Michigan friends. It could have been Jay or Corey who lived there. They could have just been like, yeah, we were leaving. We went to class or we went to get breakfast. You know, we forgot our phones at home. There could be a million things. But I will say, I think this theory is the most plausible. And I think that if it is what happened, it definitely was an accident. Like, I'm not going to sit here and say that I believe these kids killed her on purpose. There's no real motive for that. It doesn't even sound like the parents think that, right? It doesn't even sound like the parents think that. No, I mean, they probably don't want to say that they think that, but it's probably come

across their mind before. But unless something happened that we don't know about, like some sort of sexual assault or some sort of other boundary crossing issue that would cause her to freak out and then them to say, okay, she's freaking out. We're gonna get in huge trouble. We've gotta take care of this. I don't see why they would kill her on purpose. And knowing her weight, which was very light,

knowing her medical condition, and knowing even if we take drugs out of the picture, just how much she had to drink that night, I would be surprised if something bad didn't happen to her that evening, medically speaking. Yeah, I have two theories written down and they're two different ends of the spectrum, this being one of them, the accident theory where she had an overdose. And the only justification for these guys all working together collectively is that they all feel equally responsible. This wasn't a case where one guy took it too far and they were like, hey man, you screwed up. I'm not going down for you.

Somebody asked me questions, I'm ratting you out. But if they all feel like they're equally responsible, that would incentivize them to work together to get through this quote unquote problem they have. So this is one theory that I was on board with. I do have another one. I'm sure we're going to get to it. But before we get there, let's take a quick break. All right, we're back. Next, we're going to talk about a man named Justin Wagers, whose home and property was searched in connection to Lauren's disappearance. So this guy has some criminal record. He's been in prison and in jail multiple times. But before being jailed on a public indecency charge, 35-year-old Justin Wagers had been living at an address on Morgantown Road outside of Martinsville, Indiana. after driving up to a woman at a Shell gas station yelling, hey lady, and then he exposed himself to her basically. So he called to get her attention and then pulled it out.

Now at the time of this arrest in Johnson County, Wagers was also wanted for a similar crime in nearby Martin County. In 2011, the same year Lauren went missing, Justin Wagers called a woman that he knew. I believe they were like in a relationship. Maybe she broke up with him, but he called her 44 times over the course of two days. And he allegedly told her that she should say goodbye

to her family and close friends. In another phone call, Wagers told this woman, quote, let me tell you something. I could slip into your house and do you in and nobody would even know I was there. You're going to be sorry for hurting me, end quote. He later pled guilty in court to felony intimidation charges, and he spent one year in prison for this harassment. Justin Wager's troubles with the law started years before this, however.

In March of 2005, he was convicted on a vicarious sexual gratification charge, which placed him on the sex offenders registry. In the state of Indiana, vicarious sexual gratification, it basically means that a person of 18 years or older knowingly or intentionally directs, aids, induces, or causes a child under the age of 16 to touch or fondle himself or another child under the age of 16 with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the child or the other person, the older person who commits the vicarious sexual gratification. So this guy's a scumbag. And he was released from prison in 2007 because apparently, you know, that's not something that you really need to worry about. Just let him back out into the open. But in total, he's been charged with sex crimes more

than two dozen times in several different counties. But he was not behind bars in June of 2011 when Lauren vanished without a trace. Two dozen times, two dozen times he's been caught up for sex crimes and dude still gets let out every time. Like it's just I'm so annoyed. Yeah. No, there's going to be a lot of people that you bring up. There might even be someone. Are you going to be talking about Israel Keys tonight?

No. Okay. That's a that's a whole nother one that I was reading about. Yeah. Israel Keys was another one that I read on Reddit that there's someone on Reddit who laid out a whole. He was a serial killer. I know who Israel Keys is, but how is he connected? He used to plant kill kits and apparently he was in that area at that specific time.

He was unaccounted for for the hours in which Lauren disappeared. And it could have been a situation where he had a kill kit stashed nearby and he saw her as she was walking. It wouldn't take much to overcome her. I don't want to skip around, but to get to this one specifically, as well as there's a lot of individuals who've been linked to these cases. I personally can give my opinion on it, but as a licensed investigator would be almost irresponsible for me to say, yeah, this guy could have done it because almost anybody could have done it, right? If that's what happened. So-

Well, I'm not asking you right now, like, did he do it? I'm asking you. Yeah. Is it plausible? Should this dude, after being put in prison or jail over, you know, two dozen times for sex crimes, should there be at some point like a, you know, throw away the key? Like no more sex crimes for you, buddy. Yeah.

No, no shit. That's that is aside from law. I mean, this is a bigger thing that I had in, you like people deserve rehabilitation. We could go down that road. We get shit for it every time we do. But yeah, I think at some point when someone has been, quote unquote, rehabilitated or given a second or third chance, at some point, you just got to say, this person is just a bad person. And we got to keep them off the street for the protection of others. For the protection of everyone else. No, I've always been a proponent of that just today when i was looking into him right 2021 or it was 2020 they're like oh he's in trouble again because he's like failing to register as a sex offender again when he's supposed to like he he just doesn't want to do that anymore like that's the least that you have to do. You're not behind bars. You are allowed to continue to go out preying on people. All you have to do is register as a sex offender and he doesn't

even want to do that still to this day. What a scumbag. Oh yeah. He's a scumbag and could he somehow potentially be connected to this? Of course. But there's a lot of scumbags in that area and many areas of surrounding it that we could find out down the road were responsible for what happened to Lauren and they wouldn't surprise me in the least. But I have seen a few names. Well, we're not done with him. Oh, there's more. There's more to this guy. We haven't already established that he's a piece of shit. No, I mean, but as far as Lauren connection. As far as he's connected. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Roll with it.

The Bloomington police, along with the FBI, they searched Wagers' property and home and they obtained a DNA sample from him. I expect they got the DNA sample in case they found her. They could compare them because they obviously didn't have anything to compare. items, which they would then test for DNA. And police also went to a property owned by his father, Doug, and they brought cadaver dogs there, which hit on several spots on the property, including like the corner of a camper. I kind of felt bad for Doug Wagers because he was like, I don't know. He's like, maybe the person who was here before died in the trailer. He just didn't know. I felt so bad for him because I saw an interview with him and he seemed like truly confused and upset. But Justin Wager's lawyer made a public statement claiming that his client had no knowledge regarding the disappearance of Lauren Spear or any other missing person. Now, of course, because he's not been named an official person of interest or like a suspect, law enforcement isn't going to release what was in the warrant. But we know, right, like for them to have gotten a warrant to search his property, they would have needed something, right? Like to get a judge, like what, they would have needed something that connected

Lauren and Justin. Yeah, you would need just cause. You need probable cause to go on and search their property. You know, you can't just, you have to probable cause is that you believe a crime has been committed, is being committed, or will be committed. And so they must have had something in that warrant that was enough for a judge to sign off on. But I will say something else too. It does give me hope that these investigators went to this length with Justin as far as cadaver dogs and all these things, because to answer what we were talking about earlier, if they're doing it with him where he doesn't have an immediate connection, like there's nothing that we know of, those guys that were there that night, they did.

