Crime Weekly - S1 Ep53: Taylor Wright: The Evidence Doesn't Lie (Part 3)

Episode Date: December 3, 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

Shop the Sherwin-Williams 4-Day Super Sale and get 40% off paints and stains June 6th through the 9th. With prices starting at $29.39, it's the perfect time to transform your space with color. Whether you're looking to revamp your interior or exterior, we have you covered with bold hues, soothing neutrals, and everything in between. Shop the sale online or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only. Some exclusions apply. See store for details. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

And I'm Derek Levasseur. Today, we are covering the third and final part of the Taylor Wright case. And I'm just going to dive in unless there's anything that you want to talk about before we dive in or there's anything we have to say or updates or anything like that. No, I know a lot of people were eager to hear and see part three. So let's get right into it. All right. So when we last left off, law enforcement had just discovered the body of Taylor Wright buried in a shallow grave on property owned by the family of Ashley McArthur, Taylor's friend and confidant who had been helping her hide money from her

ex-husband, Jeff. Obviously, when this happens and Taylor is found on the property and Ashley was the last person to see Taylor, Ashley got arrested. She was charged with first-degree murder. But initially, she was actually charged with second-degree murder, but then they brought it to a grand jury, and the grand jury decided that there was premeditation there, and so they changed it to first-degree murder. So today, we're going to discuss what new information came out during the trial. But first,

I do want to talk about some controversy and scandal when it came to Ashley being let out on bail because apparently she had a lot more freedom than many people felt she deserved. So in February of 2018, Ashley had been released on a $400,000 bond. And, you know, part of her being allowed to leave was that she would have to be under GPS monitoring. And she'd also been instructed to stay at her mother's house. But a neighbor reported that Ashley had been spending several nights with her husband at their home in Pensacola, which led prosecutors to try and revoke her bond because they claimed she'd violated the terms of her pretrial release. So actually, two supervisors from the Escambia County Corrections Department testified that the terms of Ashley's release were a bit ambiguous, and it hadn't really provided clear instructions about where Ashley could sleep

at night. So it seemed that Ashley and her husband, Zach, were spending about 80% of their time at Ashley's mother's house, and she'd only been at their Raintree drive home nine nights out of 40. So she wasn't there a ton, but I guess she was there a lot during the day. We're going to get to that. One of the corrections officers testified that she had told Ashley that Ashley could stay with her husband at their home at least twice a week. The judge was a bit annoyed by this. And, you know, the judge was like, I think it's pretty obvious that when we say Ashley has to reside at her mother's house, that means she should be living at her mother's house. That's where she should be staying. And the judge said Ashley couldn't go and spend the night with her husband, Zach, at their

house anymore. And she couldn't be at the Raintree Drive home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. And if she did that, she'd be in violation and have her bond revoked. Now, Taylor's mother, Nancy Murchison, she was stunned that Ashley had been even allowed to leave prison after a grand jury charged her with first degree murder, and she said, quote, I see the criminal given more rights than her victim, end quote. Ashley was also given special permission to leave the state of Florida while out on bail, and this stunned many people because, I mean, you're in prison for murder, you know, so you shouldn't really be allowed to kind of just leave the state, but apparently a police officer friend of Ashley's husband, Zach, he'd been shot in the line of duty

and she requested permission to travel to Alabama where he lived so that she could be tested to see if she was a candidate to donate an organ to him. So on a Facebook page that was started for Taylor, it's called Justice for Taylor Wright, Taylor's mother wrote, quote, a year ago today, they found Taylor buried in a grave of concrete and potting soil in the woods that the Britt family owned. Ashley Britt MacArthur was quickly arrested and put in jail where she

belongs. Charged with premeditated murder, her bond was set at $1 million. She was re-arrested for grand theft and fraud while she was in jail for stealing from her clients. Although Judge Shackelford knew that this murderer was about to be charged with arson and racketeering in addition to the other charges, her idea of justice was to reduce Ashley Britt MacArthur's bond to $400,000. The Brits quickly bailed her out, and she is currently free to run around Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. Instead of spending time at her mother's house with some supervision, she spends her time alone in her house on Raintree Drive, visiting with her daughter,

sunbathing in her front yard for all to see that she is free and defiant, that there have been no consequences imposed on her that cause her any discomfort or have impacted her life. Taylor cannot visit her son, talk about his day at school, what he wants to wear for Halloween, read him stories, kiss him goodnight, hold and hug her life. Taylor cannot visit her son, talk about his day at school, what he wants to wear for Halloween, read him stories, kiss him goodnight, hold and hug her son. Taylor cannot enjoy the feel

of the sun, spend time on the beach, see her friends and family that love her so very much. I love you, Taylor, my sweet girl, and miss you more than I could ever put into words, end quote. Now, this is obviously, this monologue is coming from somebody who's very emotionally involved with Taylor. This is her mother talking. But considering the charges and the additional crimes of the racketeering and the arson, do you think Ashley should have been let out on bail? Or is this common? I thought that there was sort of like, you know, things that you had to make sure. I think this might be something that our listeners and our viewers are a little surprised at when it comes to me, because I'm, you know, being in law enforcement,

I'm someone who is always like, you know, lock them up. You know, they were, they're a bad guy, put them away. But I, but I understand the purpose of bail, right? Bail is set to ensure that that person shows up for their next court date, right? It's to impose stipulations that impede their ability to flee the area. Are they a flight risk? What's their previous criminal history? Do they have the funds and the connections to escape to another country, right? That's why they usually make you turn over your passport, things like that. So when it comes to this impassioned speech that she's giving, it's all true, right? I don't disagree with a single thing she's saying, but bail is not set to be a form of punishment. She's still at this point,

innocent until proven guilty, right? This is just to ensure that she shows up to court. So although I understand where she's coming from and everything she said is true, like she's getting these moments to be out with her daughter and see her husband and enjoy the, you know, the environment, all that stuff is absolutely on point. However, once she's tried in court, if found, you know, guilty, she will lose all those privileges. You know, she will be held accountable for her actions and she will most likely never see the outside of a jail cell again. But that's not what bail is for. So although personally, as a father, I agree with her mom, and I can see how it'd be so frustrating to have someone who killed your child roaming the streets, enjoying life. It's just the way the court system works as far as bail is concerned. I mean,

how do you feel about it? I mean, someone who maybe doesn't deal with the courts every day, but still has an opinion. I'm certain of that. Well, aren't there stipulations to bail? Because not everybody gets bail. It's sort of also considered like a privilege, I think, in some situations. I thought that there would be times where repeat offenders wouldn't, you know, get bail, things like that. So when you look at Ashley's situation, you have a grand jury who said, yes, we're not charging her with second degree murder. We're charging her with premeditated first degree murder. So this is, you know, already a kind of a jury's heard this and said, we think there's enough to bring her to trial for this. And then you have her in jail for

that. And then the arson and racketeering charges hit. So these are new crimes that she's committed. So I think at this point, bail needs to be kind of in question here. Like, do we really need to let this person out? Because at this point now she's, you know, arrested for murder and all of these other arson, racketeering, you know, different charges. So probably best if she sits tight. Like I thought that you kind of had to be like a first time offender or, you know. Well, technically, and again, I'm not saying I agree with this, but it's actually interesting that we're talking about this right now because I just talked about this on another podcast about the Waukesha parade and this person who was bailed out, $1,000 cash bail. They're a repeat offender. They've got like 40 or

50 charges. They were out on bail because they assaulted their girlfriend and then basically tried to run her over with a car. And then most people know the story. He then ran other people over with a car three weeks later. However, again, don't kill the messenger. It doesn't, the judge has to look at a couple of factors. Yes, the crime that she's being charged with is significant, right? She's being charged with murder. So she's potentially taken another life and the judge has to tackle with, you know, or I should say wrestle with the idea, you know, is this person a danger to others still? Or does this appear to be an isolated situation where she felt like Ashley was a threat to her financial situation

and could expose her and whatever? And apparently the judge felt that although she was a high flight risk, which is why the bail was set at 400,000, she felt like this was an isolated incident and she wasn't a danger to the community. And based on the restrictions that she put in place, she wasn't a flight risk. Again, I'm not saying I agree with it, but I think that's the, some of the criteria that's taken into consideration when determining whether or not to release this person. However, if, if Ashley had been in a situation where she had previous assaults on her record or things like that, where she was kind of viewed as more of a habitual offender, random acts of violence, I would hope that the judge would have kept her behind bars until then. But I think it

is very subjective too, right? Because we've seen situations where someone is a first-time offender, has been charged with murder, and is not released on bail. Right. It's 100%. You guys can look it up. It happens all the time. It happens all the time. So I think it is very contingent on the judge's interpretation and their opinion, which kind of sucks about the law.

And, you know, it goes state by state. But, you know, there is a gray area there. And I guess they felt like Ashley wasn't a danger to anybody else at that point. Yeah. But I mean, if anybody's a flight risk, it's Ashley McArthur, man. This girl's always trying to wriggle out of trouble. I agree. I think that's why the judge really didn't want her with.

She wanted her at her mother's house. She wanted her to be held. She wanted to keep a tight block on her as far as her movement. And it didn't happen. It didn't happen. But from what you were saying, though, it sounds like the judge wasn't happy about that. You know, like, you know, Ashley was doing it. And maybe that would have been the point to revoke her bail.

Because it's like, listen, I gave you very strict instructions. I, you know, I told you I wanted you staying at your mom's house. You didn't. So clearly you're just playing ignorant, which I know you know what I meant. You know, and so she could have revoked her bail just on that alone, you know, violation of, you know, a judge's order. I just I don't see where her bond

would be reduced from a million to 400 grand either. Like the point of having it at a million is like if you if it really means enough to you, like you'll come up with with the money, but it's also to prevent her from being a flight risk, right. Because if her family puts up all this money, she's less likely to take off and leave them holding the bag. So I'm not sure why it was reduced. But yeah, everyone was real upset about it. I mean, I read a web sleuths thread and there was a lot of people in there from the area who who knew Taylor, who knew Ashley. And they were all just saying stuff like, you know, we can't believe that that this girl's just chilling, sunbathing in her front yard, you know,

laying out in her front yard, pretty much flaunting it like here I am. I'm still standing. And it was gross. No, that's I think that's what I'm saying. That's where it's like I'm trying to separate it because that's hard. That's hard to think that, you know, the person responsible for your child's death or your family, loved one's death, it's just like out there hanging around. You could like potentially cross paths with them, you know? And leaving, leaving the state, like that's kind of crazy. Yeah. It's iffy. And you run the risk that that person could take off and you never find them again. Right. So it is, it is a risk and then it comes back on the court. So no, I agree. And it's, it's, uh, I'm definitely more conservative when it comes to bails and stuff like that.

