Crime Weekly - S1 Ep52: Taylor Wright: Shallow Grave (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Thirty-three year old Taylor Wright was a strong person, a woman who knew how to take care of herself. She had gone to ...college and majored in criminal justice, she had graduated from the police academy and was sworn in as a Jacksonville, North Carolina police officer in early 2008. Throughout her time as a police officer, she was dedicated to investigating cases, and bringing wrongdoers to justice, she even wore a bracelet that had a charm on it, in the shape of the scales of justice. Taylor was a woman who did not mince words, and no one who knew her would have ever describe her as meek, or afraid to speak her mind, but everyone loved her because of her kind heart and giving spirit, if you were Taylor’s friend, she would do anything for you, and she expected the same loyalty in return. So when she went missing on September 8th, 2017, many people felt that she had vanished willingly, running away from the many problems that followed her, that was until October 19th, when the skeletonized remains of Taylor Wright were found, buried under potting soil and concrete, wrapped tightly in a hammock, with a bullet hole in her skull.  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're picking up with part two of the Taylor Wright case. We kind of just went over the basics in part one. We're diving into more details in this part. And I actually did speak to one of the detectives on Taylor's case this morning to kind of clear things up. And I found out some interesting things. So I'm excited to get started. You want to dive right in or do you
Starting point is 00:00:55 have anything you want to say before we do? No, I just want to say today's date is, as I'm looking at it right now, today's November 22nd. Just want to say thoughts and prayers with everyone out in Wisconsin right now. Absolutely insane what's going on. We're going to wait and see what the investigation kind of finds, but really terrible to think that can be out at a Christmas parade and you're not even safe there. Just thinking of everybody who's been injured or has lost someone, this is terrible. Absolutely. It was sad to see that there was kids there just trying to, you know, enjoy, especially after such a long lockdown.
Starting point is 00:01:29 They're just trying to get out and enjoy the upcoming holiday season and they are attacked for no reason. Nowhere safe anymore. Very, very sad. Yeah. Well, Derek's in a great mood. Yeah, I'm not in a great mood today,
Starting point is 00:01:41 but we're going to, we're going to make, Stephanie knows this because we, but I think partially is because of that, but not going to let it show here. We're going to get this done, do it the right way and, you know, cover this case the way it needs to be covered. We're going to bring you out. We're going to bring you out of your sadness. Unless you have like, I don't know. I don't even know what it would take a magic wand to fix the world.
Starting point is 00:02:00 Your mere presence makes me happy, Stephanie. Oh, good. That's what I was hoping. OK, that's all I have to offer. All right, let's dive in. We're picking up with the morning of September 8th, 2017, the last day that Taylor Wright was seen alive. So this morning, it was the plan that Taylor's friend, Ashley MacArthur, would pick her up
Starting point is 00:02:23 and together they would go to the bank and get Taylor's money out of the safety deposit box so that she could deposit the money into an escrow account per a court order. Now at this time, Taylor was living with her girlfriend Cassandra Waller, but Cassandra had plans that morning. She had committed herself to doing some volunteer work. Cassandra said that on this morning, Taylor seemed to be completely fine. But as it got closer to 10 a.m., the time Ashley had promised Taylor she would be there to pick her up by, Taylor seemed to get more stressed out. Cassandra was still home when Ashley arrived, but she left the house before Taylor and Ashley did. Cassandra said that at that time,
Starting point is 00:03:02 Taylor was dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, flip-flops, and some jewelry when she last saw her. So Taylor always wore the same jewelry. She had a necklace that had a bullet hanging from it. She always had a ring on her thumb, and then she had her bracelet with the scales of justice on it. Cassandra said goodbye to Taylor and Ashley, and she drove away, not knowing at that time that she would never see her girlfriend alive again. Cassandra did receive some texts from Taylor throughout the day, but the communication from Taylor stopped around 1130 a.m. Cassandra sent some texts to Taylor around lunchtime, but she got no response back. So around 4 p.m., she actually had texted Ashley McArthur asking if Ashley and Taylor were okay.
Starting point is 00:03:45 And Ashley's response to Cassandra was, yes, ma'am. But when Cassandra asked Ashley to have Taylor call her, Cassandra's phone did ring, but it wasn't Taylor. It was Ashley. Ashley told Cassandra that she and Taylor were at a farm in Milton riding horses. And at that moment, Taylor was on a horse, so she couldn't come to the phone. Cassandra asked Ashley, you know, weren't you guys supposed to like go to the bank and, you know, get this money, et cetera, et cetera. And Ashley responded, yeah, but Taylor had been really stressed from everything happening with the divorce and she'd been extremely emotional
Starting point is 00:04:22 all that day. So they just decided to do something fun. Cassandra said, okay, but asked Ashley to have Taylor touch base with her as soon as possible. Three hours later at 7.30 PM, Cassandra had still not heard from Taylor. So she texted Ashley saying, this isn't okay. Ashley called Cassandra and told her
Starting point is 00:04:42 that after she and Taylor had left the farm in Milton, they'd gone back to Ashley's house. And at around 5 p.m., Taylor had told Ashley that she was just going to call an Uber and go grab a drink. Ashley said that she went back inside her house. And when she came out, Taylor was gone. And that was the last time she had seen her. But she did tell Cassandra that Taylor had been holding two bags when she left. She said one bag had a bunch of money in it and the other one had some of Taylor's clothes inside of it. Cassandra hung up the phone and she was pissed, understandably, especially considering the fact that she and Taylor were supposed to have been working on rebuilding the trust lost
Starting point is 00:05:22 when Taylor had confessed to having an affair and experimenting with drugs. Cassandra only had about 20 minutes to stew on this and think about it before she received a text from Taylor's phone saying, quote, I'll call you later. I'm not angry with you and I should have called, but I just needed time to think. I'm trying to get my life organized and on track, end quote. At that time, this text message really pissed Cassandra off, but later she would look back and admit that although most of the text sort of vibed with how Taylor would usually speak, the last part of the text was out of character because Taylor did not feel that her life was unorganized or in need of getting back on track. Later that night, Ashley,
Starting point is 00:06:06 who lived just about a mile away, stopped in to see Cassandra and bring her some jewelry, and she claimed Taylor had left this jewelry in her car. Ashley was there for roughly 20 minutes before leaving, but just before midnight that same night, Ashley sent Cassandra a screenshot of a text she claimed to have received from Taylor. And in this text, Taylor said she was OK, but the legal proceedings and the move to Cassandra's house had been stressing her out. So she just needed some time to think. Cassandra said that this text did not sound like her girlfriend at all because she knew for a fact that Taylor was not stressed about moving in together. She was very excited and looking forward to being settled.
Starting point is 00:06:47 Yeah, this is, I don't want to get too far ahead here. And I mean, kind of see where this is going. Last episode, I had said, you know, Jeff was a main person of interest in my mind, and Ashley was as well. But after what you're saying, it's not like we haven't seen this story before right or heard this story before where someone's with someone and these strange text messages start coming in the person that cassandra left that morning being taylor did not appear to be in a bad place she just wanted her money she was just going to the bank and it sounds like what you're setting up
Starting point is 00:07:22 here is is something where more than likely it wasn't Taylor text messaging either Cassandra or Ashley. Right. Who was text messaging? I have some guesses. And I'll let you get there as we go. But it sounds like based on what we know about this case, what you talked about in the first episode, that was the last time that anyone saw Taylor alive. It was Cassandra when she left and she was with Ashley. And so I know as you tell this story, there's going to be nothing else physically from, from Taylor. So my wheels are turning. I think I know where you're going with
Starting point is 00:07:59 this. It does look like if what I'm thinking is true like there was a premeditated effort a plan in place kind of the opposite of what we talked about with brian laundry right there was something in place that was going to be kind of put in put into uh motion to set up a narrative and it sounds like the narrative is that it starts off where Taylor is trying to figure things out. She's got a bag full of cash, bag full of clothes. And I think if this plan is to continue to play out, the narrative would be that Taylor decided to take off somewhere and nobody, you know, somewhere else in the country with their money in her clothes to start a new life and didn't tell anybody. What do you think about Cassandra saying that when Taylor first woke up that morning, she seemed fine. But as the time got closer that Ashley was going to pick her up, she seemed kind of nervous. It kind of seems like maybe Taylor knew that Ashley was giving her
Starting point is 00:08:56 the runaround a little bit. And maybe she thought she's not going to show up or if she does show up, we're not going to get to the bank. Maybe Taylor was starting to question whether this safety deposit and this whole story was even real. Yeah, I think that's 100% accurate where she was feeling her out. Some of the text messages that Taylor had sent to Ashley as far as the urgency, which was true, but I think it was more of like, I got to see this box. I got to see what this woman's doing with my money. Because as we said at the very beginning of last episode, Taylor was a very good cop. Yeah. All her colleagues, all her peers, nobody's ever disputed that.
Starting point is 00:09:30 So she had that natural intuition to read people. And as someone who locked up criminals, people who probably committed some financial crimes, she knows the behavior associated with these types of crimes. And she was probably seeing some of that in the behavior of Ashley. So I'm sure she was on high alert. And then I would even go as far as saying, like, when you're dealing with these amounts of money as a cop, I think everybody's capable of murder if they if the right motive is in place.
Starting point is 00:09:59 So you probably start wondering, like, is this person setting me up? Maybe not to kill me themselves but like could they be bringing me somewhere where someone else who they own you never know and so i know with me quick example where like sometimes i'll buy things online whether it's like facebook or craigslist which i don't really do that anymore but like you know you want to get a good deal on something you you go to meet this person and one of the thoughts that are always going through my mind is like when i show up is this person going to be waiting there with like five other people to jump me and take the money that I'm bringing or whatever? So even though
Starting point is 00:10:33 Taylor knew Ashley, it doesn't seem like the relationship was that long and that she knew her that well. So I'm sure a lot of these things were going through her mind. She had been displaying all this weird behavior leading up to it. And now all of a sudden she was willing to meet up with her and bring her to the bank. She was probably anxious about what was going to take place and if she was actually going to end up seeing or finding a safety deposit box. Yeah, you'd think that she'd just be suspicious in general of everybody. I mean, as a cop, I'm sure Taylor saw people mugged for 20 bucks, much less the amount of money that she had entrusted Ashley with, which was absolutely bananas as a cop and a PI to do that.