So you would assume they probably went to the same length with them, maybe. I mean, again, there is a possibility they didn't, but if they're doing it with this guy, I would put money on it that they probably did it with everyone as long as they were able to write up the report in a way that would justify it. So that does give me some hope that they were busting out the cadaver dogs and the scent dogs for anybody who was a person of interest that had any possibility of being connected just for the sake of like, hey, we'd rather be safe than sorry. We want to dot our I's, cross our T's. And I love that they were getting DNA samples as well, because if they did stumble upon Lauren, they could use any fingernail clippings, anything like that to compare it to all these known DNA sources that they've collected throughout the investigation.

So I love that they're getting DNA in anticipation of finding Lauren at one point. It's a good way to do it. I just wish I knew it was in that warrant that made them compelled or made them feel compelled to go there and look at them. I wish I knew that. They wouldn't need to have... So there's a difference between a search warrant and arrest warrant, right? So they're searching the property. They don't have enough to arrest him, but there might've been something in there that was circumstantial in nature, but enough to connect him to Lauren specifically, because obviously they have to- They would have had to have something to connect him to Lauren, right?

What is needed to get that search warrant is a lot less than an arrest. So creative writing can get you in. I've had to do with narcotic search warrants where you get a narcotic search warrant. It's all justified. It's all truthful, but it's enough to get you in the house, but it's not enough for an arrest. You have to still find what you're looking for. So to your point, there's definitely something that connects them, but maybe just enough for the judge to go,

I don't want to be the judge who didn't sign off on this warrant and come to find out five years from now, they find 18 bodies under this guy's trailer. So that also is the human element of it. Well, Justin Wager's ex-wife, Gail Green, she spoke to Indy Star and she basically accused the media of trying him in public view because of his long history of exposing himself in public. So I'm not a fan of the media, but it's not the media's fault. This guy just likes whipping it out every chance he gets. It's just facts. She said she'd been married to him for four years and they got

divorced, but it was due to his infidelity and probably the fact that he liked to expose himself to random people on the street. She said they remained friends, though. They remained friends. She said, quote, if I thought for one moment that he was capable of or linked to a young girl's disappearance, I have a young daughter. I most certainly would have turned him in myself. End quote. Justin's family have also maintained that he's not violent and he's been seeking help to control his urges. And his ex-wife, Gail, she argued that although Justin may have touched the minds of the people he was exposing himself to, he's never touched anyone physically.

So I guess he's just a good guy because he just screws with people's heads. I mean, it turns out that's not even really necessarily true either, because in court documents I found, Justin himself admitted to physically abusing his ex-wife after an argument. He said he grabbed her arms, neck, face, and throat when she refused to let him see her cell phone. Additionally, there was that woman that he made 44 phone calls to, threatening to come to her home and kill her, and nobody would find out about it. But that sounds sort of violent to me. What do I know? What do I know about what makes somebody violent, right? So we don't know if it's the guy. We don't know, but he was a person of interest. We't know yeah but it would it would definitely be someone i

would be looking into just like everybody else still look into it because he's out there guys refusing to register as a sex offender yeah but i will say this and i'm sure we're going to hit on it but as far as the other theory that i believe is very plausible someone like this would fall into that theory so and i won't you mean the stranger abduction theory yeah i mean it's i mean again it's also very simple it's very simple in nature where you know well when we're ready for that we'll we'll dive into it but under that theory someone like this would be a perfect candidate i agree i agree but he's just going to touch her mind okay uh let's talk about the sons Silence, which is the coolest name ever. So the Sons of Silence, right? It's a motorcycle club that was founded in Colorado in 1966 by a man named Bruce Gale

Richardson. The Sons of Silence spread into other states, including Indiana, where they then went to war with another club, quotations, called the Outlaws in the 70s. In the summer of 2011, this is the same summer that Lauren went missing, the Indianapolis chapter of the Sons of Silence came under scrutiny when one of their high-ranking members got busted for narcotics and illegal firearms trafficking. And in 2012, how do you say this? I always mess it up. Tara Hout?

Tara Hoot? Tara How? I mean, you're asking. You don't know. Sounds right to me the tara how chapter how right yeah all right we're gonna do it let us know if we're pronouncing it wrong they will let us know if we're pronouncing it wrong we're still hearing about spokane and spokane spokane i still don't know how to say it right that's still in the comments well in 2012 the tara how chapter got busted for selling crystal meth. And according to the FBI's website, Philip Manabach of the Terre Haute chapter was convicted in late 2012 for running a meth trafficking organization and also helping to orchestrate the abduction of an individual. He was given a life sentence for this. Manaboc, along with his partner, Michael Pitts, they apparently were receiving the drugs from James Taylor, who's a member of the Sons of Silence gang from Indianapolis.

All in all, over 12 members of the Sons of Silence were convicted and sentenced in this sting. So I know like I called them a motorcycle club, but the Sons of Silence, they're really a gang. They're a gang and they're notorious for their brutal methods. There's this History Channel documentary about them. It's really good. If you guys can find it and watch it, it's excellent. But in this documentary, they were referred to as like the new mafia. You know, a lot of drug trafficking, a lot of killing each other, a lot of killing civilians, a lot of just illegal activity. Don't come for us, Sons of Silence. We're just saying. So Brad Garrett, the private investigator hired by Lauren's family, he claims he got some tips. And these tips said that Lauren

may have owed some money for drugs to the Notorious Gang, specifically to a man named Robert Strange, who goes by the street name Bo Dean, which is crazy because Robert Strange is a cool name. It sounds more of a street name than Bo Dean, but apparently he didn't think Robert Strange was street namey enough. But this guy, he was well known to law enforcement. And Brad Garrett said, quote, he's got a reputation for being what they call an enforcer. If you have a problem in your gang, you come to him and he takes care of it. End quote. Now, apparently Brad Garrett got some messages from someone claiming to be a relative of Strange's, and they claimed that Strange had shot Lauren over a dispute over money

and buried her on his property, and he told this family member that she would be good fertilizer. So what we basically have here is a theory that Lauren was doing drugs. She was getting her drugs illegally through the Sons of Silence motorcycle gang, And when she couldn't pay up, they had her abducted and killed. What do you think of this theory? that Lauren was capable of walking home okay by herself. It was a very short walk to her house. It would just so happen that Robert Strange happened to be in the area at that very moment, see Lauren, have this altercation with her, take her against her will, I'm assuming, without anybody hearing it or anything. And all this happens later. I don't know.

I just think it's... I always have to qualify because... And I know you guys hate when I do this, but anything's possible. But if I this to be a fact, but I mean, I don't find it to be that likely because Lauren came from a family, they had money, right? They had money. And also I have seen people killed for over a couple bucks, but in most cases, if they get to the point where he's going to kill this girl, run the risk of ruining everything he's got going on, she would have had to owe him an extreme amount of money. And I don't think that's the case. I don't think if she was experimenting in drugs, which it does seem from some accounts that she was, I don't think she was at the point where she was some

addict that was just running up a tab with this guy and he had been out looking for her and just happened to see her that night. And again, to don't think it's, and again, to escalate to the point where he's going to kill her, where now he's not going to get any money, just wouldn't make a lot of sense. I could see him beating her up. Or even holding her ransom, right? Yeah, yep, something.