I think that most people should remain behind bars, especially if it's a serious crime like this. But that's why I'm, I guess, not a judge, right? I mean, no, because I think that's the better way. Because if you're a first time offender, I get getting bail. But if you're a multiple time off offender, I get getting bail. But if you're a multiple-time offender, you shouldn't get bail. And if you're arrested for murder, probably shouldn't get bail. I mean, especially if the grand jury thought there was enough evidence to bring it to trial. I mean, listen, you're preaching to the choir. I'm with you. It's just one of those things where

ultimately judges have that immunity where they can decide whatever they want. And unfortunately, if there are things that happen that could have been avoided, the judge is basically off the hook. There's nothing he can do about it. Yeah, I've seen that. What do they call that? Judicial? It's called something. I know for police officers, it's qualified immunity.

Immunity. I think it's called judicial immunity. Yeah. Judges cannot be touched. They can't be sued. They can't be held criminally responsible. They are basically- Let's change that law first, should we?

They're basically untouchable. Yeah. Should we change that law first, maybe? Good luck with that one. Because some accountability wouldn't hurt anyone. I'm with you. I agree. Let's take a quick break and then we'll be right back.

Okay. So the trial started in August of 2019. Ashley's legal team was going to argue that there was no physical evidence to tie their client to the death of Taylor Wright. And the prosecution was going to argue that cell phone data and security footage would show that Ashley was the only person who had the motive and the opportunity, the only person who could have been responsible. So during opening statements, Ashley was represented by a father and son legal team. Their names are John and Barry Barrissette. So during opening statements, John Barrissette raised questions about Taylor's emotional state, and he also brought up the rumors that she'd been dabbling with drugs at the time of her disappearance. In her opening statement, Assistant State Attorney Bridget Jensen told the jury that Ashley had a motive to kill Taylor, money.

Before the trial started, Ashley and her legal team had already filed motions to suppress statements that she'd made to investigators during her October 2017 interview. She also wanted her cell phone records suppressed. She also filed a motion to have statements made by Taylor in text messages dismissed as hearsay. And these motions were obviously all denied because there's no legitimate reason she would want this stuff. There's a legitimate reason she would want the stuff suppressed, but there's no legal reason to have them suppressed. Something that came out during the trial was that Ashley had been carrying on a personal and a sexual relationship with a local bar owner named Brandon Beatty.

So Brandon owned a pool hall at 8600 Pensacola Boulevard called Sticks Billiards. Very, very creative name. And Brandon had first met Ashley when he purchased the place in August of 2016. By the summer of 2017, Ashley MacArthur was a daily visitor to the pool hall. And even more than that, it appeared she'd been giving Brandon money and contributing financially, not only to his business, but to him personally. Ashley was paying some of the bills for Styx, and the employees there knew that if they were running low on something like supplies, they would call Ashley and she would pick up whatever they needed from Sam's Club and she would pay for it with her own money or Taylor's

money, I should say. Now, Brandon Beatty also had two cell phones. He talked about this during the trial. He said one was his personal cell phone and then one was a phone Ashley had given him so that they could communicate. But I'm not sure why they even felt the need to do this because it seemed like everyone knew that Ashley and Brandon were in a relationship, even Ashley's husband, Zach. And I talked to one of the detectives that was on this case about this specific situation. And I was like, when did Zach become aware that his wife was cheating on him with like this bar owner? And the detective said, you know, it seems like kind of he just had known for a while. Everyone knew it was just like a secret that wasn't really a secret. And they all kind of did their own thing like they may have been kind of you know swingers or something that's i was gonna say would he was it like an open did he make it seem like there was like an open relationship or was something where the husband knew but just hadn't acted upon it yet so the detective made it seem like it was an open relationship

but i would say how open was it because zach had had put a GPS tracker on her vehicle, on Ashley's vehicle. So, I mean, there has to be some sort of distrust there, some sort of need to know the movements of his wife, where she was and what she was doing, that Zach felt he would need to put a GPS tracker on her car. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. I mean, if he's putting a GPS tracker on there, he's obviously not happy with what she's doing. I mean? that you're saying it to just goes, I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't know what to tell you. And they take that as permission to do whatever they want. But I think if you were to ask Zach, he probably would say, no, I wasn't on board for this and I didn't know what was going on.

I had a feeling. I'm not an idiot, but I needed more proof. Yeah. I think it's a certain personality. They exist that are into that, who are like completely OK with open marriages. We know that they exist out there. And there's some people that are completely OK with it. There's television shows about it. But I don't think it's the majority. Personally, me, I would never. You would never see me telling my husband like, yeah, go on out. I don't care who you're sleeping with. So I have a hard time believing Zach was completely okay with it, but I think he also was sort of financially dependent on Ashley. So that adds another factor. That's a great point. He may have just been like, let me go with the flow now. Maybe later. It wasn't working. Maybe he's getting this information from the GPS tracker. He's sort of like building a file on her. If this ever does turn into a divorce, he's got months or years. Yeah, he's got the GPS tracker. He's sort of like building a file on her. If this ever does turn into a divorce, he's got, you know, months or years. Yeah. He's got the receipts to say,

hey, she committed infidelity. Yeah. You know, what's the what's the term they use in the divorce documents? Irreconcilable differences. Yeah. They but this would be infidelity. I reckon irreconcilable differences. They use that when nobody wants to admit why they're divorcing. Right. Celebrities use that all the time where it's like, yeah, we're not going to drag you through the mud. But pretty much like we don't want you guys to know. But yeah, somebody cheated. So it looked like with the money that Ashley had stolen from Taylor, she'd used it to buy Brandon two large gifts. So in July of 2017, she'd purchased a $30,000 boat for Brandon. And then the next month, she bought him a blue and black motorcycle that cost $8,000. So she's basically just showering him with presents right now. And it's funny. I mean,

I don't know if it's funny, but I think it's funny. During the trial, they asked Brandon, like, you know, who's this number in your phone or who are you talking to at this point? He's like, it's this other girl I'm seeing, you know, so Ashley's cheating on her husband with Brandon and Brandon's cheating on Ashley with some other girl that Ashley doesn't even know about. And I wish that they had panned the camera to her face when he came out and said that because i would have loved to have seen her reaction you know with the player you think that ashley was like into brandon obviously she's buying him these like lavish gifts you think she thought like super into brandon man okay so this wasn't just a hookup for her i mean do you spend almost forty thousand dollars on just a hookup? No. And I mean, listen, she was there at Styx like every day. The people who worked there were like, she was there every day. She was there in the morning. She was there at night. She always came in to see him every single day. Do you know if the boat itself was like, did she buy the boat, buy it in her name and then just give it to him as a gift? Or did

she give him the money and he bought the boat? So it's weird. She paid for half of it herself and then she gave him $15,000 in cash to pay for the rest of it. And then she sent him a picture before she gave him the cash. She sent him a picture of basically her holding all this cash. It's Taylor's money, but she sent him a picture and she's like, oh, here's the rest of your boat, baby. And then she gave him the money and then he went and purchased it. So probably in his name, man, right? Yeah. And that's why I asked, because it sounds to me not the most productive way to do it, not the best way to do it, especially with a boat that's a depreciating asset. But it sounds to me like she was getting nervous about having all the cash because that cash tied back to Taylor.

So she was trying to hide it within the assets. You see sometimes where big money guys who are committing financial crimes will clean their money. And they honestly, they usually do it at casinos or at strip clubs. Laundromats. Yeah, laundromats where they'll try- The garbage business is really big for that. There's a lot of ways. There's a lot of ways you can do it where you're putting the stolen money,

the money in question into a slot machine and then you're getting that money. You're basically just taking the cash back out of the slot machines and poker chips and then you're cashing in those poker chips at the cash outline and then the casino is giving you new money. And if anybody doesn't know how this works, watch Ozark.

All right? Yeah, Ozark is a great- That's exactly what they did with the casino and the boat, right? Yes. Yeah. That's a great series, by the way. You should check that out. That's definitely a good one.

It's a really good series. But it sounds to me like this was a bad way of doing it- Bad way. Where she was trying to hide the money and assets, specifically assets that weren't hers, so that if it ever did come back on her where she was getting questioned, hide the money and assets, specifically assets that weren't hers. So that there was, you know, if it ever did come back on her where she was getting questioned, law enforcement wouldn't see that, you know, this woman, Ashley, who supposedly had Taylor's money, had all these new toys, items, expensive items. It was just some guy who she had no direct connection to in the

public eye, right? Even though most people knew about it, Brandon, as far as law enforcement was concerned, was just a bar owner. So it would never come back to him, to her. And so I think that was the plan. It sounds like it. And I don't know if this was so much as a gift to be like, I love you, baby. Here you go. Here's your boat. I think it was just a way of being like, hey, I need to hide this money. I need to hide it fast. So she's trying to take illegitimate money and make it legitimate. That's right. Because after the trial or after this kind of goes away, she can sell it. She's going to take the boat back and sell it?

She can sell it. What if he doesn't give her the boat back? I mean, I'm not saying she's a genius here, but it sounds like maybe that's kind of why she was doing it. And maybe she could convince him down the road, like, hey, let's get another one or let's buy a house or something. You could turn that money over and do she was doing it. And maybe she could convince him down the road, like, hey, let's get another one or let's buy a house or something. You could turn that money over and do something else with it. I don't know what her rationale was behind it.

Like I said, the boat is a bad idea in the first place because you could buy it for $30,000 and two months later, especially if it was brand new and you bought it, it's only worth $20,000. They're like the worst investments ever. So I don't look like it was an $20,000. They're like the worst investments ever. So the boat is probably not the right boat. It kind of looked like it was an old boat too. I remember the year, I may be wrong, but maybe 1970. So maybe it was like a vintage boat.

Well, sometimes older boats can still be good if they're taken care of. But yeah, that's what it sounds like to me. Ultimately, I think the money was not like a gift. Like I want to just spoil you. It's more like, hey, nobody knows about us as far as I know. So I trust you. I'm having sex with you. I'm going to buy you these gifts, but I want to make sure that you still know, like I'm giving you the cash. Like it's coming through me. We're going to put it in your name. And then down the road, you know, I can always sell it and, and get some of that return, get some of that money back. Even if I

lose five or 10 grand due to depreciation. That could have been the case. And Brandon Beatty, he did have a criminal record with law enforcement of doing things sort of similar to that, like scammy kind of stuff. So he was probably all for it, allegedly. He might've even been in on it for all we know. There's no proof of that.

There's no proof of it, but I wouldn't be surprised. But there's no proof. No proof. Brandon's innocent. I got you. Brandon, you just stop listening right now. Go back to Styx, man. We're not talking about you. Brandon also, he said at the trial, he had never met Taylor himself, but he said Ashley had talked about Taylor after Taylor had gone missing. And she told Brandon that Taylor had run off with her ex-husband's money. And then she said, quote, they'll never find that bitch. She's gone. End quote.