Starting point is 00:11:14 Like, you have to be either really desperate or really trust this person. And I'm going to lean towards really desperate. Do you think there's another angle here too? Because as you were saying, it's like probably anxious because she doesn't trust Ashley anymore. But also she's committing, there's some crimes going on here, right? Both civilly and criminally. There's some issues with the money. They're doing things they shouldn't be doing. And I'm sure that right in and of itself raises your level of anxiety as well. You're dealing with a person who could really screw up a lot for you in
Starting point is 00:11:45 your civil proceedings and also could result in some criminal action. So I'm sure she was very nervous with the whole situation. For all she knew, Taylor could have been being set up by Ashley. Yeah. I feel like maybe she was like, I might have to confront this girl today. Right. Right. I have to be ready. I have to psych myself up because I might have to confront Ashley today if it turns out that she makes another excuse or the money's not there. Yeah. No, I agree. It's I think she knew something something was coming down the pipe and she was going to be hopefully pleasantly surprised. I don't think she had a good vibe going into it. No. Her gut was telling her this is not going to be a good day today.
Starting point is 00:12:24 So and that's another thing, you know, Cassandra's over here and she knows that Taylor wants that money back. She knows how important it is. And then she finds out that they're not at the bank. They went horse riding. And she's like, what's going on here? You know, I wonder why almost like Cassandra wasn't a little bit more suspicious at this point because you knew how important it was to get to the bank. And then you call. nobody's answering you. And then finally you get ahold of somebody and Ashley's like, yeah, we're just riding horsies right now
Starting point is 00:12:50 because we really just needed something fun to do because Taylor's so stressed. What's not gonna help Taylor's stress is avoiding the bank and that money again. Completely agree. Yeah, there's a huge red flag because there's personal conversations going on between Cassandra and Taylor. And as you mentioned, Cassandra knew how important that money was to Taylor and to think that, you know, they probably had been talking behind closed doors for weeks about, you know, actually is not giving me the money. Actually is not giving me the money. They're at Twin Peaks the night before or whatever it is. And Ashley's kind of playing like it's not that big of a deal. So this was a big moment for Taylor to finally rectify this issue. Cassandra, knowing her like she did, was probably like, there's no way
Starting point is 00:13:34 before going to get the money, which is what she's been so stressed about, she's going to go ride a horse when the stress is coming from the fact that she doesn't have the money you know like that's a big part of her stress right now i know why would you if if taylor got the money you would think taylor would have texted cassandra and said all set we're good i got it you know i got it i'm gonna go ride some horses now yes yes we're back on track you know and and not the opposite so i'm i i don't know how much cassandra the the you, her red flag meter went up, but I would hope that she was like, I don't see it. You know, it doesn't make sense at this point that she would do that. So it doesn't seem like that happened. Right.
Starting point is 00:14:16 It seems like at first Cassandra's main emotion was anger towards Taylor. She said, quote, Here we are in a relationship. I'm thinking Taylor's telling me that she needs time to herself and she's not including her partner. And that hurt my feelings. End quote. So Cassandra began sending Taylor texts, you know, basically saying, I'm so mad. Don't bother coming back. I don't want you here. You've lied to me again and again. I don't think this is going to work. I don't think we can be together. You lie. You don't want you here. You've lied to me again and again. I don't think this is going to work. I don't think we can be together. You lie. You don't know how to stop. So this also makes me wonder, was it just the affair and the drugs that Taylor had not been completely truthful about,
Starting point is 00:14:56 or was this sort of a pattern of behavior since they'd started dating? Which, if you think about it, wasn't that long that they had been dating they just started dating in the spring of 2017 this is the summer of 2017 i mean it's like one change of season but how often was cassandra lied to by taylor to the point where this would be your response like you lie and you don't know how to stop yeah i mean they just had that falling out not too long ago where you were telling me you know they had this falling out and within a week she's like i think you should move in you know so it seems like there might be And within a week, she's like, I think you should move in. Yeah. You know, so it seems like there might be a tumultuous relationship. It had some trust issues.
Starting point is 00:15:29 Passionate. Yeah, passionate. And self-admittedly, Taylor has confessed a few different times that she's been unfaithful to people in the past. Yeah. And I'm sure I think any human being would be concerned that the same thing could happen with us. Yeah. You know, so she's on high alert. And it almost seems like with these text messages, and, you know, I've been guilty of doing it
Starting point is 00:15:50 where you deliberately write something in an attempt to get a rise out of that person to elicit emotion because they're not giving you the responses you want. And it sounds like that's kind of what she was doing here. Yeah, you do that to me all the time, man. That is such a lie. And people are going to believe you. That's why I have to say it. Because people are going to be like, really, Yeah, you do that to me all the time, man. That is such a lie. And people are going to believe you. That's why I have to say it because people are going to be like,
Starting point is 00:16:07 really, Derek? You do that? He's always like, answer your phone, dummy. Yeah, see? And you know what? There's a portion of people that are not watching this on YouTube
Starting point is 00:16:15 that will be like, oh my God, poor Stephanie. I know. I am so sad all the time. See, she's mean to me on here. He's mean to me everywhere else. Yes, I'm mean to her everywhere else. You guys just
Starting point is 00:16:25 don't know. You don't know about it. It works for us. So at this point, Cassandra, she didn't know whether to be worried or furious, right? She worried that Taylor was off with another woman and that, you know, she was being played for a fool. But she did try calling Taylor and, you know, sending her texts later saying, come home, we'll work through this, saying I love you. And she was begging for some indication that Taylor was all right. And all of these calls and messages, they went unanswered. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk more about this.
Starting point is 00:17:11 All right, so the next day, it was Saturday, September 9th. Cassandra had still not heard from her girlfriend, Taylor, and she did a few things over the next few days. First, she began calling hospitals all over the place in areas that she knew Taylor would visit or liked to go. She called hospitals in Florida, Biloxi, New Orleans, but no one had Taylor Wright as a patient. Now, Cassandra, who had never met Taylor's ex-husband Jeff in person, she called him to see if he or his son Drake had heard from Taylor. Jeff said he hadn't heard from Taylor since September 9th when she'd sent him a text message. Jeff told Cassandra that Drake had been trying to get a hold of his mother, but she wasn't answering him either, and this was
Starting point is 00:17:49 very odd because Taylor was always extremely responsive to her son. Jeff also said that Taylor and Drake would most often talk on the phone. They didn't text each other often, but there would never be an occasion where Drake would text his mother and she wouldn't answer. Now, the reason Jeff had allowed Drake to have a cell phone at such a young age was so that he could keep in touch with his mother while she was living in Florida and he was living in North Carolina with his father. And during this conversation with Jeff, Cassandra brought up the idea of going to the police, but she claims Jeff scared her by telling her first that Taylor had been physical with him in the past and also warning her that Taylor might be unhappy if Cassandra went to the police and got them involved in her business. And I think this sort of explains why Taylor didn't go to the police and tell them that Ashley had stolen her money, which we had discussed in the first part of this.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Because you asked, you know, why wouldn't Taylor at some point just go to the police and say, hey, I've been trying to get my money back. Like, I know I shouldn't be hiding it, but, you know, at this point, I'd like to return it to the escrow account, but my friend Ashley won't give it to me. It sounds like she didn't really like the police to know what she was doing. There was mention in the first part of this about Taylor being sort of not upfront about what she did for a living and where her money came from. Maybe she was very private. Maybe she was doing some things she didn't want law enforcement to be aware of. But for Jeff to tell Cassandra, like, you know, Taylor probably wouldn't want you contacting the police. It seems like even though Taylor was law enforcement in the past, she maybe didn't want law enforcement involved with her business at this point.
Starting point is 00:19:24 Well, I can tell you firsthand that, you know, especially here in the past, she maybe didn't want law enforcement involved with her business at this point. Well, I can tell you firsthand that, especially here in Rhode Island, there's 39 municipalities, 39 different police departments. But when something bad is going on internally, even if it's just, like I said, not criminal, everybody in the state knows about it. It gets around to the law enforcement community very fast, and it can be embarrassing. So it's one of those things where it's a tight-knit group, and if these things are going on in her life, they're going to be made public. And let's be honest, she's not a police officer anymore at this point, but she's trying to develop her private investigative firm, her career, and she's going to need the cooperation of law enforcement in some of those cases to do her job. So this isn't stuff that she wants out there. However, you know, hindsight always 2020, if not better, I can see someone being mad at me, you know, my significant other being mad at me, not
Starting point is 00:20:18 being responsive to me, but knowing Taylor, like you do, and I'm talking about, you know, if I'm Cassandra and knowing how much she loves Drake and everything that she's doing at the root of it all, even this money is about Drake, you know, getting her life back, being able to provide for Drake. Everything is surrounded on him. You know, it's all about him. So to think that even if Taylor was in a really bad place and not responding to her or anybody else, if her son called her or texted her, she's going to answer him. And, you know, if you know Taylor, like I think Cassandra did, regardless of what Jeff said, that should have been something. If nothing else, that should have been the thing where you said, no, no, this is wrong. And I'm not, you know, if Cassandra is listening or watching this, I'm not saying that it would have changed anything. But this is the moment where we talk to our listeners, our viewers, go with your gut. You know, nobody knows the people in your life better than you do most of the time. And when you have something like this smack you in the face, if that person's still alive or, you know, or if they're just if, if they're hurt or injured, you have to act sooner than later, or it might be too late.
Starting point is 00:21:26 And unfortunately in this case, it appears it might've been too late for anybody to do anything, but this really should have been that moment where police should have got involved, you know, or she should have been going over to Ashley's house and been like, listen, you're lying about something.