Beating her, and I think also if Jesse, her boyfriend, you know, he would have had something towards this too where he was like, hey, listen, we were buying from this guy and his name was Bo, and there would have been some type of- Bo Dean. Yeah, there would have been something towards us too where he was like hey listen we were buying from this guy and his name was bo and there would have been some type of dean yeah there would have been more there would have been more legs to it you know we would have heard more about it i think i i don't think it's plausible i think if lauren was really in trouble with drugs and she owed money she would

just call her parents and be like yo i got myself you know messed up like i need i need like 500 bucks a thousand bucks additionally i don't really see see Lauren as someone who'd be out there like getting her own drugs. I don't even see her as someone who's just like doing drugs every day. You know, I think if she's doing drugs, if, because we don't know, probably just like a weekend thing. You know, she's partying. Probably getting it from someone on campus too. I don't know if she's connected to the motorcycle gang. Well, maybe they're connected to the motorcycle gang.

But either way, it's a several degrees of separation i just don't see lauren spear like 95 pound girl like walking up to the sun to silence and being like what's up dude where's my crystal meth yeah i don't see it um and you know and like i said i don't even think she was doing drugs regularly enough to rack up that kind of bill that would would make killing her seem the only way that they could redeem themselves so um i have to believe that when she was doing drugs they were just given to her you know being a girl who was in college and who did her share of partying you don't pay for drugs you know they get offered to you they're party favors it doesn't appear again it doesn't appear from everything we've heard that she was dabbling in crystal meth. No. Yeah. And I mean, additionally, the police did look into this

theory and they determined based on Lauren's cell phone records that it was unlikely she had any ties to Indianapolis where Robert Strange, Bodine, lived and operated out of. And Robert Strange told 2020 that he had never shot Lauren. He had nothing to do with it. And he said, quote, I don't even know the broad, end quote. He's like really going with that whole Sopranos thing. You know, he's just really trying to be the mob boss. It's more likely that someone like Robert Strange has quite a few enemies, maybe from rival gangs or somebody he's screwed over in the past. And maybe they wouldn't mind seeing him caught up in some like criminal investigation, even if it only just gave him like a headache and he didn't end up,

you know, going to jail. Maybe they were just trying to screw with him a little bit. Yeah, no, it's again, it goes kind of back to the previous one. It's like there's a lot of bad people in that area. Clearly, they're capable. They're capable of doing something like this. But again, are they connected directly to this case, which is what we're focused on. And I think it's, I think it's very unlikely, but again, anything's possible. And I think that's why it's good to see that law enforcement, regardless of

how unlikely it is, they're following all the breadcrumbs and they're following them until they no longer make sense. And that's good to know because we have seen cases where the police officers are basically deciphering what's important and what's not before even checking into it. Like they get off the phone and like, no, that's not it. And they just, you know, they don't go down that road. Yeah, like a confirmation bias sort of thing. Yeah. They like, they have it in their head what they think it is.

And if someone calls with something that doesn't fit that theory, then- They dismiss it. Yeah, they're not interested. But no, it's, again a it's an interesting one i'm just really mad that the name the sons of silence is taken because i i want it's like the perfect band name all right the sons of silence i don't know if they have a trademark on it so you could be okay if you still want to check i'm gonna check to see if that domain name is taken although i probably wouldn't take it because if they came to you and said, hey, we don't want you using that, my advice would be not to use it.

I could be like an honorary member of the Sons of Silence. Yeah, you do that. Should we take what we do for another break, right? Yeah, let's take a quick break while I ponder my future as a motorcycle gang member. Well, I'll get you a vest for Christmas. All right, and we are back. Next, we have the stranger abduction theory. And I know Derek said that that was one of the ones he had up, right?

Like it was either an accident that Lauren died accidentally, some sort of overdose, something to do with her heart, or stranger abduction theory. Now, most people, including the police, actually, they believe that this is the most unlikely scenario out of all of them, but still possible. And I guess it would be the most unlikely simply because of the area that Lauren was in, this really small college town where there's bars and people all over. There's a surveillance camera in every store, restaurant,

club, house. How could Lauren have been snatched off the street and no one saw or heard anything? And you might say, well, at the time, it was after 3.30 a.m. Well, that doesn't matter. It's a college town. They got kids stumbling home or stumbling wherever at all hours. And you think, like I said, we're going to put that picture up again. John, make sure you put that picture up again. But there's so many surveillance cameras and she wasn't seen on any of them. That's the first thing police did. They like pulled all those surveillance cameras. They pulled them enough to see that white truck that we talked about last episode.

They never saw her. So especially, I mean, once again, considering the very short distance she had to walk before getting to her apartment building, it's like a couple of minutes. And there was one man who claimed to have seen and heard something. However, there was a blogger named Tony Gatto. Back in the day when this all went down, he was very active. He wrote and posted updates about Lauren's case. And he actually spoke to the manager of a bar in Bloomington right on Lauren's route home. And the manager claimed to have seen an inebriated girl fitting Lauren's description in the company of an unknown man at 3.38 a.m. on Friday, June 3rd, and this was on the corner of 10th Street and College Avenue. The manager said that at one point, this man

picked Lauren up and slung her over his shoulder. He said the woman, who may have been Lauren, was incoherent, her eyes were closed, and at one point she fell and banged her head. Now, law enforcement did look into this eyewitness claim, but they could find nothing on the surveillance cameras to support it, and a private investigator hired by Lauren's family also interviewed the bar manager and believes that he's telling the truth and that the woman was Lauren, but the timeline may be off. Now, he never elaborates on this. He never says this, but I think we can put two and two together

and figure out that what the bar manager may have seen was Lauren with Corey Rossman, right? Because remember, she was very drunk. He was drunk. She kept falling down and hurting herself. And at one point, Corey picked her up in a fireman's carry, which is a fireman carry where you sling someone over your shoulder. So I think that what this bar guy saw, this bar guy. Well, that's a fireman's carry. My brother's a firefighter. The fireman's carry, I don't know if it's over the shoulder or where you cross your arms in front of them. So don't come for me if I'm wrong. My idea of a fireman's carry is over the shoulder. You cross your arms. I just whacked my mic for sorry for the audio listeners uh you cross your arms and you like the person gets behind you and like bear

hugs you and carries you that way so they're not putting all their weight on your shoulder they're just kind of holding your upper weight i don't know which ones the firemen's carry i'll look so that's not the way that cory was carrying though. No, I don't think he would. He slung her over his shoulder. So I think that's probably what bar manager saw. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. So fireman's carry would be, the best way I could describe it is if you take one arm

and put it between the person's legs, like you hook your arm under their legs, and then you don't have them over one shoulder, but you carry them over both shoulders. Oh, yeah, yeah. So one arm is between their legs. The other arm is around their shoulders. So they're kind of like laying on your shoulders.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. Their abdomen area, their chest area would be on like your traps in your neck area. So I mean that may be how she was being carried by Corey, right? I mean she's super light. It's easy. Yeah, you could pick her right up, throw them over your shoulder.

It's easier to carry someone like that. Yes, because the weight's equally distributed that way. You're not being thrown off. Yeah, so that's a fireman. I'm looking at basically a couple images of it. And I'm sure different people have different interpretations of what the fireman's carry is. So, I mean, at the end of the day, we know Corey picked her up and was carrying her down the road because she was unable to walk herself.

That's what we know. Yes, sir. And we do know that even if what this bar manager saw wasn't Lauren getting abducted, we know that other female students have gone missing from the Bloomington area. So it's not hard to believe that what happened to them could have happened to Lauren as well. Take, for example, 19-year-old Jill Berman, who was abducted and murdered while riding her bike in Bloomington in May of 2000. We talked about Jill's case in one of the previous parts. I think it was part two.