Damn. Yeah. I mean, in hindsight, that statement seems a little bit more savage. Yeah. She was probably more like saying it like, yeah, you know, oh, she's gone. She's gone. Trust me. They're not finding her. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But was probably more like saying it like, you know, oh, she's gone. She's gone with that money. Trust me. They're not finding her. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. But they did. Mm-hmm. So during the trial, several women were put on the stand to testify. One woman, her name was Alexis Cook. She was a medical assistant who spent a lot of time at Styx during August and September of 2017. So Alexis said she would go to Styx and sit at the bar sometimes because her friend Jessica Wheeler tended bar there and she wanted to keep Jessica company. Alexis testified that Ashley MacArthur was also at Styx most nights sitting at the bar. Now, apparently someone had told Alexis that Ashley had been talking about Taylor and had

admitted to killing her, and Alexis had also overheard Ashley asking another woman, whose name was Audrey Potts, how much cocaine would it take to kill someone? Alexis also claimed to have had a conversation with Ashley, during which Ashley said she was too small to hurt anyone, so she would just shoot them. Alexis's friend, Jessica Wheeler, also testified, and Jessica said that when she started working at Styx, it was well known that Ashley and Brandon were together, and so she never really questioned why Ashley was there so much because, like I said, Ashley would come in every day and every night, and eventually Ashley and Jessica became friendly. Jessica testified that on the evening of September 7th, 2017, Ashley and Jessica became friendly. Jessica testified that on the evening of September 7th,

2017, Ashley and her friend Audrey Potts were sitting at the bar and Jessica was hanging out with them. They were all doing shots. So September 7th is the day before Taylor goes missing. This is the same evening that Ashley would meet Taylor and Cassandra at Twin Peaks for dinner. So Jessica claimed that Ashley said Taylor was not a good person and the world would be better off if she wasn't in it. Jessica also heard Ashley ask Audrey at this point in the evening how much cocaine it would take to kill someone. After this conversation, Jessica testified that she saw Ashley and Audrey leave the bar together. So they left Sticks together for a period of time

before they returned to Sticks and then continued hanging out at the bar. Okay, so obviously we're curious, where did Ashley and Audrey go when they left Sticks? And when we come back from this next break, we're going to tell you. All right, we're back. So now we have Audrey Potts. So Audrey Potts was the friend that Ashley was sitting with at the bar. Audrey left with Ashley that evening to go somewhere. And she was also a medical assistant.

And she also tended bar at Sticks from time to time. She and Ashley had become close friends, and Audrey testified that Ashley had told her Taylor was annoying, and Ashley wished Taylor would just leave her alone. Audrey said that she and Taylor had left Sticks on the evening of September 7th around 10.30 p.m. with the plan to go to another bar called Babes, where Ashley would purchase cocaine. And it's funny because when I was talking to the detective, I said, listen, this Babes thing keeps coming up in the trial, like Babes, Babes. What is this? Is this like someone's house? Is it a bar? Is it a place where people sell drugs? And he was like all of the above, you know, pretty much like he said, there's a lot of places like this in Pensacola where it's just like they're bars,

but there's active drug deals happening in and out of them all the time. Like if you knew you wanted coke, you knew you would go to Babes. Yeah, bars, that's everywhere too. I mean, it's not isolated, just Pensacola. I mean, we had it where we are too, where there were certain bars where we arrested someone

if they were in possession of a narcotic or anything like that. Usually it was like one of two bars that they always purchased it from. So the bartenders or the owners may not necessarily be directly involved, but they allowed that type of stuff to go on around there and everybody in the community knew it. Do you think they allowed it because they were getting some sort of kickback? Because why else would you allow it? Yes. Well, it's two things, right? It could be a direct kickback or it could be like, hey, listen, by allowing this stuff to happen here, they're coming back into the bar and they're buying a beer or they're sitting around playing.

I'm telling you. So there is a residual kickback where the fact that this is a place people know they can come to and pick that item up it's it's creating more customers for me that are hanging out around the bar yeah as a bar owner i definitely want a bunch of coked up people just running around the place like it sounds like that's how i'm looking for no but i mean you know i'm not some bar owners are ethical some aren't some just kind of want as many people as they can. I mean, you can make a lot of arguments. There's some bar owners who will serve you until you can't stand anymore because it's money in their pocket and they'll let you drive home.

So that's like a whole different topic where it's like what's ethical and what's not. But I think at the end of the day, the bar owners want as much clientele in there as possible because more clientele equals more drinks. More drinks equals more money in their pocket. So, you know, they might just be turning a blind eye to it, you know. Or maybe the people are like, hey, let us sell our drugs here. Or, you know, something might happen to your bar. Like it would be a shame if a fire happened. That's also very possible.

Yeah. A lot of angles for that one. Well, Audrey said that they got to this place, Babes, and they met a guy named T. That's his name, T. And he sold Ashley $250 worth of cocaine. They were only there for about 15 minutes. They didn't even go inside. They just pulled up outside.

T came out, took the cash, handed over the drugs, and then they left. They grabbed some food from Whataburger and then they returned two sticks. So Audrey testified that Ashley told her she was going to put the cocaine in Taylor's beer. And if Taylor overdosed, no one would even think twice about it because she was already known to be a drug user. And like $250 worth of coke, that's definitely enough to to overdose somebody that's crazy i would yeah i mean i would think so yeah if they're unsuspecting i don't know how you would get that amount of cocaine into a drink or whatever you would soak it all up right i don't know i don't know i mean that's a lot you would think it would it would sink to the bottom it would definitely look

different i don't know but i mean i don't want to get too far ahead. But basically, from what you're telling me is Audrey kind of knew at this point, Audrey kind of knew that Ashley wanted to kill Taylor. And yet she didn't report anything. No. And she's a medical. She's a medical assistant, man. But I mean, again, legally, I don't know if she can. There could be anything done.

But I mean, if she would have reported it immediately taylor might still be here it is something to think about you know if because there was time you know this could have been something where if she went to the police or made a call immediately that meetup might never have happened i mean i don't even know if i i even care about legally if something can be done, but it's like morally that's a thousand percent. Yeah, that's screwed up, man. I mean, maybe she didn't take her seriously. We hear this all the time to like way too often. It just in cases we've done where people are like, yeah, she said she was going to kill her, but I didn't believe she actually would. Yeah, that could be an aspect of it. But clearly they had her, she was testifying in court to this. So I'm assuming there was something from the prosecution that basically said, hey, listen, we just want you to be honest. You're not legally liable for anything here. Some people may not like it, but ultimately you're helping us build a case against Ashley. So you don't have to worry about any type of ramifications from you being honest where we're going to charge you later. It's not going to happen because otherwise, why would she speak so candidly about this? I think that you also have to worry about any type of ramifications from you being honest where we're going to charge you later. It's not going to happen because otherwise, why would she speak so candidly

about this? I think that you also have to remember they have all of Ashley's text messages. So something could have been said in the text exchange where the police were like, okay, what are you guys talking about here? What are you guys talking about here? And if you don't tell us, you are going to go down as an accessory. Very possible. All right. So this happened on the evening of September 7th. And I'm assuming that Ashley went to Styx after meeting with Taylor and Cassandra at Twin Peaks. Right. So they have dinner.

Taylor's like, yo, I need my money. Ashley's like, OK, we'll go get it tomorrow. And then she goes to the bar, starts doing shots. She's drinking. You know, they testified that everyone there, including Jessica, who was bartending, they had some alcohol in them. And she starts running her mouth. Taylor's annoying. The world would be better off without her. And now she's starting to think, how can I solve this problem? How can I take care of this issue? Because I don't have this money. I can't bring her to the bank and give her money tomorrow.

So I've got to handle this now. So the next day, it was September 8th. This was the day Taylor Wright vanished. Audrey asked Ashley on September 8th, what had she done with the cocaine that they bought? And Ashley told her that she'd put it in Taylor's beer, but Taylor had spit the beer out and she claimed it had tasted bitter. So this is the interesting thing because Audrey asked Ashley this later, later in the day, what did you do with the cocaine? And she said, I put it in Taylor's beer and she spit it out. But I have no idea when Ashley would have had a chance to put cocaine into Taylor's beer unless when you think about her going to that convenience store remember they said they had surveillance of her at that Tom Thumb convenience store

and Ashley bought a drink for herself and a beer for Taylor she said Taylor wanted a beer and the police were like oh she was drinking kind of early and Ashley was like well she said it's five o'clock somewhere somewhere yeah and then I wonder if she tried to put it in that beer and that's when Taylor spit it out. And then Ashley was like, all right, this isn't going to work. I've got to get my hands dirty. Totally makes sense. And it actually makes more sense to what I was saying a couple of minutes ago, which

it's like $250 worth of Coke in a beer, whether it's visible or it's just going to taste different. I don't know how you would do that. And the person wouldn't notice that something's off with it. It's a lot of cocaine to put into a beer bottle. The beer is not going to have that strong of a taste to overpower that much cocaine. So that actually makes a lot of sense that that's what happened. It does make a lot of sense that she would have tried that and thought it would work. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was a pretty stupid idea, but not gonna check out you know ashley's intelligence here

she's clearly not the the brightest bulb but it was one of those things where even when you said it i'm like okay yeah in theory it would work but i don't know how you're gonna administer it in a way that it's gonna be unsuspecting to to taylor yeah this doesn't work here we are but another thing is the whole cocaine thing like they had texts from ashley's phone texting this tea guy she knew exactly where to go and it makes me wonder was ashley the one who was familiar with cocaine was ashley the one that taylor had you know dabbled in cocaine with three times that she told her girlfriend she tried cocaine three times because Taylor was never known to do drugs before. I mean, she was a police officer, private

investigator. She had no issues with drugs. And then all of a sudden she's trying drugs after she becomes friends with Ashley, who happens to have a drug dealer on speed dial and who knows exactly where to go in Pensacola to get $250 worth of cocaine. So I'm wondering if this was some sort of like master plan where Ashley was like, let me get this girl, you know, let me have her try this drug. Let me have her try cocaine. And that way, you know, people aren't gonna suspect when she overdoses on it.

So, you know, we say she's not the brightest bulb and I agree with you. I don't think she is, but there's situations in this case where it seems like she was way more self-aware than she seems in other areas. So there's some areas where we're like, this is stupid. Why would you bury a person you just murdered on land that your family owns? This doesn't make any sense. That's stupid. Why would you carry your cell phone around with you everywhere in 2017 knowing that people can track that because you were a CSI tech. Why would you do all this stuff? But then there's other situations where it does seem she may have played the long game. And we'll talk about it in a little bit.