Starting point is 00:21:42 Something's not right here. Where is she? No, but you got to think Cassandra and Taylor weren't together that long. Taylor and Jeff were married for years. They have a child together. And at this point, Cassandra's asking herself the question, do I know this person at all? Like, I thought I knew her. I thought I loved her, but maybe I don't. And you have to remember that Ashley's husband, Zach, used to be in law enforcement. So this is another reason that
Starting point is 00:22:05 Taylor might not have wanted to involve the police because not only is it going to be embarrassing for her, but she knows it's going to be embarrassing for Ashley and for Zach. And she probably just didn't want to start. I mean, it sounds like you said a small town, everybody knows everybody, everybody's talking, and she doesn't want to be ostracized. Because remember, her husband, Jeff, or her ex-husband, Jeff, said the most important thing to her was a good, positive social energy. And that's going to be wrecked when you start going to the police and accusing your friend of stealing your money. So true, especially if it turns around where she makes a knee-jerk reaction. I understand where she's coming from. She makes a knee-jerk reaction. She gets police involved. They're
Starting point is 00:22:39 out looking for her. Now, all of a sudden, Taylor shows back up and goes, look what you did. I told you I needed time and you made a mountain out of a molehill. And now the whole community that I'm working with thinks I'm an embarrassment, thinks I can't even control things that are going on in my own house. How are they ever going to work with me on a professional level? We can no longer be together. This is exactly what I didn't want. So I can see the balance there where she knows if she's wrong, Cassandra, if she's wrong about this, it could ruin a relationship that at this point,
Starting point is 00:23:10 she's really hoping continues to grow. Honestly, I see where she's coming from. Tough spot to be in. That is a tough spot for sure. And I could see how Jeff would spin it and saying, Hey, listen, you know, this, just take it for what I've been through. You know, it seems like Jeff was a pretty open guy, even though all this stuff was going on where he's like, listen, you know, this, just take it for what I've been through. You know, it seems like Jeff was a pretty open guy, even though all this stuff was going on where he's like, listen, you know, I knew her for a very long time. Like you said, and I know how she operates. She's private. Yeah. Yeah. Let me give you some advice. Yeah. If you're wrong about this, it's going to be the end of you too. So, you know, just know that going into it, like you really got to be certain because if you're wrong, when she does come she's going to be she's not you guys aren't going to be together anymore
Starting point is 00:23:48 yeah cassandra didn't want that so i'm not again i want to make sure everyone knows i'm not saying like oh my god cassandra what were you thinking but it's something that again we can all learn from because if you know this person there are certain things that should just really knock you in the head and go you know what I'm going to roll the dice because someone's life could be at jeopardy here. And I don't want to take that chance because time in those situations is very important. Yeah. And I mean, Cassandra did take Jeff's advice to heart to an extent. She actually went out and purchased a gun because she claimed Jeff had gotten in her head and scared her because he had said like Taylor had been violent with him. And, you know, during the
Starting point is 00:24:25 trial, Cassandra did say that Taylor had never been violent or aggressive with her. But like I said, at this point, she was maybe feeling like, you know, I don't even know the real Taylor. Like I didn't know she was aggressive or violent with Jeff. I didn't know that she was so private and kind of hiding so many things like what's going on here. So she got it to protect herself. But the next day, September 10th, Cassandra did go to the police and try to report Taylor missing. But since Taylor was in her 30s and had only been missing for two days, the Pensacola Police Department did not take her disappearance as seriously as they probably should have. Do you want me to weigh in on this? I know we we we talk about this all the time and
Starting point is 00:25:04 I'll be the bad guy here because I know we talk about this all the time and I'll be the bad guy here because I know our viewers enough, our listeners enough to know they're not going to like what I'm about to say. But I think it's important to say, and you and I talked about this before recording this and also I'll make it quick. And we disagree. Yeah, we disagree. Well, we don't disagree. I'm not saying whether I think it's the right thing or not. What I'm saying is when you have an adult that doesn't have any disabilities or no signs of like self-harm or anything like that, the standard in most police departments is 48 hours, right, before you can report a missing adult. And there are a lot of things that go into it. But that's not a hard and fast law.
Starting point is 00:25:39 It's not a hard and fast law. And I would even go as far as saying when people came into our police department, even if it was after two hours, it wasn't that we weren't taking the report. We would take the report, right? Like we'd write down a narrative. We'd take the information. We'd maybe do some well-being checks for areas where that person might be. But when I say report a person missing, I'm talking about entering them into NCIC as a missing person, which goes out in a national database so that if that person's vehicle is stopped or they're stopped, they are held there until they can report that person as being found, right? They report that person as being located in NCIC. So in order to do that, it's usually after 48 hours and there are a lot of reasons
Starting point is 00:26:23 for it. But one of the ones that I mentioned to you was, let's say you and I are dating and we've only been dating for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, like this is a situation and you're not feeling very good with me. You're feeling unsafe with me that, but you haven't told me that yet. So you kind of go off and you're doing your own thing saying you need your space, but I don't like that because I think you're cheating on me. So I'm going to go to the police and tell them, Hey, I'm dating this new girl named Stephanie Harlow. I'm just concerned for her safety. You don't have to tell me, but I just want to know that she's okay. So could you guys basically go out and find her? Here's her plate. I need to know where she is. And in reality, all I want you to do is tell me where you spotted her car. I can do my own research down the road to find out who she's with. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 00:27:09 So they're using law enforcement as a tool to basically keep tabs on their significant other. And so that is part of it. But before you even jump in, what I will say is there is a risk with that. When you're not taking the report for 48 hours officially and putting it out to other agencies, you're running a risk that if that person was injured in a car accident or taken somewhere, that's a lot of time for them to be in that situation before you have all units out there looking for them. So I'm not saying it's a perfect system. And I do think there's a level of improvement. The only reason I bring it up is to say, don't kill the messenger, but that is the protocol. Whether you agree with it or not, I'm just relaying what the protocol is. How'd I do there covering myself? Good job. But there's-
Starting point is 00:27:56 But. I knew the but was coming. Go ahead. There's literally a show called The First 48 because it is the most important time in a missing person case right no that's murder cases murder cases regardless a missing person cases often turn into murder cases that's the point that's the freaking point so like that's it's a stupid it's a stupid protocol but they can right and then the person said but statistically they don't normally turn into it a lot of the time, missing persons are usually located. But when you have a child, the first 48 is critical to find them still alive.
Starting point is 00:28:31 But what I'm saying is if you have a family member who is missing and you know something's wrong, go to the police and you demand that they file that report. And if they tell you they can't tell them that's bullshit and you know there's no law that says that and you wait and you watch them do it and then if this is protocol to protect them from husbands or boyfriends or whatever then all the police have to do is be like yeah dude we'll check and see if she's okay and then call and be like yeah dude she's cool and hang up he didn't tell him yeah that's all why can't you do that so do we know and you know just on a micro level not on a macro level because we're talking macro but on a micro do we know, I know you said they didn't take it seriously, do we know if the police called some numbers? Because sometimes they'll do that, where they're like, okay, we're not going to put out a missing persons report, like a BOLO, but we'll do some calls and we'll go to a couple addresses. But are you saying that they basically said, sorry, hands are tied, we're not getting involved at all at this point. Or was there some cooperation? You know, she's known around the area to be very street smart. She can take care of herself. And I guess that they had heard, and he couldn't remember who said it, but somebody in the station or around the station had said something like, if Taylor Wright wants to be missing, you won't find her. Something like that.
Starting point is 00:29:58 They knew her personally. So it kind of made it sound like this was something that she would just do. Right. So maybe in this case, I can see where they were coming from. I'm not saying I agree with it because again, hindsight, we know why you and I are covering this case. So you always think about what could have been done differently. Yes.
Starting point is 00:30:13 I definitely want to hear from people that are watching, listening, sound off in the comments because honestly, this is where discussion happens, right? Like what is the perfect system or what can make, maybe not perfect, but what can make the system better? Perfect system is what I just said. The perfect system is what I just said. What is the perfect, hit me with it. Hit me with it in a, like a very succinct way. Like, what do you think the protocol should be for an adult that's missing immediately? As soon as you realize that there might be an issue that has no former issues with like, you know, they're not a diabetic, they're not anything like that. They're not, you know, they're in the right mental state as far as you know. I think you should at least do
Starting point is 00:30:47 a wellbeing check, like at least make sure this person's alive. And if they want to be left alone and they want to stay missing, then allow them to be there and stay missing. So kind of what we're doing. No. Cause I think, I think for the most part, and I, again, I'm only speaking for my department, but that would be the protocol. Like, Hey, you come in and Stephanie, you want to report Adam. Okay. You come in. It's not like him. How long has he been gone? Stephanie? Uh, he's been gone for like 12 hours. This is not like him. He's, he sent me a couple of text messages saying he wants to be on his own for a little bit, but that's not him. Okay. Where do you think he might be? You know? Okay. We're going to go check those addresses. Let us try calling
Starting point is 00:31:24 him from the police number. We're going to leave a voicemail as well. be? Okay, we're going to go check those addresses. Let us try calling him from the police number. We're going to leave a voicemail as well. Let's see if we can try to find him for you without making this a bigger thing. Is that not what you're – are you saying they should be entering Adam into – shout out Adam, by the way. Should they be entering him into the national database at that point? I mean, yeah. This isn't a gotcha moment. I'm seriously – I'm interested.
Starting point is 00:31:43 I think the second somebody is missing, they should be entered in the database. It's not going to do anything. It's not a law. It can be protocol, but it's not a law. You can report them missing an hour after they're missing if you want. It's just how much you're going to advocate for it. How much you'd advocate for it. And I would also say, as you're listening, watching this, I would advocate that the minute you feel like something's up, as I was saying earlier about Cassandra, you should be going to the police department. You should be getting something in what they call the dispatch log.