But there was another young woman, another IU student, who vanished and turned up murdered four years after Lauren's disappearance. And she also visited Kilroy's Sports Bar on the night she went missing. Hannah Wilson was 22 years old in April of 2015 when she aced the final exam that would give her the green light to finally graduate from college. She was living with her sorority sisters off campus. It was a weekend, and obviously that means it's time to celebrate. Hannah was looking forward to the future, which included a job she already had lined up and also a plan to attend graduate school. She had a very promising future ahead. The last time Hannah was seen was around

12.45 a.m. on April 24, 2015. An ex-boyfriend of Hannah's was in town, and he and Hannah, along with one of his friends, they decided to get some drinks in the lobby of the hotel he was staying in, the Hilton Garden Inn. After this, all three went to Kilroy's Sports Bar, but apparently, even before they went in, the men noticed that Hannah was very intoxicated. So they went in, but they were like, you should go home. They called her a cab because she was too drunk to go into the bar and have more alcohol. The cab driver said he dropped her off near her home at 8th and Dunn Streets. And phone records also show that Hannah made a call to a friend at around 1 a.m., but this friend was in a crowded bar and he couldn't hear what Hannah was saying.

Hours later, Hannah's roommates came home to find their front door hanging open. Hannah's purse and cell phone were found on her bed, but she wasn't inside the house. She wasn't anywhere to be found. At 8.34 a.m., someone called 911 and reported finding a woman's body off Plum Creek Road in Brown County. Hannah had significant head injuries, and she'd been dead less than eight hours. Obviously, the parallels between the two cases, they're there to compare. Two young women, both students at IU, both out for a night on the town, both in the area of Kilroy Sports Bar at some point on the evening of their disappearances. And many people began to wonder if Lauren Spearer had encountered the same fate as Hannah Wilson. So Hannah goes missing several years after Lauren. She turns up dead shortly after and people are like, okay, this is very similar to what happened to Lauren. Is Lauren also dead? Could it be the same person? Now, a cell phone had been found at the feet of Hannah Wilson, a cell phone that belonged to 50-year-old Daniel Messel of Bloomington, Indiana. Daniel was a single man. He was living with his father in a trailer, and he was employed at a print shop. So the police,

they find this phone, and they immediately go to his house, and they gather just in time to find Daniel carrying a bag of bloody clothes out of his house. Obviously, he's trying to get rid of them. Blood was also found in his vehicle, a silver Kia Sportage, and this blood was Hannah's blood. When Messel went to trial, he and his lawyer maintained his innocence, saying that he and Hannah had crossed paths that night, but he had not killed her. He was found guilty and sentenced to 80 years. And while building a case against Messel, the Brown County prosecutor Ted Adams found out a lot about his history with other women in the area, which painted a terrifying picture of a repeat offender who had been allowed to continue terrorizing young women in the Bloomington area for several years. In August of 2012, several IU students filed a report with the Bloomington PD claiming that Daniel Messel had approached one woman twice to offer her a ride and yell obscenities at her when she declined.

The following month, another woman reported an attempted rape, claiming she'd been in a vehicle with a man who she hadn't known when he attacked her. DNA under her fingernails matched that of Daniel Messel. In November, another woman reported the same thing. She'd gotten into a vehicle with a man who had attacked her, but she was able to escape. In December, even more women went to the police and reported a suspicious man circling the block and stopping to ask them for directions. They claim to have encountered him multiple times in a six-month period. So all these kids, they're out going to the bars and stuff. And Daniel Messel's just always kind of driving around, like creeping by, asking for directions, seeing if they want to ride, et cetera, et cetera. Another 18-year-old student accepted a ride from Messel and reported that

while she was in his car, he grabbed her head and thrust it into his lap. She was able to fight back and jump out of the car. So Daniel Messel was so well known by the female population at IU that they'd given him a nickname. They called him the Creeper. So this guy, the prosecuting attorney who actually prosecuted Daniel Messel for Hannah Smith's death, he told WTHR that Messel's behavior were red flags for a potential stalker and even a violent person. Adams believes that Messel followed Hannah Wilson home from the bar and was somehow able to get her into his vehicle, but she put up a fight. Crime scene photos show that her hair and blood were found inside of Messel's Kia. A search warrant revealed

disturbing pornography on Messel's computer, which depicted a man having sex with drunk, passed out girls. Ted Adams, he's the prosecutor, he believes that Daniel Messel may have been responsible for Lauren Spears' disappearance as well, and he's identified an area of Bloomington that he's named Messel's Zone of Danger. Ted Adams told the Indy Star, quote, I have been consistent with my belief regarding Daniel Messel's possible involvement with Lauren Spear's disappearance. I believe that, in my personal opinion, her disappearance is consistent with Daniel Messel's modus operandi. I am not a part of the Lauren Spear investigation.

I'm sure there are other theories and persons of interest. I additionally readily admit that I have absolute tunnel vision regarding Daniel Messel due to learning about him during my 16 months of trial preparation for Hannah Wilson's murder. I believe he absolutely could be responsible for Lauren Spear's disappearance. Until recently, the media has never asked my opinion regarding Ms. Spear. Others have, such as Ms. Spear's parents, and I've explained to them Messel's pattern that led me to develop such an opinion.

It's just that, an opinion based simply upon a pattern of conduct over the course of four years. My opinion, without any real evidence, remains exactly that, an opinion. It should not be valued as anything more than the opinion of a simple prosecuting attorney. I trust that the law enforcement professionals at the Bloomington Police Department are doing their very best to solve Lauren's disappearance and that they remain committed to doing so. The Indiana State Police

and the Brown County Prosecutor's Office were tasked with piecing together a timeline for Daniel Messel on the night of April 23, 2015 and the morning of April 24, 2015. At the same time, our team diligently attempted to determine what Daniel Messel's motive was. While possessed a man to select a beautiful and promising young co-ed and slay her, our investigating revealed a chilling modus operandi. We discovered five women who were systematically harassed and in one case sexually assaulted during the summer and fall of 2012. These women believed the individual harassing them was none other than Daniel Messel. I attempted to submit the testimony of the young woman who was sexually assaulted in November of 2012, but the judge

ruled this evidence inadmissible. Our witness was unable to identify Daniel Messel as the man who assaulted her. She was unable to identify him in 2012 when making a police report to the Bloomington Police Department. This prevented the Bloomington Police Department from moving the case forward. What these women could identify was consistent with either Daniel Messel or a vehicle consistent with Daniel Messel. Currently, there are attempted rape charges pending against Daniel Messel from an allegation stemming from an assault in September of 2012 in the same area as other women. The Bloomington Police Department was able to assist the Indiana State Police in identifying Daniel Messel's cell phone number when it was found under Hannah Wilson's body. Messel's number was on file because he had called dispatch when he was hung up on a stump at 4 a.m.