The lack of physical evidence, that's not by accident. Yeah, no, I agree. You know, it's those lapses in judgment that allow law enforcement to catch you. And, you know, you got to be perfect or hopefully if the detectives are good, they're going to find your slip up and exploit it. So that does appear to be the case here. I mean, this wasn't just some crime of passion. This was something that was premeditated and there was some type of plan that was put into place. Clearly, it wasn't good enough. But yeah, she definitely thought about this. Yeah. So September 8th, right? This is the day Taylor disappears. And on this day, Audrey, which is Ashley's friend, she drove to Sticks for her shift. She was working at the bar that night

and she drove there. She was working at 2 p.m. So she started driving there around 140. And on her way to work, she called Ashley, who answered the phone sounding winded. Ashley was also being short with Audrey on the phone, kind of like, you know, she's trying to get her off the phone. She didn't want to be on the phone. She wasn't very talkative. So later, Audrey texted Ashley and asked her, you know, why were you so out of breath when I called? And Ashley told Audrey it was because she'd been carrying a saddle. Audrey also saw Ashley McArthur later that day when she showed up to Styx driving her

husband's Ford F-250, which was also not normal because Ashley would usually be seen driving one of her Jeeps. Ashley told Audrey, you know, I'm just stopping in. I'm only here for a couple minutes. Ashley was fidgety and she was in a rush. And she told Audrey that she had her husband's truck because she was doing some work on her aunt's Britt Road farm. Ashley only stayed a few minutes, and then she told Audrey that she was heading back to the farm. So from Sticks to the Britt Road farm, it's about a 30-minute drive. But Ashley was there long enough for Audrey to notice that she looked really tired, and Audrey also noticed that there were some bags in the back of the truck. At the time that Ashley was talking to Audrey on the phone when she sounded winded,

her cell phone was pinging off a tower near the Britt Road Farm. So let me break it down a little bit so it's easier to understand. Audrey gets up in the morning. She drives to work around 1.30, 1.40 for her shift. She calls Ashley. Ashley sounds winded on the phone. She says she's carrying a saddle. Then not long after, just a couple hours later, Ashley comes into Styx. She's only there for a couple minutes. Audrey doesn't say what she was doing there, but who knows what she was doing

there. She went in the back room. She was messing around. Maybe she got something. We don't know. And then she leaves again. And from her cell phone records, we know that when she was talking to Audrey and she sounded winded, she was at the Britt Road property. And then she leaves again. And from her cell phone records, we know that when she was talking to Audrey and she sounded winded, she was at the Britt Road property and then she returned to the Britt Road property after she left Sticks. So do you think that she maybe had to grab some items

to finish carrying out what she was doing, the burying, all that good stuff? Yeah, something, right? Because why else would you just drop in at Sticks? Yeah, the whole thing is odd. I i mean i think she dropped in at sticks for a really simple read like she probably figured like i want an alibi to show that in the middle of me doing all this people can testify that they saw me at this bar this establishment so how could i have done it because i was at the middle in the middle of the day when this supposedly happened i I was accounted for. I think that was the mentality. Even though it wasn't that long, she wasn't planning GPS. But I think she wanted an alibi for the in the process stop by to create an alibi because she

figured, hey, if I'm down here, I might as well do that as well. It's interesting. I mean, I don't want to get too far ahead of your narrative here that we're going over. But again, if it was premeditated to the extent that I initially thought you would think that she would have those items ready to go. So I'm really wondering if this was kind of a she had a general idea, but didn't know exactly when or where she was going to do it. I think it was premeditated to the point where the night before she was like, all right, I have to do it. But I also think you're right that during the past couple of months, while Taylor was like, where's my money? I need my money. Ashley knows she has no money to give

her. So she's thinking to herself, I might have to kill this girl at one point. Like if she keeps pressing, she keeps pushing. But it wasn't this concrete thing where she was like, oh, I'm going to make a plan. It was just like, I might have to do this. And then when she knew there was kind of no turning back that night that she had dinner with Taylor and Cassandra, she was like, okay, I'm going to do it. And now I got to figure out how. And that's where the stupid cocaine plan comes in. And now she's sort of scrambling in my opinion. And no, I think you're right. And that's where the stupid cocaine plan comes in. And now she's sort of scrambling, in my opinion. And no, I think you're right. And that's where I'm going with this, because she goes and has that dinner, like you said.

And then she decides, I'm not going to murder her myself. I'm going to murder her indirectly by having her overdose on this cocaine that I'm going to poison her with, right? Which is normal for women. That's how women, you know, I don't want to say no women have ever shot anybody or stabbed anybody, but in general. And even take away man, woman, she's trying to do it passively so it doesn't come back to her, right?

Because then she can make the argument like, well, yeah, clearly she OD'd. She's a drug user, right? It could have came from anyone. So I don't think that she started off September 8th that morning being like, I'm going to have to shoot her today. I think she was like this whole cocaine thing's going to work and as sure as shit, she, she gives her the cocaine. She spits it out immediately and realizes like by the end of this day, if I don't kill her, there's going to be hell because Taylor's expecting to get her money today. We're supposed to go to the bank.

So this is all well and good. But at the end of the day, she's going to be expecting us to go get her money. So I have to do it now. And I think that's where this spontaneity of it comes in, where that wasn't planned, because I don't think she planned on doing that. I think she had it as a plan B because she had the gun, all these things. But it does make sense that she would have to go grab items to carry out the burial because she was hoping she was going to be able to avoid that. Ashley was going to leave her or whatever and die from this cocaine overdose and maybe not in her presence. Yeah. And I think

that she said, oh, Taylor wanted to stop and get the beer. I guarantee you, Ashley was like, oh, you want a beer? And Taylor's probably like, oh, no, I don't need a beer. And Ashley's like, I'm going to stop at the store and grab myself a drink i'll just grab you beer when i'm inside and then she probably just came out with it gave it to taylor and taylor's like whatever it's here pot you know she already opened it for me how nice because it's in a can she already opened it for me and and took a drink and was like oh this beer doesn't taste right and now ashley's like oh shit man now let me throw another thing at you let me throw another thing we'll never know what if she what if she figured it out when she gave it to her?

What if she figured it out where she's like, what, what's this? And it was like maybe cocaine on the bottle, whatever. Like she told Audrey that she spit it out. Right. How do we know that's what happened? How do we know that Taylor didn't go, what this tastes off? And then looks and sees all this like stuff building up in the bottom. Like you would see, you know, sugar or salt initially, you know, kind of build up in the

bottom of a glass of water, you know what I mean? And before it dissolves, she might've looked and been like, what are you, what are you trying to pull right now? You know? And then maybe things go from there. I don't know, but we got to remember the only thing we have is a testimony from Audrey because she got it from Ashleyley which we all know ashley's lying out her you know her ass at this point it very well could have been a case where as soon as it went down taylor realized that ashley was up to something and i mean it could be very likely that ashley never gave the coke to taylor and never planned on it and just used it so that the next day she could be like ah she spit it out it didn't work there you go and now when taylor goes missing

audrey's like well you know it didn't work so this has to be completely unrelated it has nothing to do with ashley it could be a million things the only the only reason i think that it could have happened is because of how poorly this was executed after right like yeah it seems like and you were bringing it up where this whole question came from initially it's like you know you planned out certain things but you didn't plan out other things. Why was this so sloppy? Like you buried her on, like, what would be the explanation for that? And it would be that this wasn't in the plan initially.

This was kind of like, oh, I have to kind of adapt here because plan A didn't work. So now what am I going to do? Because I can't let her leave. That would explain why it was kind of shoddy work as far as covering her tracks. Yeah. Well, it definitely was shoddy in some places and not so much in other places. But let's take a quick break and we'll come right back. Absolutely.

So Ashley's husband, Zach MacArthur, also testified at the trial. And he said that on the morning of September 8th, he and Ashley had slept in and then she left the house before he did. He said sometime between, you know, nine-ish, ten-ish in the morning. He also said that Ashley had taken his truck that morning. So she did go to Cassandra's house and pick up Taylor in Zach's F-250. And he thought that she took the truck because she was helping Taylor move into Cassandra's house. Later that day, Zach met up with some friends, and then he texted Ashley to see if she wanted to get lunch with him,

but she told him she was too busy. Later that evening, he met Ashley for dinner at a place called the Blackwater Bistro. And Zach said that each and every time he'd seen or talked to his wife on September 8th, she'd seemed completely normal and nothing seemed off about her behavior. But during the trial, we were able to get a better look at Ashley's movements that day, the day that Taylor Wright was murdered. It's believed that the last time Taylor's girlfriend Cassandra heard from Taylor and not someone pretending to be Taylor, aka Ashley, it was 1128 in the morning. So Cassandra texted Taylor asking why she and Ashley had not made it to the bank yet. Now,

in the trial, you can see snippets of these texts, so I don't know what came before. But Cassandra basically asked, like, have you been to the bank yet? And Taylor was like, no. And Cassandra was like, why? Didn't you guys you guys leave like shortly after I left? And Taylor responded back, quote, yeah, we did. We are almost at the bank. I'll tell you about it when I get home, end quote. And this kind of makes me feel like something happened, like something went down or Taylor was suspicious of something because she's like, I'll tell you about it when I get home. You know, she's not texting and she's not saying, yeah, we're going. But Ashley had to stop at her at her aunt's farm really quick and and pick something up. And then we're heading to the bank right after

that. Or we stopped and got drinks. She says, I'll tell you about it when I get home. And to me, that's relationship code for like, I got some tea to spill, man. Ashley could have been like, listen, I got a confession to make, Taylor. I never put the money in the bank. I've actually been hiding it at my farm. I thought that was safer. I didn't want you to. Oh, you're right. I didn't want you to, you know, be mad at me, but we have to go out there.

We're going to go get it right now. I didn't, you know, I just didn't want you to be upset, but I didn't want to have a paper trail. So let's go out there and get it, you know? Yeah, I think that is exactly how she got her out there. You're right. You know, it's an option for sure. How do we get her there? That's how you get her there. And that's when she'd know, it's an option for sure. How do we get

her there? That's how you get her there. And that's when she'd be like, I got some stuff to tell you when I get home. Yeah. Right. Well, Ashley and Taylor's phones were both at the Britt Road property from 1210 p.m. to 144 p.m. This is when law enforcement believes that Taylor was murdered. Ashley's phone was also tracking her steps that day. So the iPhone, it tracks your steps. And if you have like a little watch or whatever the heck they are, it has an accelerometer in it. Yeah. And between 921 and 1111 a.m., Ashley only walked six hundred and sixty four steps. But in the hour and a half period that she was at the Britt Road Farm that afternoon, Ashley walked 2,141 steps. And obviously the theory is that she was moving around so much, which was unlike her normal

movements. And I mean, they went through her movements from like, you know, the past week and every day to kind of show that like these, this amount of steps in this short amount of time was completely unlike Ashley. Apparently, she didn't move around a lot. And they say, you know, this is her moving around, murdering Taylor, and then concealing her body, figuring out someplace to hide her. So Ashley's phone left the Britt Road property a little after 1.40, but she returned there 2.45 and didn't leave until 333 p.m. So what we have here is when Audrey calls Ashley on her way to work, Ashley still at the farm. She sounds winded. Then Ashley leaves and Audrey sees her at sticks.