Starting point is 00:32:30 You should be speaking to local law enforcement, making them aware of the situation, getting the paper trail going so that, God forbid, you do get outside that 48-hour window. It's already in the system. All they got to do is hit send, right? Trust, Derek, trust. If you or Adam or my kids or something are missing, I'm going to the police station and I'm going to be like, here, put them in the database. I'll wait. I'll wait. Anytime now, I'm going to stay here and sing annoying songs to you until you do. Taylor Swift all day. Taylor Swift all day,
Starting point is 00:33:00 every day you're going to hear. We are never, ever getting back together. Put them in the database. That's it. I think there's definitely room for improvement with it. I don't disagree with you. Again, I'm just relaying what it is right now. And I'm not suggesting to anybody, if something happens, you should just wait until the 48th and a half hour hits before you go down there. Because that could be a mistake too, because there are things that law enforcement law enforcement if they're doing their job if they care about what they're doing if someone comes in and says my husband my wife my son whatever the case may be if they're over 18
Starting point is 00:33:32 i need your help there's nothing stopping us from going out there or or dispatching local units to multiple areas where they might be you know pull up your find my iphone whatever it may be let's see if we can help you before this becomes a missing persons. And then as we're doing that investigation, if we're starting to put two and two together that, Hmm, yeah, there might be something here. Actually, let's get them in the system a little earlier. Cause this could be beyond our jurisdiction, but you won't, you won't know that until you start looking into it. So if police departments are turning you away at the 40, you know, even the 24th hour and saying, nope, can't even talk to you until you come back at 48 hours and one minute, don't say another word, get out of the station,
Starting point is 00:34:15 then that's a problem and they need to be reported. And I guarantee you, if you do that, they're more than likely going to be suspended if not fired, because that's not what it's designed to do. It's more pertaining to NCIC. I know we spent a not fired because that's not what it's designed to do. It's more pertaining to NCIC. I know we spent a lot of time on that, but it's actually a really important topic. And I do think there's a lot of misinformation out there. Like you're saying, like what you can do. Yeah. And the moral of the story to kind of summarize it is if you feel like there's something wrong, do not wait.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Go in. Be aggressive, as Stephanie's saying. Push for what you want. It's not the end of the world if they enter them and they find them fine an hour or two later. So I do agree with you in that sense. And sound off. Let us know. I know we got to take a break. I'm talking along. But I do think it's something where it's worth discussing so that going forward, God forbid, if it ever happens to you, you know what to do. Go with your gut, guys.
Starting point is 00:35:05 Yes. Let's take gut, guys. Yes. Let's take a quick break and we'll come right back. Okay, so by Monday, September 11th, Cassandra had not heard from her girlfriend in days and her worry was almost completely trampled out by her anger at this point. Cassandra began to accept that Taylor had probably run off with another woman, and she was getting sick of seeing this box van with Taylor's possessions sitting in her driveway. So Cassandra called Ashley MacArthur and asked her to send someone to pick up the van and take it away. Ashley was cooperative and sent one of her
Starting point is 00:35:43 employees, a man named James, to pick up the van and bring it back to the warehouse where it would be stored. On September 14th, Cassandra went back to the police to try and report Taylor missing again, and this time she was able to successfully file a missing persons report. Yay! And this same day, Ashley came over to help Cassandra go through Taylor's car. Inside, they found two semi-automatic guns, which didn't surprise Cassandra because Taylor really liked guns. She'd often go shooting. She'd go to gun shows where she enjoyed buying, selling, and trading guns. But Taylor also knew that Cassandra herself did not like guns, so she left them in her car to make her partner feel more comfortable. They also found four knives and a grayish black bag that had some of Taylor's clothes in it. Now, this should have been a red
Starting point is 00:36:30 flag for Cassandra, right? Because Ashley had told her that when she'd last seen Taylor, Taylor had two bags, a brown bag with money in it and a grayish black bag with some clothes in it. But here was that same bag in Taylor's car, very obviously not in Taylor's possession. And Cassandra later found the other bag, the brown one, in her guest bedroom. And surprise, it was not filled with money. Ashley stood by the whole time they were searching Taylor's car, and she took photographs for what she called documentation. She also offered to take the two guns found in Taylor's car and store them in a safe she had.
Starting point is 00:37:07 Quick question. Do you know if at any point Cassandra asked Ashley, hey, by the way, did you guys ever go by the bank? Dude, I'm saying, I'm asking myself the same question. She never says,
Starting point is 00:37:23 I know, she never says, it doesn't come up in court i'm good i want to say no i want to say no because that would be the one thing you can verify right like hey did you guys you know actually i don't want to offend you but did you guys ever go to the bank and pull out the money that was the whole reason for you meeting up oh yeah we definitely did i hate to do this to you ashley and i hope i don offend you, but could we go by the bank and get a statement to show that you guys went to the bank? Well, I just want to see, I just want to see that in writing. Oh, I'm offended too, too bad. Let's
Starting point is 00:37:53 go. That's how you're really, you're here taking photos and you want to help me find out what happened. We got to start at the whole reason why you two met up. Can you show me any proof that you guys went and withdrew that money that day and that she was there? Because the bank's going to have video surveillance, photos, proof that the money was withdrawn. There's going to be a very easy way to discredit or confirm what Ashley tells you at that point. So if she says to you, yeah, we took out the money, you have something you can actually check. Listen, I don't think that Cassandra suspected Ashley at all at this point, not at all. And it may have been wrapped up in the story of the bags. If Taylor had a bag full
Starting point is 00:38:35 of clothes and a bag full of money, maybe Ashley sort of suggested or outright said the bag of money was from the bank. She got the money from the bank and then she took off because now she's got the money. Okay. But she still hasn't, even if that's what was insinuated, it doesn't sound like Cassandra ever, like you said, suspected Ashley and said, you know what? I've already reported her missing. Let me go to the police that are taking the report now and tell them that according to what Ashley's telling me, they went to the bank together. They can easily drive down to the bank and ask for the surveillance for that day and see if that's the case. And if it isn't, well, then, you know, we got somewhere to we got somewhere to start as far as what happened to her.
Starting point is 00:39:18 So I honestly wonder if Cassandra was wanting to report Taylor missing for the same reason that you kind of said as her girlfriend. I just want to know where she's at. Is she in Biloxi with that bitch? You know, where is she? And then maybe I'll find her and drive there. And, you know, finally, once and for all, have closure when I, you know, get in her face and see her with this other girl. Maybe that's why. Because it seemed during the trial that Cassandra was almost upset with herself for not suspecting
Starting point is 00:39:47 Ashley. Yeah, she was suspecting that she was cheating on her when in reality she was no longer with us. One more question. I hope it's going to sound like I'm defending. Whatever. I don't care. Is it possible that when Cassandra finally reported Taylor missing, she reported her
Starting point is 00:40:02 missing but left out a lot of the details as to what was going on the day of her disappearance for the sake of taylor you know like because again the police i talked about the bank and the police being able to go and verify i have a feeling this is just my guess cassandra omitted those facts even though she did an official report she didn't she told him the truth yeah so I asked the detective this morning, and I said, was Cassandra up front when she reported her missing on the 10th? Did she sort of conceal things, make it
Starting point is 00:40:32 seem less serious than it was? And he was like, no, she was pretty up front. She was kind of, you know, was honest about what was going on, which for me, it's like points to Cassandra, because if you're going to go to the police and take that time, even though Jeff was like, don't do it, she's going to be mad. At that point, it's all or nothing. You got to put it all on the table yeah your chips are in and it seems like she dead so yeah i don't want to get ahead of us but i must you know i'm hoping you're gonna tell
Starting point is 00:40:53 me later that this detective confirmed to you that one of the first things they did was go and look at the surveillance from the banks when she told her you know them that that's all your faces this is i don't i don't I don't know. OK, let's just keep going. Let's just keep going. Detectives, I hope you went and, you know, OK, because it doesn't seem like they started investigating until after the 14th when she reported her missing that second time. OK. All right. I'll I'll hold back judgment for now.
Starting point is 00:41:19 All right. So at this point behind the scenes, the investigation into Taylor's whereabouts was being kicked into action. Two detectives were assigned to the case, Chad Wilhite and Richard Gigliotti. Gigliotti had just been promoted to detective, and he said that very early on they treated the case as a homicide. But this was only after they had started talking to people. So they wanted to talk to two people that they considered their main suspects, which would be Taylor's ex-husband, Jeff, and then her girlfriend, Cassandra Waller. And the reasons why these two people were initially signaled out, it's pretty obvious. They were her last known intimate partners. And statistics show when a
Starting point is 00:42:00 woman is killed, it's usually someone who's close to her. So the first place Detective Wilhite and Detective Gigliotti went was to Cassandra's house. And Cassandra felt immediately that she was a suspect and she didn't like it. She commented on this during the E&E special on Taylor's case. And she mentioned that while she was on the porch talking to Detective Wilhite, Detective Gigliotti was crawling underneath her house. She said, quote, I'm sitting on the front porch with Detective Wilhite bawling my eyes out because this is embarrassing. Why am I being looked at? End quote.
Starting point is 00:42:33 I honestly think that it's pretty cool that Detective Gigliotti was taking it so seriously to the point where he's like crawling under the house. He's trying to find evidence. And I understand why she was probably upset. And she expresses often being upset at being considered a suspect in this. But you're her girlfriend. You're the first person they're going to look at. She lived with you. You were dating. You guys had a fight about her being unfaithful. You are the prime suspect at this point, right? Yeah. Yes and no. I'm still still a little confused and maybe it's just me. And that's
Starting point is 00:43:07 why I'm not spending too much time on it. But you laid out a story for me where basically Cassandra has her girlfriend, right? Taylor and her friend, Ashley, who they kind of have this thing going on about money. It's a big deal. They're finally meeting up together. You re I'm not going to rehash what you said, but the whole reason for them meeting up was about this money. Then there's this weird thing about riding horses, all these red flags. If you were to relay that exact story to a detective and not leave anything out as a detective, yeah, I'm looking at you as the, you know, the girlfriend, as a person of interest,
Starting point is 00:43:40 but I'm going to speak to Ashley immediately. And the first thing I'm going to ask her, one of the first things is where did you go after you left her house? Did you go to the bank? No, we did not. Cause she's not going to lie to you at that point. Why didn't you go to the bank? Okay. You said she had a bag of money. That's what you told Cassandra. Where did she get that bag of money? Did she pull it out of her ass? Where did it come from? I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm just, you know, these are the things that I don't know how, and maybe it was the case and we just don't know it from the information available. But it seems to me as much as I would be looking at Jeff and as much as I'd be looking at Cassandra, I would equally be looking at Ashley based on the
Starting point is 00:44:20 story you told me because it doesn't make sense. They're headed to Ashley's next. Okay. I would hope so. I mean, you know, I'm getting all fired up here. I'm just going to shut up, but you know, okay. But I appreciate them going under the house and doing all that. That's, that's good stuff. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:44:35 I'm all for it. Even though some people might not like that. I love it. But I, I, I, you know, I hope Ashley's in the mix as far as like, something's not jiving with this woman either, you know, I hope Ashley's in the mix as far as like something's not jiving with this woman either, you know? Definitely not. Well, Cassandra actually went into the police station for an interview and she was asked if she knew where Taylor was or if she knew, you know, that Taylor was dead. Would she be honest and tell them?