and in the same area as the harassment and stalking cases in 2012. Hannah Wilson disappeared from her home on 8th and Grant Street in the early hours of April 24, 2015. These contacts, to me, demonstrated a modus operandi of harassment and assault from as far as Walnut Street to as far east as Dunn Street and from as far north as 10th Street to as far east as Dunn Street, and from as far north as 10th Street to as far south as Kirkwood Street. I labeled this area as Messel's Zone of Danger. Lauren Spira was last seen heading south towards 10th Street. That's the northern edge of this danger zone. She was intoxicated and alone. My opinion is simple. Her disappearance and

vulnerability is consistent with the zone of danger of Daniel Messel, a convicted murderer, a man who was found to have plucked a young student from that same zone of danger and intentionally killing her, end quote. So obviously, Daniel Messel refutes these claims, saying that the theory that he trolled IU campus and sexually assaulted female students while pretending to help them get home for safety. That was all lies. But Lauren's mother, Charlene Spear, feels there is a possibility Daniel Messel could be connected to the disappearance of her daughter, saying, quote, unfortunately, we don't have any evidence because we don't have Lauren's body. But now this is the second case that's very similar seemingly to what happened to Lauren, end quote. And she's talking about Hannah Wilson, that they are very similar cases. So what do you think about Daniel Messel? Yeah, as I said earlier, the Daniel Messel of the world, or specifically in that area,

would fit. And I think that this prosecuting attorney laid out a very strong case as to why it's possible he is responsible for Lauren's disappearance and or death. But again, I love how he qualified it. He's saying, I'm not basing it off anything. I'm basing it off my knowledge of Daniel Messel. So I do think, and I said it earlier, you know, the idea that this was a situation where Lauren was hanging out with these guys at the apartment, had a reaction, OD'd, and they, you know, got rid of her body because they felt like they were going to be held criminally responsible for it.

Probably the number one theory. But I do think closely behind that, and you might be like, oh, Derek, you're just covering all your bases. I do think there is a real possibility, even though the cameras didn't get it. I've seen it happen before where she was picked up by someone, maybe not even a Daniel Messel, maybe someone who didn't have nefarious intentions. And I'll tell you why. I've never had a case in my professional experience where it resulted in murder,

but I've had many cases, way too many to even count, where we have a female victim come into the station a day or two later, and they were out with friends. They get extremely intoxicated. They're walking home or, you you know they're out somewhere and all of a sudden they see a cute boy or you know it's always been a female in my case it's not always a situation but in my professional experience it's always been a female where they meet a boy or a young man and that guy says hey we should hang out you're not done i'm not done let's have a couple more drinks and this woman was so drunk or this girl's so drunk that they don't even know where they bring them, but they end up at someone's house where they're with a bunch of guys. And in the cases where I've dealt with them, it's always led to a sexual assault.

And this woman can't tell me how to get back to the house. She can't tell me their names. She can't tell me, you know, what color, she can't tell me anything. It's just like, she just knows that she was left somewhere later and that she has small bits of information as far as what happened that night. The reason I bring that up is because is there a scenario where Lauren leaves the house? It does seem like, at least from what we've heard from other statements, that she wanted to continuously drink. And if so, if she wasn't done partying that night and she saw someone on the way home,

he sees a drunk girl. He wants to have sex with with her he's going to take advantage of her that is bad right or maybe he's really drunk too and he just wants to hang out who knows but at some point she sees someone very quickly who wants to continue partying and she gets in a car or something with some man who you know might be a who knows, goes back to his apartment and something bad happens, whether it's he takes it too far and kills her or the exact same scenario we were talking about earlier, where he doesn't know her underlying conditions. They continue to drink or do more drugs. She ODs. And now he's in a position where he's the last person with her. He has to dispose of her

body. But it would explain why this case has been so hard to solve to now because the person that we're looking for hasn't even been identified yet. It's the unknown person. It's the stranger. It's the student or a man who happened to be in that area looking for a woman, whether it was Daniel Messel or somebody else. And we just haven't identified him yet. And that's why 10 years later, we don't have resolution because the main focus of this investigation has been Jay, has been Corey. And maybe, maybe they're not responsible. Maybe they did send her on her way, which they shouldn't have done and watch her walk down the road. So again, just to summarize, I still think the most

plausible scenario is the first one we laid out as far as her being in this apartment complex and never leaving it alive. But I also think it's very possible that they are telling the truth and someone very quickly spotted her alone, small in stature, extremely inebriated, and took advantage of that. And whatever happened after that, whether it was a Daniel Messel who had plans to do this or someone who took her somewhere and she OD'd while with them, I do think that's also extremely possible. So if there's a stranger abduction theory and we're looking at it seriously, I think Daniel Messel is good for it.

Let's take out abduction for a second though. I agree with you, stranger abduction. He abducted her, right? But there's also the stranger who picked her up, the unknown hookup. Well, I don't think if it's Daniel Messel we're talking about. No, I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about a random guy. Yes, that's possible, of course. Yeah. But I'm saying for Daniel Messel, it's 2012 where he's doing all of this prowling around and all these women are saying, you know, he tried to rape me. I got in the car. You know, he's an older guy. He's in his 50s, right? He pulls up. He acts like the concerned father. Oh, I've got a daughter your age. He seems caring and he tries something. They happen to

get away. So he seemed to be doing this a lot. He did it so much they had a nickname for this dude. All right. It's possible because he prowled around so much and this is all happening the summer after Lauren's gone. It's possible that he knows where all the surveillance cameras are, right? Because he's fucking driving around all the time trying to pick up these girls. And obviously he doesn't want to be spotted. He wasn't spotted on surveillance with any of them either. They just happened to get lucky and one of the girls had his DNA under fingernails. But he probably knows where all the cameras are. So he'd even like see Lauren walking, say, hey, I know that in about 50 feet, she's going to be at this intersection. And if I pull down that intersection, there's no security cameras there.

And I can scoop her up, right? Or maybe he's even following her and Corey earlier and waiting for her to leave. He likes having sex with drunk girls. He's got porn on his computer that depicts a man having sex with a drunk, passed out girl. She's tiny. She's easy to grab up. She's easy to convince. It could have been him, right?

And he already killed. I mean, he didn't kill Hannah Wilson at that point. But we do see an escalation, right? You know, as a cop, that sometimes these offenders start out just like, oh, trying to, you know, rape them or they maybe are doing this. And then it escalates to murder. Very few of these offenders start out just like murdering people. So if we look at it that way in that pattern, what happened with Lauren, you know, it could have been that escalation. And then it continued with Hannah Wilson. We just don't know. But I also think like if you're

talking about just some random guy who's like, hey, let's keep drinking, that should have been picked up on surveillance somewhere, right? Because where is he finding her? Is he coming out of a bar and seeing her? Is he driving by and seeing her? Like if it's just something that started out well-intentioned or, you know, whatever, that they didn't mean to kill her, why would they hide from surveillance cameras? But someone like Daniel Messel would be easily, it would be easy for him to evade the security cameras because he's been doing this. He knows where they are. Yeah. So as far as the stranger abduction theory, I think Daniel Messel is possible.

