Crime Weekly - S3 Ep145: Brandy Hall | The Last Call, The Hidden Pond, and the Missing Body (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Brandy Lynn Hall was a 32-year-old firefighter and mother of two from Brevard County, Florida, who vanished on the evening of August 17th, 2006, after leaving her volunteer fire station in Malabar. The next day, her prized green pickup truck was found deliberately submerged in a nearby pond with a significant amount of her blood inside but no trace of Brandy herself. As time went on, scattered personal items surfaced miles away, but no body, no clear timeline, and no definitive suspect ever emerged. Despite connections to her husband’s recent drug case, a long-term affair with a fellow firefighter, and a series of investigative missteps, Brandy’s disappearance remains one of Florida’s most mystifying unsolved cases. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS:1. https://www.Chime.com/CrimeWeekly - Join millions who are banking FEE-FREE today!2. https://www.EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!3. https://www.TakeLean.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get 20% off and FREE rush shipping!4. https://www.WeightWatchers.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your special offer today!5. https://www.OneSkin.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 15% off!

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. And we are back for part two of the Brandy Hall series. Such a great case. I've been thinking about it all week, thinking about what we talked about last week when we filmed. I know you've probably been thinking about it too.

I know our Patreon community boards have been blowing up with talk about this. I've been watching that. The Brandy Hall chat is, yeah, very involved right now. Yeah. Well, it's a crazy case. And I had to write part two. you know, after we filmed last week, I like to wait until we filmed so I can kind of include questions you had or questions I had that popped up. So I was writing it last week and I was,

I was thinking again, I was like, wow, this was going to be two parts, but it has to be three. Yeah. So, because there's just so, so much and it just gets weirder. And today it's really going to pop off. Yeah, it's going to pop off today. Oh, okay. All right. So I'll give you a quick synopsis of what we talked about last time. Brandy Hall was a 32-year-old firefighter wife and mother of two living in Brevard County, Florida. By all accounts, she was driven, capable, and deeply devoted to her children, building a life that revolved around her family and her career in the fire service, but in 2005, everything began to unravel when her husband, Jeff Hall, was arrested for running a large-scale marijuana grow operation on one of the rental properties. Although Brandy maintained that

she had no knowledge of it, she was also arrested, suspended from her. her job and left struggling to rebuild both her reputation and her finances. In the months that followed, Brandy took on multiple jobs, volunteered at a local fire department to stay active in her field, and prepared to testify on her husband's behalf at his sentencing hearing schedule for August 18, 2006. At the same time, her marriage was deteriorating, and she had confided in friends that she was considering leaving Jeff altogether. Complicating matters further, Brandy had been involved in a long-term affair with Palm Bay Fire Chief Randall Richmond, something widely rumored within their tight-knit firefighting community. On August 17th, the day before Jeff's sentencing, Brandy spent the day working,

running errands, and communicating frequently with Randall Richmond. That night after leaving her volunteer shift early, she was last seen driving away from the Malabar fire department. By the following day, Brandy Hall had vanished. Her truck would be later found submerged at a nearby pond with a significant amount of her blood inside, but no sign of Brandy herself. So we ended last episode with a discussion of Brandy's cell phone usage. She had two phones, a personal phone and a next towel phone. And right after leaving the Malabar Volunteer Fire Station at 10.50 p.m. on August 17th, Brandy used her nextel phone to call the voicemail of her other phone.

And we had a discussion about that. Yeah, and I was saying, like you were just saying, the Patreon chat was big on that. Jerry's still out. Like we don't, we'll never know exactly. And I think that's why it's such a hot topic discussion. A lot of people pointed out that in 2006, it was still a prominent thing to use like a landline or use a phone where you weren't paying for minutes to check your voicemail. Because at that time, if you remember, it seems like it was so long ago. And it was.

But, you know, you get charged by the minute. And so to save on those minutes, they would use a different line. I don't know if that's the case here because you would be using another cellular phone from instance. the vehicle. So it still would, I would assume, have minutes that you'd be using. But that's kind of why I'm happy that we're covering this in a third part, because after we had that discussion last week, I sent some emails out to people who worked on the case from like a journalistic perspective. And I'm kind of waiting to hear back. But I think they might have some more answers. And hopefully we can get the answer to that before we wrap up the series.

So we know she, you know, called one phone with the other. That was right after she. she got in her car to leave the station. And now at 10.51 p.m., Brandy got a text from Randall Richmond. So this is after she leaves the station. She responded to that at 1053 p.m. So as we know, Randall and Brandy had been communicating a lot of that day. They had either texted or talked on the phone more than 80 times before Brandy left the fire station. Between 5.54 a.m. and 808 a.m.