Starting point is 00:44:58 And she responded, absolutely. But I don't know. I haven't heard from her. But like, you know, I know you're thinking that the police are focused on her. They weren't using tunnel vision with Cassandra. She was just somebody who was initially on their radar. And when she told them that Taylor's friend Ashley had been the last person to see her, Detective Gagliotti called Ashley on the phone.
Starting point is 00:45:17 And Ashley gave the same timeline to him that she had given to Cassandra. She said she picked Taylor up on September 8th. The two of them went to Ashley's warehouse, which was located on Pace Boulevard. It's the warehouse for her company, her family's company. Then they went back to Cassandra's house, and then they went out to a house on Beulah Road. This house was supposedly a place that Taylor needed to go to as part of her private investigation work. Then they went to a farm out in East Milton where they rode horses together. So on Sunday, September 17th, the detectives went back to Cassandra's house and they began going through some of the items that Taylor had left behind. One of the things they
Starting point is 00:45:55 found was a cashier's check for $19,000. And this led the detectives to believe that Taylor may have met with foul play because they couldn't understand why she would run off of her own free will and then leave behind all that money. Because as we discussed in the previous episode, a cashier's check is basically cash, right? So when I talked to Detective Wilhite on the phone today, he was like, this was really what let us know that there was foul play. So I think initially when they were talking to Cassandra and they were bringing her to the station, they didn't think, oh, Taylor Taylor Wright's been murdered. They thought maybe she ran away and they're trying to find evidence to the contrary. And this this nineteen thousand dollar check was what exactly what they needed.
Starting point is 00:46:39 Right. Because there's the whole agenda, right? Like if you're trying to run off with the money, but you forget the money. Yeah. Or at least like a good deal of the money. Right. You would grab that too. Right. And I will and I will say, you know, like I'm assuming they did this. But, you know, as all these stories are coming together about Taylor's whereabouts, I'm assuming that in the process they're already getting access to Taylor's GPS coordinates to see if they line up with what they're being told as far as her whereabouts for that day. So that's something where one of the first things you're doing is, hey, let's get a timeline. Let's write down, you know, addresses of where she should have been based on the people who
Starting point is 00:47:14 last saw her alive. And let's see if they line up. If they don't, the individuals where that goes off that path, they got problems. Yes, that will come. Okay, come. I think they're doing their basic gumshooter type of work. Yeah, preliminary, trying to get an idea, absolutely feeling everybody out. I get it. So the next day, which was September 18th, Detective Gigliotti actually went to Ashley McArthur's house, and Ashley was at home with her husband, Zach, and the conversation they had was recorded. And Ashley, once again, gave the same timeline, but she added some more details
Starting point is 00:47:45 this time. She said that Taylor had been upset on the 8th. She was worried about her upcoming court date, and she was scared of going to jail because she had been hiding money from her ex-husband. Now, Ashley was asked, where is this farm in Milton where you and Taylor went horseback riding on September 8th? She was also asked if there were any other farms or properties that she and Taylor had been to that day. And Ashley mentioned that her aunt, Kara Brett, owned some property at the north end of the county. But she said, you know, I didn't go there that day and I really don't go there that often. So when she was asked for the address or the exact location of this property, Ashley claimed she didn't know the address off the top of her head and she couldn't even give them like a road name, but she promised that she would call around and get that
Starting point is 00:48:30 information for the detectives. And Ashley agreed to go into the station and give a formal interview. Red flags at this point. I won't even, I know, let's take a quick break and then we can continue, but red flags all over the place. Red flags, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. I mean, this is not, you know, it's funny how this person's missing and you want to be helpful. You're someone who has a background in law enforcement, but suddenly you have a case of amnesia. You can't remember. Of your own family's property. Yep. No, no. Big red flags. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay.
Starting point is 00:49:03 All right. So during this interview at the police station, Ashley was calm, collected and open with the detectives. She was friendly, animated. She smiled and laughed a lot. Some might say that she was being a bit flirtatious. In fact, many have said that. Many have said that. Even the D.A. in Florida at this time, she's been compared to Nicole Kissinger because we all remember how really awkward and cringy Nicole Kissinger's police interviews were. Do you remember them? I don't. Well, there was this like flirty undertone to the whole cringy spectacle of Nicole Kissinger talking to these police officers.
Starting point is 00:49:41 And it's very similar. I do have to admit. And, you know, she's flirting. She's kind of leaning forward. She's smiling a lot. She's tossing her hair. Ashley basically said she didn't believe anything bad had happened to Taylor. She said it was more likely that Taylor had left of her own free will, either because she was upset about her legal battles or because she was back on drugs and hiding out. In this interview, Ashley told the police that Taylor might be in Georgia, maybe Destin, Florida, or Jacksonville, Florida, because she knew people there.
Starting point is 00:50:10 And Ashley said, quote, The only thing I worry about is with the drug situation. If I didn't know about the drug situation, I wouldn't be worried about her. I would say Taylor's doing what Taylor does. But then that lifestyle becomes a different group of people which is what I worry about with her end quote yeah what she's setting up here I mean I don't even have to weigh in on it I think everyone who
Starting point is 00:50:32 watches us or listens to us knows that she's you know she's trying to create she's trying to discredit Taylor you know and basically she's trying to put a narrative in the police officer's head that they ultimately run with again some criminals or people involved in certain things She's trying to put a narrative in the police officer's head that they ultimately run with. Again, some criminals or people involved in certain things think they're smarter than the police.
Starting point is 00:50:50 And in some cases they are. But in certain cases, they're not. And it can be very obvious what they're attempting to do. Yeah, I think it was pretty obvious in this case, especially by this point. Yeah. Do you think at this point you talk to the detectives like, you know, I watched some of the A and e special i didn't watch all of it you had sent me some links on it but it seems like at this point now that they're bringing her in for a formal interview the the their sights have been have changed right like they're starting to hone in on someone and that someone is in fact actually so they definitely felt that there was something off you know she was the last person to be seen
Starting point is 00:51:23 with her she was being super cooperative, but she wanted. Almost too cooperative though, maybe? She wanted to appear to be super cooperative, right? And, but they don't really know. They don't really know until what happens next. So previous to this, Cassandra had told the police that Ashley had been holding onto some money for Taylor in a safety deposit box at Wells
Starting point is 00:51:45 Fargo. So Ashley was asked by the police about this safety deposit box. And she was like, what safety deposit box? I don't have a safety deposit box. I never have had a safety deposit box. Now, this would have been a safe claim to make, right? If the police did not have access to text messages between Ashley and Taylor, which referred to meeting up at the WF. It didn't take much for the police to realize that WF stood for Wells Fargo. And, you know, Taylor was talking in these texts, you remember, from part one. She was like, I need to get into that safety deposit box. So whether Ashley actually had a safety deposit there or not, Taylor certainly thought that she did. Now, Ashley had also told detectives that she thought she had been helping
Starting point is 00:52:32 Taylor by hiding the money for her, saying, quote, I get this sob story about how Jeff is taking all the money, takes all this stuff from her. Now she's trying to hide it and do all this shady stuff with it. End quote. Yo, it's like as if Ashley's not contributing to the shady stuff by agreeing to do it. What? So, yeah, so we so I had this thing in the station where people we would have like we had a lot of, you know, local gangs. And in some cases where we knew there was a group involvement, we would have one of them come up and they're being super helpful. They just want to find, you know, the person who did this. And I would a lot of times my LT, my lieutenant would come up to me and be like, hey, how was so and so? They give you some because I'm not Fugazi. They're just they're in here just trying to paint the picture that they had nothing to do with it.
Starting point is 00:53:27 And 90% of the time, when I finally get to the bottom of it, the person who was sitting in my office, they were the one that set it up. They were the one that set it up, but they're like, they come in and they're just, they have all the answers. Every question I have, they have an answer or an opinion on it. And it's like, you guys, especially the, you know, the, the gang community, they're giving you one word answer. So when they come in and they're so verbal, it's like, dude, I've been on the job 13 years. You've said seven words to me. And today I can't get you to shut up. Today you're writing me a book, right? Yeah. It's like, do you want to, do you want to solve it you got this one you know so hearing hearing ashley it's it's a very familiar uh situation that i think a lot of detectives experience when you have someone who comes in and they're just a little too
Starting point is 00:54:14 um on board with everything they're they're not skeptical of what why you're asking these questions they just want to help you you know quote unquote help you they're your new best friend all of a sudden right and what they don't realize is they're creating the rope that they're eventually going to hang themselves with. That's what they're doing. That's what she was doing for sure. So anyways, not to get off the trail here, but. Well, Ashley claimed that right after picking Taylor up, Taylor said she wanted a beer. So they stopped and they got one from a gas station. Ashley was asked, you know, have you ever seen Taylor drink that early in the day before? Like, was Taylor a big drinker during the day?
Starting point is 00:54:49 And Ashley was like, no, this was odd behavior. But then Ashley went on to say, quote, in fact, I said something to her. I was like, beer at this time in the morning? And she was like, well, it's five o'clock somewhere, end quote. Ugh, I cringed when she said it in the interview because it just seems so just rehearsed and cringy and like set up like, yes, do people say that? Yes, I guess some people say that. But the kind of person that I would expect to say is five o'clock somewhere. It's kind of like a dad joke, you know, like something my dad would say. I don't picture Taylor Wright saying that. If Ashley asked Taylor, oh, you're going to have a beer this early in the morning, Taylor
Starting point is 00:55:27 would probably be like, yeah, stay in your lane, man. It's none of your business what I drank. Like, who the hell are you? You know, like, it's five o'clock somewhere. You're so cheesy, man. She's trying to give a detail that's like, oh, it's almost so, you know, it has to be true. She watches too many damn Lifetime movies is what happens here.