And then Ashley goes back at 245 and she stays for, you know, a little under an hour. Yeah. The only the only explanation I have for that. And who knows. Right. The only explanation I have for that, and who knows, right, unless you're there, is that when she ended up killing her by shooting her, she realized that, okay, I'm going to bury her here at the farm, but now I've been gone for longer than I expected to be. I planned on her just taking the cocaine and leaving or whatever. And now I have to create an alibi that I didn't think I was going to need. So let me stop what I'm doing right now.

Let me go create that alibi. Have people see me in the middle of what I'm doing so you can't pin me for being here. And then I'll go back and finish up. That's the only explanation that I can come up with. You know, needing certain items, maybe, but more importantly, to create an alibi directly during the time when you're covering up the murder itself. Yeah. But I mean, she told Audrey, I'm like working on my aunt's farm. That's why I have my husband's truck. I'm working on my aunt's farm. So Audrey knew she was there. And Ashley would have to know that, you know, if the police ever suspected her, they'd look at her cell phone

records and see where she had been. So I really, truly think that Ashley thought no one's ever going to look at me for this. So I don't have to worry about all of these like small little minute details like hiding my location while I'm murdering somebody and burying their body in a shallow grave on my family's property. She's probably like, they're not even going to look at me. They're not going to look twice at me. Taylor's got so much going on with her husband and this drug use and her girlfriend and cheating on her girlfriend. There's going to be a long list of suspects before they even think about me. Yeah, I agree with you. And that's supported by her behavior after the incident, how confident she was in calling

the police constantly, you know, and kind of digging her own grave there, so to speak, where she was just kind of like burying herself even more by just opening herself up and talking to the police more and more and showing them exactly what they were suspecting at that point. But yeah, she had a confidence that wasn't warranted. And she clearly didn't do what she thought she did as well as she thought she did. I would really love for Ashley just to one day wake up and say, like, I'm going to tell you all what happened because I don't understand it. I don't understand exactly the timeline.

I don't understand exactly what happened. I'd like to know, did Ashley say, oh, Taylor, like the money's right over there? Because Taylor was shot in the back of the head, which makes it even worse. That's a pussy way to do it. But Taylor's walking away or standing with her back to Ashley when she's literally stabbed in the back, shot in the back of the head. So I wonder if Ashley was like, oh yeah, it's right over there. It's under that rock. Just keep walking over there. And then she does it. Yeah. That's what makes sense to me.

She got her out to the farm for a reason. I think there's a reason why Taylor was willing to go and it would be for her money. That's the whole reason for her meeting up with Ashley that day. And I think she quote unquote confessed to her that she hadn't been putting it in the bank. And at that point, Taylor was willing to go wherever she had to go to get the money. And she probably said, yeah, I buried it over here in the woods because I didn't want anyone to find it. And I didn't want there to be a paper trail. Let's go get it. She's walking in front of her and it's unsuspecting to Taylor, but that's probably how it went down. Never turn your

back on somebody who's holding onto your money. Okay. Nope. Don't do it. And I feel like Taylor had to have been having alarm bells going off in her head when she's driven out to this farm in the middle of nowhere. And Ashley's like, let's go in the woods. I buried the money there. And Taylor's got to be like, what? Why? What are you talking about? We're not talking about millions of dollars stolen from a bank, man. This is a little crazy, but all right. She had to have been suspicious. Suspicious, but also desperate, I crazy, but all right. She had to have been suspicious. Suspicious, but also desperate, I think, at that point. She needed the money, and wherever that money was, she was going to go. Wherever she thought it was, that's where she was going to go. Well, on September 9th, so this is the day after

Ashley killed Taylor, in the afternoon, surveillance video at Home Depot showed Ashley MacArthur purchasing concrete and potting soil, and then her cell phone traveled back to the Britt Road property. Later that afternoon, Ashley and Zach attended a wedding in Robertsdale, Alabama. And the important thing to remember at this point is that Ashley must have still had Taylor's phone either on her person or in her vehicle because Taylor's phone pinged in that same place, Robertsdale, Alabama, at this wedding on this day. But no one saw Taylor at the wedding and she wasn't an invited guest. So honestly, what I think happened here, because in the

police interviews, they talked to Ashley about this. They're like, yo, can you explain why Taylor was messaging you and Cassandra and saying like she needed time to clear her head? But her cell phone shows that she's been with you the whole time. She was at your house with you on September 8th at night when she's texting Cassandra and you said she was texting you. She was with you the next day at a wedding. Like, can you explain that? And Ashley was like, no, I can't explain that. But Taylor did have two phones. You know, she had two phones. So that, she had two phones. So that could that could have been what happened.

I honestly think I think her phone, Taylor's phone fell out in the car. And I think Ashley didn't even know it was there. Yeah, that's possible. Or it could have been because she's like, I need to keep the phone on me so I can keep up the the narrative that she's still alive and still texting Cassandra. So it avoids people to go out and look for her too soon. But then she's carrying it with her everywhere. Why wouldn't you turn it off? Not very,

when you're driving around, not very smart, not very smart. And again, as soon as she turned it back on to send whatever text, the minute she does in order for it to work and have cell service, it's going to bounce off a tower. You know,

we actually, I don't want to go on a tangent here, but we had that happen with someone that we were tracking down where they felt like as long as they were only turning on their phone for a couple seconds, sending a quick transmission to someone they needed to talk to, we wouldn't be able to track them. Not realizing the minute you turned it on, if cellular service is turned on, it's going to ping. So even if you turn it off, it's not going to help you.

Don't turn on cellular service. Use Wi-Fi. That's what she should have done. Send those messages from her house that Taylor's phone turn on cellular service. Use Wi-Fi. That's what she should have done. Send those messages from her house that Taylor's phone is already hooked up to the Wi-Fi and send iMessages on Wi-Fi. She would have literally had to turn the phone off. She would have to turn cellular service off before, you know what I mean? Like basically at the farm and just left the phone on but turned off cellular because the minute you turn the phone on if you hadn't turned off cellular service i think it pops back on maybe she didn't want to do that because she didn't want the last place that taylor's phone pinged

to be at that brit that brit road family farm yeah it clearly wasn't i don't know man very calculate she wasn't very clean in what she executed and it all makes sense and it's why we're having this conversation right now right it's? It's why we are where we are. Again, it all sounds like something that she kind of improvised. This wasn't the plan. It became the plan based on what went down, but it clearly wasn't what she had hoped was going to happen that day. And so it all makes sense when you put it in that context. Well, Ashley's husband, Zach, he also remembered that after the wedding was over, he and his wife, Ashley, they didn't leave together. She left first in her white Jeep, and then he got a ride home from a friend.

Now, someone who was with Ashley on September 9th, however, was her cousin, Kyle. So this is her aunt, Kara's son. He had recently moved to the Britt Road property so that he could attend the local college. And when the police had seen Kyle's number on Ashley's phone records, they asked her about him. They're like, who's this dude? And she's like, that's my cousin, Kyle. And they were like, well, where does he live if he's going to school here and he's going to college in Pensacola? Is he living on campus? And Ashley said, no, I don't really know where he's staying, but I know he's living with a friend. And this is a lie, obviously, because she knew he was staying in the trailer at his mother's property.

And he had seen Ashley several times over that previous summer. They'd gone to games together. They'd hung out. So she knew where he was living. But for some reason, she didn't want to tell the police that he was at that Brett Road property.

And I don't really understand that either. tell the police that he was at that Bright Road property. And I don't really understand that either. Is it possible that he saw her that day? He says he did not see her that day. He saw her. So we're going to talk about what happens on the morning of September 9th. So the morning of September 9th, Kyle does see her, but he says he didn't see her at all on the 8th. Okay. I mean, it could be just as simple as she was really trying to keep the Britt Road property from being associated to her. So anything she could do to avoid mentioning that property,

because that property ultimately held her freedom in its hand. She was basically hoping that law enforcement never even learned about that property because she had a different name and maybe they wouldn't make the connection. Maybe they were just dumb and they wouldn't figure it out. And so I think she was trying not to be the reason that that property became a place of interest. And I think she probably also knew that even if they had her GPS coordinates, it's not a perfect science, right? So like you can ping off a tower and it's going to give you a radius of where you might've been, but it's not going to give you her exact location. So she probably thought if they don't know about this property and they have my cell phone records, they can't put two and two together because they won't even know that there's a

property here that I was at. But they did put two and two together because they started driving her route and they figured it out. And then they were like, wait, does Ashley own property out here? Because she mentioned to us that her family owns property in this area. So let's look it up. You know, it's public information. Let's look it up and see. And that's what led them to that property after following her GPS breadcrumb trail that she'd left. So she maybe isn't giving them enough credit or I don't know. And I think it's just a lack of understanding about how cellular towers work. I mean, before I started doing the show, I wasn't very familiar. We had a case where cell phone towers were huge. That was a case in California. And you can see the two properties. If you watched the YouTube episode number two already, you saw the map where the two properties were,

that it's in there. And it does look close on a map when you're kind of, you know, kind of zoomed out, I guess. But you mean, you mean the property, the Milton farm that Ashley said they were riding horses at and then her, her aunt's farm, you, those two properties are close. Yeah. You can see them, you know, that they're not that far away on a map. They actually are pretty far. When you look at a map, it's like, oh, okay, I can kind of see how maybe if she felt like there was only one tower out there, which I don't know how she would know that, but there was only one tower, like you're saying, it would just be like this big diameter. And as long as the both properties were in that diameter, you know, you couldn't really pin her at either. But here's the thing about cellular towers. Not only is there

usually more within that radius, but on the towers themselves, there's individual, like I want to just call them like satellites, I'll call them because I can't think of the right terms, but they're directional, right? There's usually like five or six of them on there. And when they're trying to track you down by using cellular towers, they use it to triangulate you between two or three different towers. And they'll be able to actually ping you off whatever, you know, actual satellite on that cellular tower is facing the direction in which you were. So it'll be like, you know, station one or station two or station six, which would be on the opposite side of the tower. So although it's

not as accurate as like find my iPhone, there is a science to it and they can kind of triangulate the area in which you would be. And so the point behind it is here is it wouldn't just be a bubble. It would be a bubble between two or three different towers that would give you the general direction in which they were, whether it was Northeast or Southeast, they would be able to tell a general direction in which the tower grabbed your phone, your signal. And I think a lot of people don't know that. So they were probably able to tell through the triangulation that if that tower was directly

in the middle of the two properties, that she was, if you're looking at the map right now, we'll show it on the screen, she was to the west of the tower, not the east, which would put her at the Britt property and not the other farm. And that's how they probably coordinated and said, listen, through triangulation, you were nowhere near the farm that you were saying you were at. So I actually have another visual that we can put up during this that I saw today because I was watching closing arguments of the trial. And they do, when they talk about the cell phone, it's very interesting that you say that because I was wondering, like, what are all these arrows? So on the on the map that they had made of her movements, they show the towers and then they

show these arrows going in different directions around the towers. And that's clearly where the signals coming from. They're showing that that's where the tower that's what the side the side of the tower is picking up that signal from Ashley. So she's to the left of the tower, but that other farm is to the right. You can tell it's coming from the left. So we can put that up because I did screenshot it because I was super interested. I was like, I've never seen these arrows like this. I wasn't familiar with it either. I mean, I knew that they use triangulation, but I didn't know that could be that specific.