They had exchanged 28 texts, and Randall had called Brandy, three times. The contact continued until 9.46 a.m. when Brandy left her house to drive to West Melbourne, where she got her hair done. And after this, Brandy called Randall twice, with those two calls totaling 13 minutes. One of these calls took place at 2.49 p.m., just about 10 minutes before Randall's wife Anne-Marie started her shift at Palm Bay Memorial Hospital. Texts between Brandi and Randall picked up again around 420, and at 424, they had an 11-minute phone call. Now, this was when Brandy was working at her side job, putting culverts in new houses for holiday builders. Brandy arrived to the Malabar fire station at 6.30 p.m. and at 6.36 p.m. She was on the phone with

Randall for 11 minutes. At 9.38 p.m., Randall texted Brandy, and she answered that text at 10.18 p.m. And at 10. 20 p.m., Randall texted her again. And for the next 14 minutes, the two exchanged 10 more texts. And during that time, Brandy told the fire chief of the Malabar station that she was leaving. For context, this level of communication between Brandy and Randall was higher than usual. Overall, they contacted each other 87 times that day, 11 phone calls in 76 texts, but on average they would call or text each other 52 times a day. Oh, wow. We went really deep on that one.

Yeah. Do we know the context of those text messages? Maybe not right the second, but I'm assuming the actual conversation, although it was 2006. I wonder if they would have access to the, I mean, if they had access to hit Randall's phone, if they would know what was actually said. No, remember last time I told you that they said they were able to get the, but, but they, they wanted to get Randall's phone. Right? When they questioned him. Yeah.

But we're going to talk about that. You know what I mean? Because it's, I get like it's higher than average and I think that is an important detail, especially when you're trying to. Higher than average the day she goes missing. Yeah. It's a great investigative work. but also was the context over a particular restaurant? It was just an engaging conversation where they were talking.

I'm assuming it wasn't, especially the fact that she left abruptly from work. But I do think context is important as far as what they were discussing. That may give us a lot of insight into why she left. It is important to what we're discussing. And like I, you know, like I said last time, she told the fire chief at Malabar, like I have to go because, you know, my husband's sentencing hearings tomorrow and I got to get there early.

But she would have known that before she went to the fire station. Like, I mean, at that point, I think the chief would have said I knew she was going to be leaving early. It seemed like this was more abrupt than that. Yeah. This wasn't some revelation. I have to be there. Yeah. Maybe like some of the calls in tax happening that day were, hey, we're going to plan to meet up at some time tonight, right?

That's what I'm leaning toward without knowing the context of their actual conversation. Now, what was also unusual, though, was Randall had called Brandy that day and his call had gone to voicemail, which didn't happen often in their prior call history. So some of the detectives that were on it were like, well, were they mad at each other or she mad at him for something? And you know how you do sometimes. Like even when you go, yeah, you like let it go to voicemail. Like, no, I'm not going to be at your back in call. Like you've upset me. I'm going to be a little more hard to reach right now so that you know without me having to say it that that you've upset me and we're not in a good place. So they're trying to interpret the behavior. as maybe there was, maybe there was some trouble in paradise. Yeah, some tension for sure. Okay. So we talked about she leaves the station. After leaving the station, Brandy got a text from Randall at 1051.

She replied back to that text at 1053. He texted her again at 1056 and 1057 and then he called her at 11.06 p.m. That call lasted 10 minutes and 46 seconds, ending at 1117 p.m. Now, when Brandy hung up with Randall, we believe, based on location and credit cards and things like that, that she was at the Sonoco Station just west of 95 on Malabar Road where she put gas in her truck. Actually, they know this because they have surveillance of her there. 26 minutes had passed between Brandy leaving the fire station and hanging up with Randall at 1117 p.m. But the Sonoco station was only just about 7.6 miles away, and it would not have taken Brandy more than 10 minutes. to drive there. In fact, a private investigator and a reporter, John Torres, did this drive and it took

them only about seven minutes. And that was like in the middle of the day when there was probably way more traffic than there was at 10.50 at night. So the theory is that Brandy was talking to Randall on the phone while she put gas in her car. And then when she was finished, she sat in her truck until they were done talking. There was also a nine minute gap between Randall's 1057 p.m. text and the call at 11.06 p.m. So on her way from Malibar Fire Station to the Sonoco, Brandy would have passed Weber Road, and this is the road she would have turned down to go to her house. She would have also passed Palm Bay Memorial Hospital, where Anne-Marie Richmond, Randall's wife, was working her shift that night from 3 to 11 p.m. So if Brandy reached the gas station at around 11 p.m., you know, if she