I also believe in my heart there were other Daniel Messels in that area at that time. And still to this day that we don't even know about that they haven't been caught yet, who could also be responsible for that. They just the daniel messles who haven't been prosecuted yet right they're just they've been lucky um so i do think that's plausible um as far as the again i hate to say this but sometimes we just get unlucky in cases anybody who's ever worked a case knows what i'm talking about where it's just like i'll give you a perfect example. Jennifer Cassie from Florida, you know, without going into that case too much, they have a guy on camera. The minute he's picked up on camera, he happens to walk behind a gate or a

pole where you just can't see his face. I mean, there's no way he could have done that intentionally, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. And it makes you want to put your fist through the camera screen as, as an investigator. So although unlikely, I will, I will give you that. Is it possible this dumb college kid met up with her? Cause she decided to go off the beaten path. Like maybe she was so disoriented. She didn't follow the most direct path to her house. And she went down a way where there were not cameras. And it happened to be that this kid was doing that as well and did they go hook up somewhere and something happened while hooking up or while hanging out yes it's possible it's absolutely possible and you know that person if they bring this girl back to us let's say he meets

up with this girl brings her back to the apartment let's not even say they were hooking up let's just say they're sitting there drinking and doing drugs or whatever or just even they can be talking for all i care but she has a reaction she overdoses from whatever she's taken he's in an apartment by himself with this girl now and realize and thinks to himself although i didn't do anything wrong they're gonna pin this murder on me they're gonna pin this on me i gotta get rid of her now would he be able to pull that off without being caught? I think it's unlikely. It's just the same way of having these multiple guys. You would have to be lucky. But the only reason I wrote it down is because I know a lot of people are caught up on the idea that she never left that apartment complex alive. And I think that's justified in that thinking because if the shoe fits, then it fits. But I do think there is

some substance to the idea that they did send her on her way and she was a victim of circumstance where there was somebody there like a daniel messel or an individual a college drunk kid who wanted to hang out and from people we've heard on this these three parts even though they were drinking and drunk she was like hey i want to i want to continue drinking and she was she was like, Hey, I want to keep, I want to continue drinking. And she was willing to refresh my memory. Was it Michael Beth who she said, you know, once, once the first guy was already drunk, passed out, she was like, Hey, do you want to go back to my place? According to Michael Beth, who we don't have any reason not to believe him at this point, right? Like he was kind of like, he really had nothing to do with it at this point. He's not being accused of,

I mean, even the civil suit got dropped against him. Again, I don't know the guy, so I'm not going to sit here and say he's a good person. But if we're to take him at his word from what we've read, then she was willing to drink with anybody at that point. She just wanted to continue the party. Doesn't make her wrong. Doesn't make her responsible. She should be able to do that. No problems.

I'm glad you brought that that up by the way because i don't believe i don't believe it i don't believe it i don't believe that she was like come back to my apartment with me you don't think she said come out drinks no no why not why don't you believe it i don't have anything to support that she did but why don't you believe that i'm interested in she's drunk drunk so she wouldn't want to drink more like i mean i feel like this point she's probably feeling throwing up a little bit right like she she was just so drunk she's falling down she hit her head like she can't be feeling good okay so no i don't believe that she was like come back to my apartment and drink with me plus she already was at her apartment earlier with cory he got punched in

the face by by these dudes does she really want to bring another dude back already knowing that like Jesse's going to be on her ass the next day for having one dude up there? Like does she really want to stroll into her apartment building with another dude? It just doesn't make sense to me. No. And why wouldn't she have been like, oh, let's go next door to Jay's and drink some more. You know, why would she be trying to bring him back to her apartment? I don't know. Or just why wouldn't they just stay there? Like it doesn't make any sense to me. So I don't think that happened.

I 1 million percent believe that she never said, come back to my apartment and drink with me. Why he would lie about it? I'm not saying that we know it's a lie. Why he would say that? I don't know. I couldn't tell you that, but I don't believe it at all. We're going to take our last break. But before we do, I just want to say this. It's very likely that, I shouldn't even say it's very likely, but it makes a lot of sense that she never left that apartment complex alive, right? And that these guys got lucky and were able to cover their tracks in a way where law enforcement hasn't had enough to sink their teeth into yet. Allegedly. However, if we're to believe that the

Bloomington PD and the FBI did their jobs the right way and they did leave no stone unturned, there is a very real scenario that the reason they haven't found Lauren or the person responsible for her disappearance is because they haven't encountered that person yet. And that would, that would explain why we're sitting here today with the case unsolved, because it's my personal belief that these drunk kids would have screwed up. If this was a non premeditated thing, when they were getting rid of her body, they would have made a mistake in my, that's just what I believe. I, you know, yes, sometimes you get lucky, but they would have made a mistake. That's just what I believe. Yes, sometimes you get lucky, but there would have been something in the short period of time that they would have had to do this where they would have made a mistake and the police would

have capitalized on it. So the only explanation as to why they didn't make that mistake is if they didn't do it in the first place. So again- Yeah, but you said sometimes people just get lucky. And that's why I'm qualifying it by saying sometimes they get lucky, but more likely than not, there would be a mishap with one of their GPS court where they would forget to leave their phone or they would get caught on a camera that they didn't see because this wasn't a premeditated thing

and they would be nervous. They're not bad guys to the sense where they do this all the time and they would make a mistake or they would slip up and get nervous or whatever the case may be. So the only thing that would explain them other than them getting lucky would be that they truly didn't do it. And there's a Daniel Messel out there right now who did. But we can keep going with it, but I want to take a quick break. And then I know we still have a whole another theory that's more recent, that's crazy and could be its own episode on its own. Let's take a quick break and come back.

All right. It's pretty much ended the same way. Unfortunately, Lauren is dead. But what if, what if somebody took her and kept her alive for some sort of purpose? And that's kind of where this next theory centers on. So this is kind of a new theory that's just popped up within the last couple of months. And a lot of you guys have been sending me information about this. I really appreciate it because, I mean, it seems really out there. And the only reason I'm talking about it is because Lauren's family, they seem to have taken the theory seriously enough to alert law enforcement to it so that it can be looked into thoroughly. So we're going to discuss it. And it pains me to say it.

It feels ludicrous to say it, but this is a TikTok conspiracy theory. We did it. It took us like 40 something episodes. Yeah, I mean. But we're finally on TikTok. For those of you who are on TikTok, you know that there's a lot of these. And I would say like 99% of them are absolute bullshit. Like I'll watch one and I'll be like, what?

That's crazy. There's like a hotel under an ocean. And then I'll look it up and it'll be like, what? That's crazy. There's a hotel under an ocean. And then I'll look it up and it'll be like, no, that's false. It's been proven false. Some of them, 1% of them, they actually hit on something. And I think that it might be the case here. And even if it has nothing to do with Lauren, it's still super suspicious. So in a video posted by a TikToker with the handle TyTheCrazyGuy, we're introduced to this online gambling site called Rubet. And Rubet's been banned in the United States, but it's still operating. And if you want to play from the U.S., you can easily just use a VPN and do so, and many people do.