But if you're in a situation like this where you're like left or right is a huge deal. Yeah. That's where this comes in big time. And it did. Yeah. It all makes sense. So it's, you know, people are like, oh, as long as I'm in that bubble, I'm fine. No, not necessarily.

It's more accurate than that. That's definitely what Ashley thought. She did not pay attention, I think, that much when she was actually working for the Escambia County Sheriff's Office. All right. So on the morning of September 9th, before she goes to Home Depot and buys like potting soil and the concrete, GPS records showed Ashley MacArthur returning to the Britt Road property at 7.11 a.m. Now, several times during her police interviews, Ashley playfully told detectives, I'm not a morning person. You know,

I come alive at night, but I'm not a morning person. And several people who knew her also testified to that, including her cousin Kyle. But here she was sneaking around the Britt Road farm the morning after Taylor Wright vanished at like 7 a.m., which means she had to leave her house at like 6.30, which means she probably had to get up at like 6. And this is very unlike her. So Ashley arrived a little after seven. She didn't go to the trailer to wake her cousin up or say hello to Kyle. She did text him, but not until 8.34 a.m. So after she'd been there for about an hour and a half. And then at this point, she asked, you know, are you up? And he was like, yeah, I've been up since 7.30. And then Ashley was like, well, I'm here, you know, outside. And he was like, no, you're not. That's his actual response because he was so surprised that she would be up that early and like out and about. He was like, no, you're not. That's his actual response because he was so surprised

that she would be up that early and out and about. He was like, no, you're not. He thought she was joking. So Kyle goes outside and he sees Ashley's there. She's not joking. And he said that he and Ashley, they sort of like went out to the pasture. They saw the horses. He showed her some progress he'd made on a bathroom renovation he was doing in the trailer. And then Ashley asked Kyle, what are you doing today? To which he was like, well, I think I might go to my aunt's house and help her with her barn because she was building a new barn. This is a different aunt. This is not the same aunt that owns the Britt Road property because that aunt is Ashley's aunt, but Kyle's mother. So Kyle said on this day, Ashley was driving her black Jeep and she only

stayed for about an hour before she left. And then we know from her cell phone records that she left and she went to buy concrete and potting soil from Home Depot. After leaving the store, Ashley returned to the Britt Road Farm. So what I think personally happened here is she killed Taylor on the 8th and she probably kind of just left her body like in the woods in that wooded area because she didn't know what to do with her. And then the next day she gets up mad early and she's like, all right, let me go and figure out the situation with the body, figure out like how deep can I bury her? Like, do I really want to be digging a hole and, you know, making a whole bunch of mess here?

And then she realized I need something to cover her with. And then she went to Home Depot and then she came back and hid the body. And then after she left the Britt Road Farm, she goes to the pool hall, Sticks, and then she goes to that wedding in Alabama with her husband, Zach. Now, after she left the wedding alone, she brought her cousin Kyle back to Sticks

where he claimed that he, that night, he said he lived the college experience he had never had because he said both he and Ashley got completely trashed and they partied until 4 a.m. Kyle did notice that Ashley was moving strangely, like she was sort of favoring one side and it seemed like she was in pain. And so he asked her, are you okay? And she responded, you know, I hurt my back moving boxes. Now there's a lot of talk about Ashley's back during the trial because it would be one of her defense strategies to prove that she had injured her back. Ashley's mother, her name's Rhonda Britt, she testified that she saw or talked to her daughter

every day. And she was aware that Ashley had been in an accident, a car accident in 2010. And this had given her a back injury and she had a lot of pain. Rhonda said that it was very clear Ashley walked differently sideways because of the pain in her back. And the doctors had told Ashley that she'd eventually need to have surgery at some point to repair her back. were like, no, Ashley never lifted boxes. Ashley couldn't do it. Ashley had a bad back. And the defense strategy is trying to show like this little girl because they would say that, you know, look how short she is. Look how petite she is. And a bad back. Like how could she shoot somebody and then drag them or move them at all, the dead weight, the dead weight of another person to the place where she's going to hide her body. But if you look at the pictures, Taylor's not a big girl either, or she wasn't, you know. So this is kind of the thing that they're pinning their hopes on, that the jury and whoever's listening will believe that Ashley was just physically incapable of doing this to Taylor. Well, that's where I actually, for me personally, I think the hammock comes into play. So, you know, the hammock had been there the whole time, right? So even if she didn't bury her that day, she could easily have her body on the hammock and drag the hammock into the woods where she wanted to eventually bury her. And that would make it a lot easier to move her body. And again, that's an item that is there. And then obviously maybe if she thought this deep, cause she's a crime scene, tech DNA, all that stuff, you don't want to put the hammock back because a dog might

pick up on that later. So you bury the hammock with her after the fact, you know? So that's, that would explain how she moved her around. That would explain why the hammock was there. Um, so that I think is an, I can see why the defense would go that route. But I think it's easily explained away. Right. And that's not you can't really like just pin all your hopes on that one thing, because if somebody really wants to do something like you just killed somebody, you don't want to get caught.

You're going to find the strength to move the body. We have mothers picking up cars off of their children. You'll find the adrenaline. You'll find the strength to push through it and to move the body. We have mothers picking up cars off of their children. You'll find the adrenaline. You'll find the strength to push through it and to move the body. And I think they also kind of maybe raised this question to suggest that somebody had helped Ashley, possibly that somebody else may have been involved. There was talk about her husband possibly being involved, but his alibi checked out. There was talk about maybe Kyle, her cousin, possibly being involved, but they seem to have cleared him. Well, that's a question I have for you though. And I apologize

if I missed it, but I know that they didn't, he said he didn't see her, but is it believed that he was on the property the day of the incident? You might've already mentioned this. They don't say what his alibi was or like where he was, but'm going to i'm going to go ahead and say this was a a friday that they that they were out there september 8th i believe it was a friday he could have been at school and she knew that right i mean that's that's very plausible and i would like to think that's probably what happened because if he wasn't involved i think it would be hard not to hear the gunshot. So that's the only reason I'm asking. Either he was involved or he wasn't there.

I think he wasn't there. I think he would have heard that. And I agree with you. If he was cleared that easily with all those other things, it was probably because physically he wasn't there that whole day. And they would have pinged his cell phone just like they pinged everyone else's and confirmed that. Yes. I mean, if he had been there, I think there would have been a whole nother set of questions. And of course. Yeah. But I think he was probably at school and she probably knew that. Yep. Yeah. Makes sense. As far as physical evidence found during multiple searches of Ashley's properties and vehicles, there really was nothing. There was nothing. There were many guns found in her home,

at her workplace, in her Jeeps, in her husband's F-250. But as far as they could tell, none of them were responsible for Taylor's death. There was bullets all over the place. It seemed like there was just loose bullets and magazines just rolling around the F-250. They had a lot of guns, Ashley and Zach. And Ashley seems to be kind of obsessed with guns in a way. She was always sending pictures of guns to her boyfriend, Brandon Beatty, and she's like, I got some more guns for you. And he said sometimes she would just give me guns that she would then have me sell on gun buy and trade and sell websites or online. So they never found a murder weapon. And here's the thing. I talked to the detective about it and he mentioned a part of Ashley's route on the 8th where she kind

of got close to that Milton farm that she initially said her and Taylor were riding horses at. She kind of got close to it and she drove over a bridge. And he thinks that when she drove over the bridge, she may have thrown the gun over the side of the bridge into the water below. This was, I believe, a river, so it's something that's moving a lot. I'm not sure if they ever checked for the gun, but she also could have given the gun to her boyfriend, Brandon, to sell online as a way to get rid of the murder weapon. There's a ton of things she could have done. And when I was asking the detective about this, he was very clear to say, we don't know because guns don't get registered in Florida.

You know, it's kind of like you can just buy a gun off the street and have it, and the federal government will never know that you have it because that's how things work in Florida. We don't register our guns. So she had a bunch of guns and we don't really know which one the murder weapon was or even where it is right now. Yeah. More than likely that. I mean, there's a lot of, if you look at the map again, you guys have seen it. There's a lot of areas other than the river where that gun could be. And it's like a needle in a haystack. It

literally is. So you can't put that, I mean, as bad as she was in this whole thing she has to know like the gun is literally in this case the smoking gun so it's like that's gotta that's gotta disappear and you know more than likely gonna put it far away from the body so it could have been anywhere during her travels before after that anywhere she left in the jeep for a while for the wedding you know after the wedding could be anywhere, you know, more than likely unless she tells you where you're never going to find it. Yeah. But like, remember, she went to Cassandra's house and helped clean out Taylor's car. Yeah. There was a couple of guns in there. And Ashley was like, oh, I'll take them and keep them in my safe. She took a picture of those guns and she sent the picture to Brandon Beatty and she was like, I got some more guns for you. So she she liked she liked her guns there's there's

a lot of pictures of her she was a hunter um you know i think she just she just liked her guns and she knew how to handle one she knew how to shoot one clearly i mean there was just one bullet one bullet in in taylor's head that's you're either really close or you're a good shot at that point i think yeah i would assume she was really close I would assume it was literally within an inch or two from her head, probably. Really? You think she got that close, man? Well, they can tell. No, there'd be blood all over her. Not necessarily. It depends on if it was, I don't want to be too graphic out of respect for the family, but it could be a throughout. I mean, usually they'll have what's called stippling, which is basically burning of the skin. And that's within,

don't hold me to this guys. I'm trying to pull it from memory, but I want to say within a few inches. A few inches, you're right. Yeah. Basically that's the gunpowder burning the skin. Now she did have hair, so that would change some things, but I would assume this was fairly close within a foot or two of her head. head oh that's messed up to get that close i would think i would think to have a headshot like that you know if it's unsuspecting you're behind them it would be you would have to be fairly close because think about it unless it was like an execution where she knew it was about to happen which is which is also possible right if this was unsuspecting you would think that that if you were Taylor and you're walking with your quote unquote friend, if she starts to let you walk a foot or two in front of her, I don't care if you're a former cop or not. I'm saying, right? Me too. I'd be super paranoid about that. I'd be like, yo, why are you hanging back like that, man?