Starting point is 00:55:44 Yeah. So the next step for detectives Wilhite and Gigliotti was to drive the route. It has to be true. She watches too many damn Lifetime movies is what happens here. Yeah. Ugh. So the next step for Detectives Wilhite and Gigliotti was to drive the route that Ashley had described taking, looking for possible areas of surveillance that they could pull over and kind of look at. And they found some video footage of Ashley MacArthur from a Tom Thumb convenience store at 9 Mile and Beulah Roads. This video showed Ashley inside the store at around 11.53 a.m. She was wearing a white t-shirt, jean shorts, and flip-flops. So at this time, Ashley was driving a silver Ford F-250.
Starting point is 00:56:16 This vehicle belonged to her husband, Zach. Now Ashley had two vehicles of her own. They were two Jeeps. One was black and one was white. Everybody said she was usually in the black one. Sometimes they would see her in the white one, but she didn't often drive around in her husband's truck. So it's strange that on this day at this time, she decided to drive her husband's truck for some reason. And I also believe because during the
Starting point is 00:56:41 trial, Cassandra was asked, you know, Ashley came to pick Taylor up that morning. What car was she driving? And Cassandra said that she believed Ashley was driving her black Jeep. So at some point between 10 a.m. when Ashley got there to pick up Taylor and 1153 when she's seen at the Tom Thumb, she swaps vehicles. She swaps vehicles. Yeah. So like I said, I was able to get in contact with Detective Wilhite. He was very helpful, super helpful. Actually, he got back to me in contact with Detective Wilhite. He was very helpful, super helpful, actually. He got back to me right away, and I spoke to him about the investigation. And he said initially he and Detective Gigliotti had thought this case was just a missing person's case. But when they spoke to Ashley, they asked if they could look through her cell phone.
Starting point is 00:57:18 So it was that first interview in the police station. And she was like, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. But he did say when they asked to see her cell phone, she kind of started playing with it a little bit more like she picked it up and she was going through it a lot before she handed it over. So I asked him, I was like, do you think she deleted stuff? And he was like, those aren't my words. So basically he's saying, like, I think he's saying, like, I can't say whether she did or not because he doesn't know for a fact. But the normal person would assume that she's being super cooperative. And I asked him, I'm like, you know, Ashley could have said, yeah, absolutely. You can see my phone, but I need to call my lawyer first because now we're getting into territory where I would feel more comfortable if I had a legal counsel. And he was like, she absolutely could have said that, but she didn't because she really just wanted to seem as cooperative and transparent as possible. And this goes back to what we've talked about in a couple of previous episodes when an interrogator is developing a baseline. It's
Starting point is 00:58:18 not only the physical and verbal cues that you're seeing, but it's also the mannerisms that they're displaying. So Wilhite is talking to her, and I'm assuming during this interrogation or during this interview, she's probably looking them in the eye, like you said, leaning forward, not really touching her phone. Engaged, yeah, not touching her phone. Not really touching her phone. So they have a baseline there. They're developing it based on their first interaction with her in an interview situation. However, as soon as they bring up a question that would cause some anxiety for someone who may have something to hide, that baseline changes. Now she's on her phone. He said that. He literally said she was on her phone after we asked for it. Suddenly,
Starting point is 00:58:56 she was much more interested in that phone than she had been the entire interview. So that's not saying that anybody who picks up their phone during an interview is a liar if they're doing it the whole time. But he's making a mental note that the entire time we've been here, even though this is my first real interaction with her, that hasn't a standard practice for like, what this person does this, they're automatically lying. But this is how it's really done. They did a good job where they realized something had changed in her demeanor after they asked a specific question involving the phone. So good, good police work by them on that one. Yeah. I mean, she could also been like, oh, I got stuff in here. I don't want anybody to see. And maybe she's trying to get rid of that. If you're, if you're there for a missing, you know, you say that you go, listen, at this time, you know, if you don't mind, you can and maybe she's trying to get rid of that if you're if you're there for a missing you know you say that you go listen at this time you know if you don't mind you can watch with me but you know there's certain things that i send to my you know husband or
Starting point is 00:59:51 whatever and i don't i don't want you guys seeing them so i'm gonna hand it right over i would have been like there's dirty pictures in there guys well i think to be fair a lot of people do that where they're like listen we're adults here and yeah but you can look through my phone but you're forewarned like there's some stuff in there don't judge me too hard you know and it's like we're not looking for that don't judge me too hard man don't fall in love with me after you see what's on this phone is yeah and as a detective i'm like oh i'm not looking yeah right no i mean i worked at a verizon store man we had celebrate machines okay and i remember what are celebrate machines celebrates
Starting point is 01:00:25 machines the same thing that they use at the police station to to get information to extract information from a phone so when people call them like gray keys or something like that celebrates just another company it's like okay okay so the celebrate machine you plug one phone into one side you plug another phone or uh an sd card or whatever into the other side so you can get the stuff off the phone people want to do when they get new phones and they want all their shit transferred over, you know, before we had the cloud and stuff. So, oh my God. And these people would leave. They'd leave. Oh, here's my old phone. Here's my new phone. I'm just going to go grab, you know, something from Chipotle and I'll be back in a couple hours. And these guys I worked with, what freaking scumbags, man,
Starting point is 01:00:58 they were looking through and then they would be like, guys, look at this, look at this. And I'm like, oh my God, this is so uncomfortable. But at the same time, people really don't care. Like you said, if you're taking naked pictures of yourself, you probably feel like you look good in them. So who cares who sees them, right? Yeah, at that point, I mean, no, I mean, personally, you know, I don't do any of that stuff because that's just, you know, terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Unacceptable.
Starting point is 01:01:26 Shame on you. You're getting, you're going to prison right away with that no i mean listen we're all human and i mean with ashley like listen i don't know her but she seemed like the type of girl who would almost want people to see it you know she seemed like kind of an exhibitionist so was she was she an attractive i haven't seen pictures of her yet actually she's our first our youtube video is coming out this week about it but she she was an attractive woman i think so yeah she's a tiny little brunette she's she's cute yeah for sure okay all right i mean i get what you're saying so i see she was she was proud of her appearance and she was definitely flirting with them during the first interview whether it was purposeful or as a distraction method.
Starting point is 01:02:06 You know, she definitely was. Doesn't seem like it worked out too well. No, they weren't having it. I mean, maybe if she hadn't lied so obviously about things, it would have worked. She did. So in Ashley's phone, they saw texts between herself and Taylor talking about a safety deposit box. But Ashley had told them she didn't have a safety deposit box. So at that point, they knew she wasn't being had told them she didn't have a safety deposit box.
Starting point is 01:02:25 So at that point, they knew she wasn't being truthful, but they didn't confront her with that lie initially because they wanted to see where it would lead. Like you said, you know, give her the rope, let her hang herself with it.
Starting point is 01:02:35 So once they'd gotten Taylor's cell phone records, they were also able to discover that Ashley's story about calling an Uber to go out and get a beer, that didn't check out either because there was no record of her doing that. And they actually contacted Uber and Uber was like,
Starting point is 01:02:49 Taylor Wright's account hasn't been used in months. Additionally, neither Ashley nor Taylor's cell phones pinged at that farm in Milton or anywhere really near it, you know? Bingo. Yeah. There you go. And that's where Ashley had claimed she and Taylor were on the afternoon of the 8th. So neither of them had been there that day. It was also starting to seem very odd when Ashley contacted the police several times after her first police interview. Ashley would call and ask for updates or give the detectives suggestions of where they might look for Taylor. She was being
Starting point is 01:03:21 a fugazi, right? Fugazi. Yeah. They were probably getting off the phone and going, being a fugazi, right? Fugazi. They were probably getting off the phone and going, hey, fugazi just called again. They absolutely were, man. And Ashley was like, you know, maybe Taylor is back into cocaine and maybe you guys should check back alleys and things like that. Maybe you should check treatment clinics. She was fishing for information. She was trying to figure out what the police knew and maybe even trying to send them off in the wrong direction on a wild goose chase. And at this point, Ashley MacArthur was their prime suspect, but they could not give her an indication that they were on to her. Let's take a quick break because I want to hear your thoughts on this. OK, so we're back from break and this is a rarity, but it does happen sometimes where you're starting to hone in.
Starting point is 01:04:08 The pieces are starting to fall in place, and you have a potential suspect, a person of interest at this point at least, that just can't shut up. They just can't help themselves. And not that we ever as investigators make light of a situation but these are the moments that you hope for where it just really makes the job uh fun don't lie don't lie you make light of situations sometimes you have to you have to desensitize yourself you definitely have to desensitize yourself but these are the moments that i you know honestly we didn't have too many of them but it's the moments where the you know you something. You're just trying to put it together for a court to look at it. And this person just keeps calling.
Starting point is 01:04:49 And all you want to do is just shut up and listen. Just shut up and listen and let them keep talking. When I wrote my book, this is one of the main chapters I wrote, which is like silence is one of the most important tools of communication. Because when you don't respond to something someone says, it creates a subconscious pressure to continue talking. So, you know, I'd be in an interview with someone in person or, you know, on the phone, and they would give me something to see how I reacted to it.
Starting point is 01:05:17 And I would just... I think it makes them nervous too, right? It makes you... Because, you know, when you're having a conversation, a dialogue, it's a back and forth interaction, right? Where makes you, because you know, when you're having a conversation, a dialogue, it's a back and forth interaction, right? Where there's like, you say something, I respond, I, you know, but when you don't have that, you feel the pressure to continue filling that silence.
Starting point is 01:05:35 And there's been times where, and I said this, you know, I wrote it, you know, people are like, no way, where it'd be like 30, 35 seconds of just like looking at each other, nodding because I'm not going to say the first word. And it's like, oh, that's not that long. 35 seconds of looking at someone. Oh, it's long. Yeah. That's a long time. That's a long time. I can see them sitting there just kind of like smirking a little bit, knowing that they're just
Starting point is 01:05:58 writing down and probably, you know, taking down all the information she says, because everything they say is another opportunity to confirm or discredit what she's saying. So the best thing she could have done was say a little, as little as possible. But when she started giving a narrative that allowed them to cross reference that narrative and kind of see if there was truth to it. And as you've already said, there wasn't a lot of truth to it. And that, that helps them build their case. And it's also like, why are you calling? Why are you calling so much? Why aren't you moving on with your life?