So this is like an online casino, and it gives the user the ability to play against mainly female dealers. But many people have pointed out some worrying things about these women, such as the fact that they all look exhausted, they have red puffy eyes, they're pale, they look sick, and there have even been instances of these women nodding out as they're dealing and outright passing out while playing. One user was live streaming himself playing the game when his dealer, she just literally passed out on the table. Like just boom, she went down. And you can see behind her like the other female dealers, they look stressed, they look worried, but they just keep playing, right? They don't stop to check on her or offer her assistance. They don't get up from their chairs. They just keep

playing. So within moments, several men come on camera and they drag this woman away by her arms, but the chair that she's sitting in, it also gets pulled away as they're pulling her away by her arms. So this has led many people to wonder if these women are not only being forced to work long hours, maybe being kept under the influence of drugs or alcohol so that they remain calm and docile. But also, are they being tied or secured to their chairs in some way? Because you can see in this video, when they grab her by the arms and pull her away, the chair goes with her. So it's very creepy. Now, most of these women are not wearing face masks. And when I say face masks, I mean like one you would wear for COVID. But a few of them are. And this has led many people to wonder, you know, why? Why are only a couple women wearing

face masks when the majority of them are not? And they're all like definitely six feet apart. So it's just strange. One of the women in the face masks has been said to resemble Lauren Spear. And it's really sad. She's blonde. She's,. She's sort of pale. She does look like Lauren. Her eyes are so red. She looks just exhausted. It's very sad. If you're watching on YouTube, we'll put the picture up and you can let us know if you think that this woman dealing and Lauren Spear look alike. It's definitely a very crazy sort of theory. And Charlene Spear, she said on TikTok, I think it was on Twitter she said we've been notified of the video like everyone's let us know and we've sent it to the police so

they can look into it so I don't know that's it's just bananas and it doesn't say why it was banned in the U.S. either so I'm not sure why it would have been banned but it definitely is what do you think about this I mean mean, I think a good investigator would never say any theory is completely rubbish because at the end of the day, anything's possible and you want to be open-minded to all possibilities. But this would be at the bottom for me. I saw the photo. You sent it to me directly when you were writing the script. Yeah. Yes, you did. And I see the resemblance, but I mean, I've seen people where they were not wearing a mask and they resemble someone that was taken

five or six years ago. But to me, if you're looking at that photo, which I believe it's a more recent photo, at this point, Lauren would be almost 30 years old. So she would not look like she looked when she disappeared and that girl looks like the lauren that we remember when she disappeared in my opinion you think she looks older she she yep i think she looks older um you know once again without without the mouth you know just the eyes it's hard to tell how much older but yeah i definitely think she she looks older yeah so i i didn't when you sent me the photo i was like i mean there's no i didn think she she looks older yeah so i i didn't when you sent me the photo i was like i mean there's no i didn't see a lot of aging so i was like i don't

really think so and again to just use like just the eyes and like the bridge of the nose i don't mean the eye color though the hair color the skin tone it's all it's all spot on and i mean we know that blonde hair blue eyes and what a caucasian i want to punch you in your face so bad right now she's hey you know she got blonde hair blue eyes you clearly like being like purposely like missing the point which it's the same color blue like the same color blonde i got it same like that crystal listen we know right and you, girls get kidnapped all the time for trafficking. This site is clearly operating out of some foreign country. All right.

Oh, yeah. No, there's some shady. Oh, I'm not just kidding. There's some shady ass business going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These women are like all messed up. Human trafficking going on. You can tell these women are all messed up.

Like the fact that this girl just dropped on the table and the other women didn't even move. Like one girl raised her hands. Like, what do we do? But nobody gets up to like help her or do anything yeah you sent me the video too it's crazy and then the chair moving i mean her foot could have got locked into the chair like could have yo for what i'm saying is we know that they get kidnapped for sex trafficking so why not get kidnapped like these people don't really care these kind of people who do trafficking and stuff they don't care how they're making their money, whether it's through sex or gambling, as long as they are. But then, of course, you have to have this forced labor.

I'm trying to remember. The guys showed their face on camera, didn't they? Yeah. I don't think they had masks on, which makes me think they're not too concerned about showing their faces. I mean, you got girls passing out on your tables, man. You probably should be if you're not. Yeah, it's not good. Yeah.

No, I mean, for me me it's like again i'm glad lauren's mom passed it along as she should i'm sure the police looked into it as they should um but do i think it's on the top of their list you and i were talking in between like as we weren't recording but you know we we also said i guess we should say it while we're recording there's a strong possibility i would i would venture to say this is the case where the police know a lot more than any of us out there. And they may have already ruled out some things. They may have already confirmed some things. And as Stephanie said, they may already kind of have an idea of what happened based on what they know. But it's that old training day saying,

if you've seen the movie Training Day, it's one of my favorite. It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. And, you know, it's, it sounds, you know, it's a movie line, but it's true, man. It's not what you know. It's if you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. And you have to understand that you really only get one shot at the title. If you try to go after any of these individuals and you miss, you run the risk of them going free forever. So, you know So they only get one

shot at it. So they want to always make sure that they truly believe that there's nothing else that's going to come from this investigation that could help them down the road. So that's constantly the balancing act that you play as an investigator where it's like, could it stick? Maybe. But do we want to roll the dice on just this? I don't know. Because we're playing, we're gambling with someone's, the family's, their well-being as far as whether they're going to get justice or not. And that's a big thing, take a risk on. And we saw an instance of this just in the case we did right before this, Robin Pope, right? Where Sergeant Sexton, it's pretty much like, yeah, I feel that I know Wayne did right before this, Robin Pope, right? Where Sergeant Sexton is pretty much like, yeah,

I feel that I know Wayne did this. However, I don't have the evidence to do anything about it. And I shudder to imagine how many cases are out there unsolved where the police pretty much know exactly what happened and who did it, but it's just coming up with that substantial proof to actually bring it to trial and get a conviction. And they're just short of that. So they can't. So it has to be incredibly frustrating for a police officer and investigator to kind of know who did it, but not be able to pull the trigger. So a little bit of a lighter note, and then we'll go to a more serious note as we go out. But back to our original question, our original heated debate today, where it's like, would you allow

your daughter to, or would your daughter do it? But I was phrasing, you were saying if you were directly the person, but I was saying if I was a parent. So more than likely, if you were the father or mother of Jay or Corey, you would probably give an interview to Bo Dietl. Well, Bo Dietl, and this is from our, shout out to John editor he was giving me i didn't know this but bo diddle if you're a fan of the movie the wolf of wall street leo dicaprio's private investigator in the movie that italian guy was like you didn't try to bribe a federal agent did you yeah you know jordan that's bo diddle yeah did you know that he's like famous he's like uh i mean where were you on that one that you were like i don't know who he is i was like he's like famous well i thought you're

like famous private investigator but he's in a movie but my point is well he's not in that movie no he's in the movie he's the actor in that movie yes that's bo diddle yes he's an actor as well yeah so my point is no i didn't know that was him in that movie that's what john told me if it's wrong john that's on you but when i googled the name bo deedle after he said it that guy pops up the guy in the movie yeah well yeah i guess it's cool but personally and bo seems like a good like he's great on camera by the way i thought he was great in the movie i don't you know he definitely thinks highly of himself and again i don't know if i let my son or daughter get interviewed by him and it also shows you like the type of money that

lauren's feeling when he's dealing with to have him come down he's a big player you know he's your classic like new york guy you know talks fast like slick suit you know three thousand dollar suits five thousand dollar shoes he does think very very highly of himself and so i guess bo diddle was actually working for the real jordan belfort and that's why he did the movie so so so so again just to add to my question from earlier would you let bo diddle jordan belfort's former pi interview your son or daughter for a possible murder i would i would because i'm like am i gonna be there am i gonna make sure she's got a lawyer yeah but like you can't just pull shit out

of thin air she didn't do it she didn't do it she's told you everything she's told the police but it's just that that's that act of sitting down and talking to them of doing what they request so that from then on they can't ever say like, well, they didn't talk to us. Well, yes, I did. So what now do you have against me? Yes, I did speak to you. Yeah. What I found is that what I would tell anybody, and this is for everybody out there, if you give a statement to the police, be careful of giving a second statement to anyone, because even if you're telling the truth, you can get nervous and you can actually contradict yourself unintentionally. So you run the risk every time you repeat your story of actually contradicting yourself,

which can be used against you, even though it's completely innocent. And that's the other reason I'd be apprehensive about it. I would always start with a federal authority. And then if it's local PD, yes. But I don't know if I would continue to give statements. Although I do hear where you're coming from, where it's coming from a good place. But, you know, I was innocent. She was innocent.