Of course. So that's why I say it might have been like, she might have only been a foot behind her where she could still kind of see her out of like a peripheral vision. Yeah, but wouldn't you hear like the gun cocking like something like that no depends no so you gotta think about a semi-automatic weapon doesn't have a cocking mechanism so like a glock or something like that there's no there's no hammer cocking back it's just you pull the trigger and the next round fires there's no audible click before that's terrifying yeah oh well so um they they really didn't find anything, but they found enough, I think, to show that something went down, but nothing to really tie her to it substantially. A buckle swab had also been taken from Ashley. They just swabbed the inside of her cheek and the techs had developed a complete DNA profile for both Ashley MacArthur and Taylor Wright. But nearly everything that was swabbed came back inconclusive. So there's a pair of work gloves that were found in the Ford F-250. They were like the floor of the car. And those gloves were swabbed inside and outside because obviously

they're thinking, did she wear these when she killed Taylor? But there were too many DNA profiles on the inside to distinguish who had worn them or who the person had touched. So there were too many DNA profiles on the inside to distinguish who had worn them or who the person had touched. So there's too many DNA samples on the outside, too. The gloves were tested for the presence of blood, and that came back negative. Swabs from the truck's seats and interior and exterior handles were also tested, and everything was negative for blood. Most of the swabs had such a small amount of DNA in them that they couldn't even be tested. And they call this a quantitative testing. So basically, the techs will sort of see how much DNA they have to work with. And if they don't have enough,

they can't even test it. They can't do a thing with it. So Bridget Jensen, she's the DA who tried the case. She asked one of the experts, you know, how is it possible knowing, because we know that Ashley picked Taylor up on the morning of September 8th, and we know that they were both in that Ford F-250 on September 8th, how would their DNA not be in the vehicle? And the CSI tech who was testifying said, you know, there's multiple reasons for that. First of all, it had been six months between when Taylor had been in the truck and when the swabs were taken. And the tech also said, you know, this is Florida and vehicles get very, very hot and this can denature or damage the presence of DNA. Another possibility was that someone had purposely cleaned the vehicle

and wiped away most of the DNA and sort of damaged and compromised whatever was left behind. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider Ashley's career, right? I mean, that's where this would, this is where it'd be advantageous to be a crime scene tech. Yeah, because she may have messed up with like the cell phone stuff, but literally the amount of physical evidence they found was non-existent. Yeah, it would line up with it. That's for sure. So the hammock that you're talking about earlier,

the one that Taylor had been wrapped in when she was buried, that was also tested for DNA and blood. So they tested the handles of the hammock and those tested negative for blood. And there was DNA on the handles, but once again, not enough to test. But in the pleats of the hammock, they did find the presence of blood. But once again, the DNA results were limited and unable to be interpreted. I don't know how this is possible because if Taylor was shot and then wrapped in the hammock, you think there'd be plenty of blood that would be able to be tested. So was the hammock an afterthought? Like, did Ashley put the hammock on her after she had already killed her and just sort of covered her with it? Or if it had been dragged, like you said, would there be more blood on it? It's just, did she wash the hammock,

you know, before putting it with Taylor in the ground? I don't understand how this happens. You know, I'm not a crime scene tech and I'm definitely not a DNA specialist, but it's like, I do feel sometimes people watch movies and TV and they think even if you pick up a bottle and put it back down automatically, it's like you you're done where there's so many outside factors like the elements the situation where it happens the the the ground that it's stored in the preservation of that dna that can disrupt it and make it on um you can't analyze it so it's one of those things where there are outside elements that can affect the ability to determine who the DNA belongs to. And it could be intentional or it could just be accidental the way it just happens. And that is the unfortunate thing about DNA where

it is very good when it's there, but there are things that can be done very easily to disrupt that DNA profile and make it unreadable to someone who's a specialist in that area. Well, there was one area where it seemed like Ashley's defense team might have a win. So an employee from the Home Depot where Ashley had purchased the potting soil and concrete from, he testified that the type of concrete she had purchased was not the same as the concrete found on Taylor Wright's body. So the concrete found on Taylor's body was like stonier, you know, it had, you know, just like bigger chunks. And the one that she bought was apparently a lot more finely milled. But apparently there were some home

improvement projects happening at the Britt Road property, including the installation of a new concrete slab. And they were making like a deck and that deck would need concrete footers and stuff. So in preparation for these projects, the Brits had purchased several bags of concrete, which had been stored in the barn. But in August 2017, a month before Taylor Wright was killed, several of those bags disappeared and they were never found. So it's worth noting that neither the concrete found on Taylor's body nor the concrete being used by the Britt family for their projects was ever tested to show whether they were the same type of concrete. And the only person who testified that Ashley had not purchased the same type of

concrete was an employee from Home Depot, not like a concrete expert or anything like that. So I asked the detective when I talked to him, you know, did this worry you? Like, how is this possible that the concrete she purchased wasn't the same one that was on Taylor? And he basically said, like, I don't know if I believe that. Like, it was just like a kid from Home Depot. It's not like an expert. He doesn't really know everything. She could have mixed it with other stuff.

She could have mixed it with the concrete from the Britt family barn that's disappeared and nobody knows where it is. A lot of things could have happened, but that concrete was never found from the barn with the concrete that she bought. But they went missing in August of 2017, which also brings up the question of, was there more premeditation than we previously thought? Because if Ashley had snatched those a month before she killed Taylor, she must have been thinking she'd need it. The fact that it was August 2017, and I personally, based on what you've told me, do not believe this was that deeply planned where she had a spot picked out with what she was going to bury her with. Because if that were the case, I would hope that this would have been a lot better executed.

I personally don't believe there's a connection between the two. I think there's a lot to say about the fact that the person who said it wasn't the same concrete was, again, just a young kid working at Home Depot, not a stone expert, right? And then as far as the missing concrete from the property, that could be as simple as one of the lower end guys, the laborers just took a couple bags home on the back of their truck because they had a side project they were working on and they thought they could get away with it. So I don't think there's a connection there. As far as it not matching, like you said, there was never an actual examination done. Right. Other than just the word of this employee, which wouldn't hold much weight in a court of law.

He's not an expert. Or Ashley could have grabbed them in August to use at her house for something else, you know, just because she seems like that kind of person. Like, oh, concrete. I don't have to buy some. And she grabbed them, grabbed a couple bags, brought them to her house. And then when everything went down, she was like, oh, I do have some concrete here. Which would explain why she took her husband's truck. And which would explain why maybe Audrey saw a bunch of bags in the back, the bed of the truck when she was there.

There's definitely a connection to it. There's no doubt about it. I said it to you episode one. There's a reason that she decided to go outside her normal behavior and grab her husband's truck. Yeah. And the only explanation that I can think of would be the transportation of something that can't be transported by her Jeep.

You know, she's not going to put bags of concrete on her back seat. She could, but that would leave more evidence, right? You know, if you have concrete in the back of a truck bed, that would make more sense. So I do think- Because you can spray a truck bed out, right? Right. It's got the bed liner, the Rhino lining. So there's definitely a connection with the truck where she needed that to transport something, whether it was as simple as just the products to bury her or maybe at some point, I don't know. I mean, did she move Taylor? I don't know. I don't think so. I think they would have picked up DNA on that. But either way, the truck is definitely involved somehow.

That's why she grabbed it. And that's why everyone said that was not a normal thing for her. And here's another question I have. OK, this wasn't brought up during the trial, but. They said that the only two fingerprints that were registered in Taylor's phone was Cassandra's and Taylor's. So how did Ashley open the phone and start texting Cassandra and other people? Because Ashley texted other people from Taylor's phone. How did she get into the phone?

I mean, there's so many ways. I mean, first and foremost, even though there's a fingerprint, right? She could also have a passcode set up like I do. I have a numerical passcode set up that I can give to someone. So is it something that Ashley already knew the code for whatever reason? Did she make Taylor tell her the code before she killed her? Or make her unlock the phone before she killed her. Like my phone's dead.

Can you unlock yours really quick so I can use yours? And then she takes that fingerprint off. Well, here's the thing. You don't have to be alive to use her fingerprint. I know. I was thinking that too. But it seems like something that would happen in a movie, and it's very macabre.

That's why I'm saying there's so many ways it wouldn't be that difficult. You have the thumbprint or whatever finger she used at your disposal. I think it has to be warm, though. It has to be warm. Because I know if my fingers are cold, they won't unlock my phone.

They will not. It depends on the person. There are some people where the fingerprint, if you have good ridges, you have to have a little bit of moisture there in order for it to work or not work. And I do agree with you. Sometimes when you're cold, you won't get a solid print. But most of the time, if you can compress the finger onto the phone, do it a couple of times, it will unlock. So it could have been a situation where she figured out the code or or used her fingerprint but you said she was texting her she was texting cassandra while she was at her residence right she was texting taylor's son too like yeah so that makes

me think that she knew the code somehow was able to get into the phone other than using taylor's actual fingerprint yeah she must have that's why why I wish she would just fess up because these are questions I really feel like I need to know. There's a lot of cases like this. I know, I know. Where you wish you knew the answers, you know? Yeah, but I mean, there's no reason for her to keep denying it. Oh, I'm sure she'll claim innocence until the end of time.

Until the day she does, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the whole concrete thing, it was, I think you watched the A&E special. I don't know if you got to that part, but Ashley's lawyers, they were like, when that concrete thing came in, we were like, yeah, you know, and the son, he's the younger one. He was like super pumped about it. But this small piece of what could what could possibly be called a reasonable doubt, it wasn't enough to prove Ashley MacArthur's innocence to the jury because they found her guilty of first degree premeditated murder and her sentence was life in prison. So recently, Ashley MacArthur appealed her conviction just in I think it was April of 2021. And she argued many points. She said during the slideshow of pictures and evidence, the jury had been inadvertently shown a picture of her in hunting

gear and she's like holding a gun and pointing it at the camera. It was only visible for a few seconds, but Ashley felt that this was done intentionally to bias the jury against her and make her seem like, you know, this gun-toting murderess, this just like gun-loving girl who just points guns at everything. She tried to get a mistrial because of that, but the judge felt that the picture had done nothing to hurt Ashley's image since the jury had already heard testimony that Ashley owned many firearms. And there was other pictures of her in evidence

where she was dressed in camo and holding on. So the judge was like, nice try, lady. Like, no, you're not getting another trial. So this just happened this year. I'm sure she'll try to appeal again at some point, which is probably why she hasn't come forward and, you know, spoken her truth or confessed to what happened. But hopefully, this just happened in 2017. She's only been in prison since 2019. So maybe five, 10 years, she finds God like everybody else who goes to prison, like the Manson girls, you know, everybody goes to prison, ten years, she finds God like everybody else who goes to prison, like the Manson girls.