Starting point is 01:06:26 Because you said this is just Taylor being Taylor, man. You said, I don't think she's in any danger. I don't think anybody did anything to her. She just took off. You know, so what are you calling so much? Why are you so interested when you have your own life to live? And it's very similar. Like if you're in a relationship, right?
Starting point is 01:06:39 And you get a sort of vibe from your partner and you're trying to figure out. And I think that's what Ashley was trying to do. You're trying to figure out, like, what's this person think about me? Are they mad at me? What's going on? So you start probing them with questions. And based on how they answer, you're going to know and kind of have a better understanding of where you stand with this person. And like you said, Detective Gigliotti was because she was mainly calling him. He was very, you know, nice on the phone, but he said best friend, I'm sure. But he said very little. Right. So he let her do the talking. And I think almost at times she was trying to get a gauge on. Does he suspect me? Does he believe me? And so she continued talking to hopefully get that temperature from him, which he never gave her, which made her keep talking. Yeah, it drives her crazy. She's getting more scared, more anxious.
Starting point is 01:07:29 Yeah, because she's guilty. She's got guilty conscience, you know? It's chess, man. It's chess. Yeah. Playing chess. And he's just putting her into a position where there's nowhere to go.
Starting point is 01:07:39 It's great. It's great when it works out like this. So it was inevitably the cell phone data, including the pings from Towers, that proved Ashley's recollection of September 8th was completely inaccurate. On that day, Ashley was actually 30 miles away from that horse farm in Milton. She was in the northwest part of the county. And it turns out that Ashley had spent some time at a farm on September 8th, but it wasn't the Milton farm. It was a property owned by Ashley's aunt at 2201 Britt Road. Now remember that Ashley had told the police her family did own some property in Escambia County, but she claimed she couldn't remember the address or even the name of the road it was on. And she never followed up with the detectives to give them this information, even though she promised she would. And even worse, it was probably pretty tough for Ashley to not know the name of the road, since the name of the road was the exact same name as her maiden
Starting point is 01:08:34 name, her family name. It was Britt Road. Before Ashley was Ashley MacArthur, she'd been Ashley Britt. So at this point, the police felt they had truly isolated the person who was responsible for Taylor's disappearance, and they wanted to bring her into the station for another interview, but also to get her out of the way so that police and CSI technicians could simultaneously execute three different search warrants, one at the Britt Road property, one at Ashley's home, and one at her workplace, the warehouse on Pace Avenue. And while they were at her house, they also executed a search warrant on all the vehicles there, including her two Jeeps, the black one and the white one, and her husband's silver
Starting point is 01:09:16 Ford F-250. It's a common tactic, by the way. We use it all the time where you want to get the person, isolate them, know how you have eyes on them so that there's no possibility of them destroying evidence. Or running. Yeah. Because at this point, you might think you know where the smoking gun is, but you really don't know. And so you could be at one property thinking this is probably it and come to find out you're at the wrong one. And while you're talking to someone, she or he is out there destroying whatever's left because she has the ability to contact the people involved and let them know, hey, they're on to us. Right.
Starting point is 01:09:51 So I'm sure they made sure she wasn't allowed to make phone calls or text messages in that small window or they had an eye on her phone for that reason. Yes, they did. And I mean, well, we'll talk about it because. Well, because they don't know if she has co-conspirators. You know, they might think she's involved, but they might be saying to themselves, like, did she do this alone? Did she do this with her husband? You know, like we don't know the extent of this yet. So, you know, it's easy for us to know now.
Starting point is 01:10:15 But in the moment, they don't really know the whole entire story until they start to uncover the evidence. It's probably why they did them simultaneously, like all at once, too. Right. A thousand percent. There's no way to kind of, you know of coordinate or get to the person like, hey, we used to have stash houses and drug houses. So the money was usually not where the drugs were for seizure reasons, right? The drug dealer would keep the narcotics at one location and all the money at a different location. So we wanted to make sure we did it simultaneously because they usually had someone at either location to pack it up in a bug out bag and take off.
Starting point is 01:10:47 Man, I've seen narcos. I know how it works. Okay. So yeah. So you can't keep the coke and the money together. No, but some do. And that makes seizure processes really easy for us. But the smart ones don't.
Starting point is 01:10:58 Yeah, exactly. The good ones don't. The smart ones don't, no. But it's very clear that Ashley's demeanor in this second interview, which was conducted on October 19th, 2017, was very different than her first interview. She's less open. Her legs are crossed. Her arms are crossed. Her body language in general was much more closed off and defensive.
Starting point is 01:11:19 I think she knew she was toast at this point. And then, obviously, they read her her rights. And then they presented her with the evidence that they had that she had been lying. They had bank records. They asked her about that cashier's check that had been deposited in her bank account the previous August. And Ashley was like, yeah, I cashed it, but I didn't sign it. You know, this was money that Taylor had owed me. So I don't feel like I did anything wrong by putting the money in my bank account because Taylor gave it to me. And I mean, once again, Taylor's not around to say, no, I don't feel like I did anything wrong by putting the money in my bank account because Taylor gave it to me and I mean once again Taylor's not around to say no I didn't give it to her so this is actually a smart move on Ashley's part because she's she's sticking close enough to the
Starting point is 01:11:55 truth where she can't be you know she can't be challenged on that pretty much and there's only one side of the story at this point yes you know But then they told her, we've got proof you didn't go to Milton. And Ashley was like, yes, we did. And he was like, no, you didn't. Not that day, at least. So Ashley insisted that they had. They absolutely had. And then she was confronted with the data, which put her at her family farm that day. And she was like, oh, yeah, well, we did. We did go to the Brett Road property that day to pick up a lockbox that Taylor had left there for safekeeping. When the detectives asked Ashley why she'd withheld that information from them, even after hours of conversation with law enforcement where she's calling them and being like, did you check back alleys? You know, did you check Biloxi, Mississippi, even after hours of talking to them, she had not mentioned it. And she claimed it was because Taylor had made her promise to not tell anyone about that lockbox
Starting point is 01:12:51 ever. Oh, that makes total sense. We're this far into the investigation. Yeah, a month, a month, dude. Yeah. And, you know, in spite of how cooperative you are, there are certain things you're going to keep close to the chest because, you know, Taylor could be coming back tomorrow. And she'll be mad. She'll be mad. She'll be mad. Never mind the fact that she's been missing for a month. Never mind that you've been allegedly trying to help people find her.
Starting point is 01:13:13 What is this? Ashley reminds me of someone. I know. Can you remind you of anybody? Yeah, I can't. Who does she sound like? Who does she sound like? Scott Peterson.
Starting point is 01:13:22 Boom. Nailed it. I'm so proud of you. Like whenever they find something it's like got an answer man mother goose baby because she's like what guys i kept i kept a promise are you gonna throw me lock me up guilty for being a good friend turns it on them i love it it's we're laughing because it's true she's's gaslighting them, but they already know, right? But my thing is, Ashley was a CSI tech, dude. Did she not think they were going to pull her GPS records?
Starting point is 01:13:53 Don't you think that this girl should have thought ahead and been like, oh, guys, I forgot, actually. I feel really bad about this, but I made her a promise. I told her I wasn't going to tell anyone that we went there to get the lockbox. But you know what? It's been long enough. I'm worried now. I got to tell you. Wouldn't you set yourself up for that? Wouldn't you set the narrative ahead of time? I mean, that's what a smart person would do, okay? Well, there's only one reason why you wouldn't. Why? And the reason why you wouldn't is if you know that whatever's at that location is going to put you in prison.
Starting point is 01:14:21 Yeah, but if you just say we went there to get a lockbox and then we left, I guess you're right. It's still going to bring you in prison. Yeah, but if you just say we went there to get a lockbox and then we left, I guess you're right. It's still going to bring them to a place that could ultimately be enough. Well, then you're screwed from the beginning though then. Like, what is the point in this?
Starting point is 01:14:33 And that's why someone likes, you know, again, I don't want to make it about that, but Scott Peterson, he's in a body of water. It's a lot bigger area to check. There's so many outside factors you don't own.
Starting point is 01:14:41 But if you bring them to a property owned by your family, there's only a minimal amount of people if if there's something found there, that could be responsible for what happened. Let's keep going. I don't know exactly. I think I know where you're going with it. Yeah. So I'm actually jotting down a question, a discussion that I want to have after we continue because I have this question. So let's talk about 2201 Britt Road. The property had been owned by Ashley's aunt, Kara Britt, and it had been in the family for almost 40 years. The property was 23 acres with a three-acre lake, a large two-story barn, a mobile home, and a horse pasture surrounded by a three-boarded wooden fence.
Starting point is 01:15:20 Kara Britt described it as the kind of place you'd like to go and drink a glass of lemonade. Sounds awesome. Ashley actually kept her own horse there. In the past seven years, she'd kept two of her horses on the property, so she would visit often, even though she told the police she rarely got out there. So Kara and her husband, who's Ashley's uncle, they did not live on that property in 2017 because the uncle's job had moved them to Gainesville, Florida. But Kara's son and Ashley's cousin, his name's Kyle, he was going to be living there because he was attending college in the area. And so he wanted to leave Gainesville and live closer. So Kara and Kyle began moving his belongings there the last weekend of July 2017. Now,
Starting point is 01:16:03 Kara said she would visit the property periodically to keep it maintained, and there had actually been a family wedding on the property in April of 2017, which Ashley had attended. In fact, the previous February, Kara Britt had been in Pensacola because the bridal shower
Starting point is 01:16:19 was also being held on the property, and they were busy making wedding plans and lining up caterers and vendors. At this time, in February of 2017, Kara claims she saw a large multicolored hammock hanging in a tree and she took it down because first she didn't know whose hammock it was. She had never seen it before and she said it didn't fit with the theme of the wedding and they were having the wedding there the following April so they wanted to make sure it was ready to go. So Kara said she rolled up the hammock and put it under an awning and under a bench next to the barn. Kara also said that she and Ashley had a pretty good relationship.