If I if I if I if it was me and I'm like, oh, I did this shit. No, of course not. Of course not. Because now I'm going to run the risk of saying something I don't want to. But if like it's pretty cut and dried, this is what happened. What do I what do i have to worry about and now i don't have to deal with this constant thing hanging over my head where the parents are saying to the media that i haven't spoken to them and i get the media outside my

house and it's just like a headache when you could do you think they would have gone away do you think lauren's family would have gone away after giving the statement if they even if you told them every even if you went to them said i'm sorry i just don't know what happened to her i walked her out do you think they would be like, oh, you know what? We believe you. They may, they may not have gone away, but they wouldn't have had that, that weapon in their arsenal to use against me. They wouldn't have been able to say, well, he just won't talk to us or she just won't

talk to us. Well, yes, I did. So now what do you have? What do you have to say to the press about me at this point? I've been open. I've been transparent with you. You can't say anything about me. End of story.

I'll be interested. I just want to get it off my chest. I want to get it off my plate. I You can't say anything about me. End of story. I'll be interested. I just want to get it off my chest. I want to get it off my plate. I wouldn't want that hanging over me. And I always feel like honesty is the best policy. Okay. I want to hear from all you guys. The lawyer, her lawyer or my lawyer or his lawyer would be there with them.

So the lawyer is not going to let you say anything stupid. If the lawyer was there and you had already given a statement to a federal agency and then the local PD, do you think that lawyer would advise you to give a statement to a private investigator that's working for the family? If the lawyer said, don't do it, then I wouldn't do it. You got to follow your lawyer's advice. What do you think they would say? What do I think who would say, the lawyer? I don't know what the lawyer would say, but the fact of the matter is none of these guys were ever like my lawyer said, don't talk to them. Don't you think that would have been like an easy thing to scapegoat the lawyer would say but the fact of the matter is none of these guys were ever like my lawyer said don't talk to them don't you think that would have been like an easy like thing to

scapegoat the lawyer it was my lawyer's advice to not speak to them so it's not me but i have to follow my lawyer that's what i pay him for you know what are you gonna do at that point like there's a million different ways to handle it than to just like shut them out never speak to them again and let them like continue saying that in the media to the point where like that is one of the things that makes them look suspicious to this day that they didn't speak well i'm hoping and i truly mean this i'm not saying it to you know just cover us at the end here it has been over seven years so she's presumed that 10 years i but it's been over seven years oh so after seven yes stephanie is uh yo i know you in the youtube comments are having me like damn stephanie man i know get off derrick so you're on me tonight

well now they're gonna it's been over seven oh yeah but so it's been over seven years so legally she's presumed dead but we've seen it in so many cases where, you know, it was just, it was a case overseas. It wasn't here, but the person was missing for almost 15 years and it was a child that was abducted. So there is hope there is some silver lining that she hasn't been found yet because until she's found, there's still hope that she's alive out there somewhere. And it's a, you know, to be honest, it's not likely, but it's possible. And I know that it doesn't make the family feel any better, but I'm sure there's a small part of them that hopes that this is all not for nothing and that one day she is going to come back to him, whether it's tomorrow or

another 10 years from now that she's going to come back, she's going to be alive. And again, her being in her thirties, it becomes less likely because she wasn't a child when she was abducted, if that's what happened. But I'm praying and hoping for him that that is the case and that we do get some resolution to this case because the family does deserve it, regardless of whether I agree with everything they've done up to this point. I completely understand where they're coming from. And hell would be unleashed if it was one of my daughters. And I think I can speak for you, Stephanie, when I say that, like, it would be a full-time thing. I would live in Indiana until

they either arrested me or they found the person who did it, you know, or found my daughter. So I'm completely with them. And I, you know, I'm hoping that there's something to this case, you know, because right now it seems like either a, these kids got really lucky, like I said earlier, or the person that did this has not been apprehended yet. And then, and not even not only apprehended, but they're not having been identified yet. They're just this, a Daniel the this guy that we've already spoken about earlier or or him or him right or him and so or this israel keys right i'm so sorry about the israel keys thing man i feel like when we went on break i was like i'm so mad at myself like how did i miss that it sounds exactly like the kind of theory that i would love to like sink my teeth

into to begin with and i feel like i feel like a waste of space right now i feel like i failed you guys and let you guys. And let you guys down. No. But what'd you say? What'd you say we're going to offer? And we're going to do it. What'd you tell me during. When we were.

Yeah. So. If you guys want. Let us know in the comments. But. Or like on social media. If you're listening. But.

If you want us to go live on YouTube. And talk about the. You know. Connection. The connection to Israel Keys. From Lauren Spear. Let us know. We'll go live.

And we'll discuss it. Because Derek said it's like in depth man. He says. I thought the. I thought the guy Spear. Let us know. We'll go live and we'll discuss it because Derek said it's like in-depth, man. He says- I thought the guy or girl who ever did it was really, I was impressed. So I would like to talk about it with you guys. We both would like to discuss it with you guys. So if you want us to go live and talk about that

because I feel like that's the only way I can repay you right now for completely leaving that- You want to do it for yourself. I do, I do. But it's so unlike me like i just feel terrible like how could i do that anyways we will do that let us know just my research games you know i know and derek was like oh yo i'm getting better at research and i was like you're not even gonna need me soon that's all i offer you i kind of said my piece on this would you

you have any um final thoughts on it as far as you can take us out? Yeah, well, I mean, at the end of the day, it's been 10 years, right? We're no closer to finding out what happened to Lauren or where she is. But from recent statements made by Charlene Spearer, her original belief that someone knows something

has not faded with time. In June of 2021, Charlene Spearer said, quote, you read everything written, every blog, every Facebook post, every tweet, every comment at the end of every article you have access to, just hoping someone will post something to move your case forward. You open your door to the worst of humanity, desperate to believe they're convincing lies. But I think the worst offense comes from those who hold the answers and refuse to share them. End quote. Damn. Yeah. think the worst offense comes from those who hold the answers and refuse to share them end quote damn yeah like that and then that surprises me because i i think i remember saying at some point like i'm sure that they don't watch these but she might be she might be she's so dedicated 10 years later i think it's an everyday thing like you said she's so dedicated to to having some answers

what happened to her daughter that this is probably something she wakes up every morning and it's the first thing on her mind. And she goes right to the computer just to see if there's anything new. Just with that hope every day is probably what keeps her going, that this could be the day that something comes out. We have answers. We know something. Lauren comes home to us in one way or the other. And that's really sad. And our thoughts are with the family as always. We hope that you get your answers. We want you to get your answers. Thank you all for being here. Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate it. Hopefully we shed some light on something, right? Let us know what you think in the comments, answer our questions,

and make sure you come back next week. We'll see you then. Bye.