You know, everybody goes to prison, finds God, and maybe she will come clean and give Taylor's family the answers that they probably are curious to know. They probably want to know what happened, why, what was going through Ashley's head, what her plan was, when she finally made that decision that Taylor had to die. And maybe she'll tell us one day. Ashley is currently serving her life sentence at the Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, Florida. So that's where we end it. I mean, she's in prison. Like I said, there's some people on there online who are like, oh, there's no physical evidence and the concrete thing and, you know, her back. And she's so little. How did she do this?

And they think that this means she was set up by the police department. I mean, they have a bunch of people, not a bunch of people, but there's some people online who are like, the concrete wasn't tested. There was things that fell through the cracks. There was reasonable doubt and Ashley got put out to pasture for this.

And I don't agree with that. I think that they got the right person. I don't think that it could have been anybody else. And if it was somebody else, why are they going to bury Taylor on the Britt Road farm to set Ashley up? I guess that would be the reasoning, but I just don't see. Let us know in the comments if you guys see if there's a possibility that she was set up, but she stole the money. She had, you know, what Derek always says. She had the means, she had the motive, she had the opportunity. So there's really no wiggle room here just because she happened to be a CSI tech. And I think she really

did, you know, do some work on removing the evidence from the vehicle, which is probably why she took her husband's F-250. It's more of a utility vehicle. It's easier, like we said, to hose down. With her Jeep, there's cloth everywhere. Even in the trunk, there's cloth in the trunk. And those fibers of the cloth will hold evidence. And to everything. So she probably knew enough from her CSI training, I'm going to take this truck and I'm going to scrub the shit out of it. And I mean, it was six months from when this happened to when the truck was finally tested and swabbed. So she had plenty of time and plenty of time to clean it

and plenty of time to pass where in the hot Florida sun, this physical evidence is going to just degrade. Yeah. And you said it, you know, the pillars of, of this conviction are based on means motive opportunity. And she had them all. She was committing a crime before it. She was trying to cover up said crime by getting rid of the one person who could implicate her. So that's your motive. And, you know, I know this isn't like, Hey, we have the gun with her DNA on it, or we have a confession or we have video footage of her doing it. But in most cases, this is as good as it's going to get. And this is really good. You have someone who has that strong of a motive, has been shown to lie even before the murder, has conversations with individuals about killing her right beforehand, and then has all these behaviors that day that

shows her in areas that she shouldn't be or she said she wasn't. So you have all these contradicting stories, flat out lies, motive, and then obviously the actual statement she made to impartial third party. So I feel like it's a pretty strong case. That's why she's probably, she's never going to get out. You know, this is it for her. The only question that I have, and I'm assuming that the detectives did, I know they did, you know, is just to see if anybody else could have helped her. That's really it for her. The only question that I have, and I'm assuming that the detectives did there, I know they did, is just to see if anybody else could have helped her. That's really it for me. That's the only question that I would have. And I'm assuming based on how many lies she was telling and the fact that they went so deep with the coordinates of her cell phone, they were probably doing it with everybody in her inner circle, whether it was the boyfriend at the bar, whether it's her husband, whether it's Kyle. They were probably marking them off wherever they were to see if anybody else was in that area of the farm while this was all transpiring. And I'm assuming they were able to rule them out, not only by cell phone coordinates, but also by the alibis that they had for that day.

So they did rule these people out. They said, we don't think she, she had help because there's no evidence that she did. Does that mean that she, that she didn't have help? No, somebody could have helped her. But then I also feel like she would have done thrown that person under the bus by now. You know what I mean? And I would think that if they covered their tracks that well, she would have, she would have to, you know, the fact that she was just completely all over the place, that person probably would have been as well. I mean, I think it was a great job. Great job by investigators to keep her on the hook, to keep her talking, to get the search warrants, do the GPS coordinates, do as much as they could. I know there's some things where, like you said, some people might say, oh, they didn't test the concrete. They didn't do these certain things.

Yeah. But that's a big leap to say they didn't do these certain things to say she's innocent and she got set up. Right. You'd have to still the concrete is still absent of the concrete could have come from anywhere. Yeah. Even if it doesn't match the concrete from the Home Depot, that in and of itself, I don't think some people might disagree, creates reasonable doubt. Not enough. In spite of everything we know about this case and everything else that you have. I think you said it in episode one where you were like, okay, there's circumstantial evidence and there's physical evidence. But if the circumstantial evidence is a lot, it makes up for the lack of physical evidence. And you did it tonight.

And I'm sure the prosecutors did it. And the investigators did it to the prosecutors before with the court. They tell the story, right? They told the story of what happened that day and how it happened. And the evidence that they did have supported that story. And it was, you know, at that point she is innocent until proven guilty and the prosecution has to put on their case and they clearly the defense didn't have enough to poke holes

in it. So I think it's a good job by everyone involved. Feel bad for obviously, you know, Taylor's family that this happened, but it doesn't surprise me that money, man, it can can it can do some crazy things to people now it clearly money was a a driving factor for ashley yeah long before that's what i'm saying yeah so it sounds like it was just you know not any fault of taylor's but she just made the wrong choice and and who to trust with her money because this person had a predisposition to these types of crimes. And if you think about it, Taylor was probably complaining to Ashley like,

oh, they're about to unfreeze the account. I'm so worried that he's going to take it all and it's going to be hell to get it back. And that's my money. And Ashley was probably like, you know what? You should just take it out and let me hold it for you. It was probably Ashley's idea to freaking begin with. And if you think about it, this seems to be her MO. Like when she was stealing money from all those businesses, when she got caught, when people were getting too close, when the heat was on, what did she do? She burns down the part of the business where the files are held that implicate her, that prove that she's doing something shady and illegal. This is her thing. She pushes the envelope. She tries to get away with things. She's doing illegal things. And as soon as it starts to catch up with her, she gets rid of the person or the evidence that's going to lead it back to her and point to her.

So this is her MO. She takes no accountability. She just keeps maybe she kind of shared a little bit with Taylor in that way where she's living one quarter mile at a time, not thinking too far ahead, but she's just sort of going with her gut. Okay, they're getting too close. Let me burn down my warehouse. Okay, Taylor's not going to let up. She's got to go. And it's sad because there wasn't even that much money to kill somebody for, really, if you think about it. Not at all. And she could have gone with Taylor and been like, Taylor, man, I screwed up. I spent your money. I'm an asshole. But, you know, let's go to the judge together, explain it, and we'll get on a payment plan

where I can pay you back. And hopefully the judge will give you some grace knowing that I took it and, you know, I'll take my licks. That's a better option than killing somebody, killing somebody's mother. Like you left a little boy alone without a mother for the rest of his life. He doesn't deserve that. Also, what, you could have $34,000 and buy your boyfriend a boat? What an asshole she is. you left a little boy alone without a mother for the rest of his life he doesn't deserve that also what you can have thirty four thousand dollars and buy your boyfriend a boat what an asshole she is

dangerous person yeah she is a dangerous person no care for anyone else uh she is definitely someone who like you had said attractive woman you would think by looking at her you know this is someone you want to be around someone Someone who's harmless, right? Yeah. Appearances can be deceiving. We're pretty much wrapped up with this case, right? Yeah, we're good now. I just want to take a second. This is a few days after, but I just want to thank all of you.

We want to thank all of you because if you're watching this, if you're listening on audio, you're actually catching this the day before. But if you're watching it on YouTube, it's about four days after, but our anniversary for this podcast is December 4th. So if you're listening to this, it's December 3rd. And if you're watching this on YouTube, it's the eighth. So either way, we're missing you one way or the other, but we just want to say thank you so much for all the support on both platforms. We started doing the audio podcast a year ago, December 4th. YouTube came much later. But either way, we couldn't have gotten to where we have gotten at this point without you guys. And I didn't really know what this was going to be. We've told you guys the story about how Stephanie and I came together. Neither of us really knew how this was going to work, if it was going to work and how it was going to be received.

And we're having so much fun doing it. And I just want to say for me personally, thank you so much for supporting us and allowing us to do this and trusting us to give you what you guys want and the way you want it. And we hope we're making you proud and we got a lot more to go, a lot more growth to come. Yeah. It's funny because I was listening to one of our first episodes, our first audio episodes. I know. So it's still quality. It's not even the quality. It's just our dynamic. We're awkward. We're stiff. We were getting to know each other. We didn't want to walk on each other. We didn't want to tread on each other. We didn't want to interrupt each other. And as a result, you can definitely tell there's more of a disconnect there.

And we're sort of, you know of feeling it out at that point. But it's so cool to be just a year in because you can still go back and remember those times and then see how far you've come and how far you've grown. And you guys gave us that opportunity to come together and grow and make Crime Weekly what it is today, which I think is a really, really great podcast. And I know that a lot of you enjoy it. We appreciate you for that. Great podcast, great community, a lot of great people who weigh off in the comments. And

listen, we appreciate it. We're going to continue to grow. So got to throw that plug out there, right? Like if you haven't already, like, comment, subscribe on YouTube. If you're on the audio podcast and you've been listening for this entire year and you haven't left a review yet, what are you doing? At this point, you got to like us somewhat, right? You wouldn't still be listening. Leave us a five-star review and say, happy anniversary. Yes, happy anniversary. I know everyone always asks, Spotify, you can't review it. But if you're on Apple Podcasts, which the majority of our listeners are, take five seconds, give us five stars, leave a little comment, happy anniversary. It really helps us grow as a channel and we would appreciate it. But either

way, it's been a lot of fun and we're just getting started. Yeah. So much more to go. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you next week. We're starting a new case next week. And I think a lot of you are going to be pumped about it because it's been highly requested. And Derek and I decided that we are finally launching into another big case, very similar to the Lacey Peterson case, one that's constantly talked about, but also one that I think is there's a lot to discuss there with Derek, because I've covered this case on on YouTube. But I'm really, really excited to talk about it with Derek because he's got a different perspective and he'll be able to he'll be able to give us some insight from from the other side of the law. And I can't wait. So

we are going to be starting in that new case. I think you guys are going to want to see it. Make sure you tune in. Follow us on Instagram. Follow us on Twitter. Crime Weekly Podcast. You got it. Yeah. We got Crime Weekly Pod on all social media platforms. On the website, it's crimeweeklypodcast.com. Yep. Crimeweeklypodcast.com. So go there. Get our merch if you want it. Christmas is coming up. Give everyone you know a pineapple. Give everyone you know an undercover pineapple. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you next time. Bye.