Starting point is 01:16:54 Sometimes Ashley would come and visit her when she was there at the property. She would bring her breakfast or something, and they would grab dinner and catch up. So on October 19, 2017, the police and CSI techs descended on 2201 Britt Road and they would grab dinner and catch up. So on October 19th, 2017, the police and CSI techs descended on 2201 Britt Road while Ashley MacArthur was being questioned and they discovered the skeletonized remains of a woman along the fence line in a wooded area.
Starting point is 01:17:17 The body was wrapped tightly in a multicolored hammock in a shallow grave covered with potting soil and the loose concrete. Obviously, right at this point, they can't be sure that it was Taylor, but the necklace she wore, the one with the bullet on it, it was found buried along with the body. Ashley MacArthur was promptly arrested, but it turns out this was not the only investigation she was the target of. According to an arrest affidavit, an investigation into Ashley had started in June of 2017 for grand theft and fraud. The document states that between the months of July 2015 and September 2017, Ashley had been stealing proceeds from a jukebox and other games that had been installed by her company at an establishment called the
Starting point is 01:18:05 Azalea Bar. The owner of this establishment told investigators that there are basically three methods of payment when a customer wants to use a jukebox or a game. You can use cash, you can use credit card, or a mobile app. And then the proceeds from all three of these payment methods would be split 50-50 between the Azalea Bar and Pensacola Automated Amusement, which was Ashley's family business. So apparently, Ashley was splitting the cash with the bar, but not the credit card or mobile app payments. She had illegally taken over $13,000 from the owner of this establishment. So as the investigation proceeded, it turned out that the Azalea Bar was not the only victim of this, and Ashley had been denying numerous bars in the Pensacola and Escambia County area proceeds from their jukeboxes and games. Ashley was scheduled to meet with the owners of the Azalea Bar on June 8,, 2017 to answer for this missing money. And early that day, it appears that
Starting point is 01:19:06 Ashley set her own business on fire to avoid having to attend that meeting. She also knew, she also knew, what's the joke? Joe Exotic. Oh my God, right? Well, Florida. That's what I'm saying. She took a page out of his book. But I mean, I got to give her credit here. She does not give up. She's like, you're just going to throw everything at the wall and hope to God that something sticks. But this is bananas to me, like the lengths that she'll go to. So the Pensacola News Journal claimed, quote, MacArthur allegedly did not activate the alarm when she left the business at about 10 p.m. on June 7th, which was not uncommon. The business then had eight alarms activated simultaneously at
Starting point is 01:19:47 3.35 a.m., and when the alarm company contacted MacArthur's mother, Rhonda Britt, she said it was probably a false alarm and canceled law enforcement's call to the location. Just before 10 a.m. on June 8th, 2017, MacArthur called 911 to report a fire at the business, saying she had just arrived and found a haze of black smoke marks at the office doors. She did not meet the Azalea owners as scheduled, but called them at 10.45 a.m. to say she had a personal issue and couldn't make the meeting, according to court documents. The Azalea's accountant said he was suspicious, so he drove by the Pace Boulevard business to find fire trucks, and there he told investigators about the scheduled meeting with MacArthur that morning. Debris samples taken at the scene by the state fire marshal allegedly showed signs of heavy petroleum distillate, which is an accelerant.
Starting point is 01:20:38 Accidental causes of the fire were ruled out, according to the documents, end quote. So ironically or conveniently, the portion of the building set on fire happened to contain financial records pertaining to the theft allegations between Ashley and the bar that she was supposed to meet with that morning. Convenient. Ashley McArthur was up to all sorts of things in the summer of 2017, I guess. But if you think that this is like the most bizarre, the craziest thing about this, I mean, obviously at this point she's arrested for Taylor Wright's murder. She's been stealing money from Taylor Wright. She's been stealing money from businesses
Starting point is 01:21:16 all over the area under her family business's name. It's bananas. But this is not the craziest part. It gets worse. And we'll talk about that in the third and final part of this case. But I do want to ask you a question. And then I have a question for you. OK, but go for it. Why the hell did Ashley bury Taylor's body on her family property, man? Of all places. I mean, it's Florida. You got swamps, you got got gators you got like rainforests that you could just go and i mean this is florida it's hot humid the body's going to decompose very quickly the gators are going to get it the animals are going to get it there's a million other places why in her family's property because at this point you can't even really deny that it was you right i think it's a risk where it's like, you know, I know that if they find her here, I'm done for.
Starting point is 01:22:11 But it's going to be harder for them to get a search warrant for this property because they don't know I was here. You know, quote unquote, she had never intended on them knowing she was at that location. And for them to get a search warrant, they would need some probable cause. Cell phone records? She clearly didn't. Well, by her lying about their whereabouts, she clearly didn't factor that in, right? I mean, she clearly didn't think
Starting point is 01:22:32 it was going to get to that point where they would be checking her GPS coordinates. So I think when she initially did it, she felt like her property, which was unknown to investigators at that point, would be the safest place. But I do, I'm not that we're condoning this or recommending this, but if you find a body, even if you know who it is, if it's in a public location, it's difficult to tie them back to that
Starting point is 01:22:55 spot unless you have GPS coordinates that puts them in that area around that time. Then you can still link them, whether it's public or private. But yeah, if you commit a crime, whatever it is them whether it's public or private but yeah if if you commit a crime whatever it is whether it's financial you know something like this if the main evidence that links you to said crime is found on your property it's hard you're gonna be you got some problems you got some explaining to do your lawyer's probably looking at you like it's not a matter of if but it's a matter of how long you're gonna be in prison i feel like she's not i feel like she's just not smart, man. Like I feel like every case she worked on when she was a CSI technician should now be called into question and relooked
Starting point is 01:23:33 at because if you as a if you as a CSI tech don't realize that you probably shouldn't have your phone in your pocket or in your vehicle when you're dumping a dead body on property that your family owns. If you don't realize that, we need to call every single thing she did for the Escambia County Police Department into question at this point. Even if she was a good crime scene investigator, like a good crime scene tech, her credibility is completely shot. She's not truthful at all. I think her intelligence, her intelligence.
Starting point is 01:24:02 Anything she testified to in court or other cases it could be in question you know because you know that she's capable of lying under oath i mean clearly i do have a question for you and maybe you're going to get into this in the trial because you said there's other players involved but one of the things that kept coming up in my head was the fact that you have this woman who's clearly lying um but you mentioned something earlier in this episode that it stuck with me which was the fact that she ended up being seen in her husband's truck, the F-250, which was uncommon for her. I won't lie and say that I haven't seen some headlines about this case, but I can't remember if I saw this being tied to the husband. I do remember seeing a sound clip or hearing a
Starting point is 01:24:44 sound clip where the investigators call her husband and be like, your wife's just been arrested for murder. And he's like, what? Now that could mean nothing. That could be just acting. But are we going to get into that? Because I'm trying to see, you know, I know he wasn't working at the time. She's in his truck. You know, was there something where collectively they're working together? I talked to Detective Wilhite. I asked him the same question, not this exact question, because I know he probably wouldn't even be able to say it. But I said, so Zach wasn't working at the time. And he was like, no, I think he was doing PI work. So Zach was working as a PI.
Starting point is 01:25:17 Zach's the one who introduced Taylor to Ashley. Okay. Okay. So he's working as a PI. Do we know if he was involved or was aware of what she was doing? We have no evidence of that. Is it possible? Of course, it's possible. Anything's possible. But I do get the impression that Zach was sort of just like going along with the flow. Like Detective Wilhite, I said, you know, is it true that Zach really had no idea what
Starting point is 01:25:44 their financial status was idea what their financial status was, what their financial situation was? And Detective Wilhite said, yeah, it seemed like he just had this debit card and then he would use it until the money wasn't there or it got declined. And then he'd call Ashley and be like, my card got declined. And she'd kind of move money around or put money in his account so he could use it. So for some reason- I mean, it's possible.
Starting point is 01:26:02 We've seen it before where people are unaware of what their significant other is doing, you know? So it's not out of the realm of possibilities that she was keeping this from him. And that's why she had to go to this extreme because she had to keep up, you know, the facade that she was doing well financially. Yeah. And I mean, evidence of any fraud, you know, that she's doing would be in the bank accounts. And he had no idea it was in
Starting point is 01:26:25 the bank accounts. So as far as he was concerned, like for me, I don't know what's going on with our money. My husband handles everything because I'm bad with money. I would spend it all or lose it all. Definitely. So I let him handle it. And this this dude could be robbing me blind every day or spending money on the stupidest things or going gambling and like wasting all our money and i would have no idea because i trust him so it's very likely that zach trusted his wife although there's question of that because during the search warrant of her black jeep they found a gps locator on the jeep and it's believed that zach put that there so i don't know what's going on man with this relationship we're gonna get more. So I don't know what's going on, man,
Starting point is 01:27:05 with this relationship. We're going to get more into it in the next part. What's in the water, man? What's in the water? Okay, so we're going to end that here. We will be back next week with the conclusion and it's crazy, guys. Like I said, it's juicy.
Starting point is 01:27:16 There's a lot of questions answered and if possible, Ashley MacArthur gets worse, if that's possible. And it is, she does. So stay tuned for that. Don't forget to check us out on social media, Crime Weekly Pod on Instagram and Twitter. You can also go to our website, CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com, where you can leave us a speak pipe or you can give us a case suggestion or you can shop for our merch, Undercover Pineapple and Crime
Starting point is 01:27:38 Weekly merch still available at our merch store. It's beautiful. Look at Derek if you can see him. If you're listening on audio, you can. I'm rocking the Cardinal sweatshirt. Love it. Trust me. The Cardinal sweatshirt.
Starting point is 01:27:50 And he's got gel in his hair tonight. Looking cute. And glasses. This is my good look. I'm all decked out in merch. If you have a Cardinal Red Crime Weekly sweatshirt, you're going to look just like Derek. Or more than likely better. Maybe better. There you go.
Starting point is 01:28:04 Thank you guys so much for being here. We'll see you next week. Later. Bye.

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