leaves around 1051, 1052, and she isn't on the phone with Randall until 11.06 p.m., then what was she doing? Was she waiting for his call? Was she taking a long time to put gas in her truck? I don't know. How long does it take to put gas in your truck? Yeah, it would only be a couple minutes at that point. So I, something's just not adding up here as far as, well, I mean, I'm sure it would add up if we had all the specifics. But I think there's one thing you can deduce if she wasn't going home. Now some could argue, and I would be one of them, and I've done this before, where you drive by your street in order to go get gas, but then you turn around and you go back home. And we know that's not the case. Right. Well, some of the detectives were like, well, maybe she did stop home, right? Maybe she

stopped home before going to get gas. And that's the difference in timing. And that's why. But I personally don't follow that theory. That's a quick step in the house. That's a very, possible, though, run in, run back out. That is a possible theory for sure. What are you running in and running back out for, though? And depends on where you're going. I suppose. You know, I don't want to speculate too much. But if you're going, want to meet up with someone and you want to have a more clothing, some clothing that fits the occasion. You may run in to grab that.

I mean, I suppose. But once again, that would have to be very quickly. Her husband's at home. He thinks she's at work. Just going to grab some lingerie real quick, honey, going back to work. Yeah, she thinks she's at work until, you know, much later that night. So what is she going to, how was she going to explain that? I just ran home from work really quick to run in and out.

You know, it doesn't seem plausible to me, but there are a few reasons the police think this, so we'll put a pen in that. Okay. Another call came into Brandy's phone at 1148 p.m. and this was her husband, Jeff, calling to let Brandy know that the sentencing hearing scheduled for the following day had been moved to earlier in the day. Now, there's some questions I have about this because we know that Jeff had said that after Brandy called earlier that night to say goodnight to him and the kids, he had gone to bed. but now he's apparently awake several hours later after going to bed calling Brandy. Now, according to Jeff, his lawyers had contacted him to let him know about the time change of the sentencing hearing. So maybe that call from his lawyers woke him up. Jeff said he wanted to call Brandy and let her know because she was working overnight.

And he also knew that sometimes she did side jobs early in the morning after her firehouse shift. So he didn't want there to be a chance that he didn't have the opportunity to speak to Brandy and she would miss the hearing. And this is sort of supported by Danny Coggins. If you remember, he was Brandy's supervisor with holiday builders who had last talked to Brandy around 4.30 p.m. on August 17th, when it had started raining and Brandy and her coworker had to wrap up their work on the culverts. Brandy promised Danny Coggins that she would be back early the next morning before Jeff's hearing to finish the job.

So this is, you know, what Jeff is saying is like sometimes Brandy would go right from the firehouse to one of her side jobs. and if she didn't come home and we didn't get a chance to talk to each other on the phone, I wanted to make sure she knew that the hearing had been moved to earlier. That makes sense. But when Jeff called Brandy's cell phone at that point, she didn't answer. And when you tried calling her next cell phone, she didn't answer that either. At that time, Jeff was under the impression that Brandy was still at work

and he probably expected that she would see his call when she had time and call him back or maybe he left her a voice message. But either way, early the next morning, Jeff Hall's, starts calling Brandy very early, starting around 651 a.m. He said that when he woke up that morning and had no messages or calls from Brandy, he was surprised. Jeff said, quote, so I was in a panic. I tried to call Brandy that morning and she didn't answer her phone. That was unlike her. It was unlike her because she had two phones. She had an X tell and an AT&T. Then I called the fire station and they said that she had left last night and she went home sick and I started freaking out.

So I started calling everybody and I just repeatedly called and repeatedly called friends. I could have understood the night before because she had called to say good night. And firefighters, if it's a slow night, we'll get a good night's rest. And I would have thought, okay, maybe she's asleep. I'll leave a voicemail. But yeah, when the morning hours hit and they would have been up early because even if they don't have calls, they got duties they have to do, whether it's cleaning up the firehouse, cleaning off the trucks, changing things over, making sure that the water tanks are all these different things. So yeah, by that point, that would be sounding the alarm. And the call late night is interesting to me.

I'm sure they were able to corroborate this by looking at his phone to see if the lawyers did in fact call at that time. Because if they didn't, then my next assumption would be, was there anything that Jeff knew where he thought she wasn't at work and he was trying to catch her? Yeah, almost like he had some inclination or some tip that she'd left a fire station and he wanted to be like, well, where are you? Are you at work? And for her to be like, yeah, I'm at work, honey. And he'd be him to be like, are you at work? Depending on the conversation, you said, all right, I'm going to try to get some sleep, good night. Then at a, you know, two hours later, I'm not going to expect her to pick up unless she's having a busy night. So I'm leaving a voicemail. And I'm assuming he left a voicemail. That would be something else you'd have to confirm. If he didn't leave a voicemail when that was

the whole intention for calling, that would be suspicious as well. Well, that's what I was kind of thinking. Like if the affair between Brandy and Randall, their relationship name is Brandel, by the way, now according to the comments, if their relationship was kind of an open secret and also Jeff's criminal trouble he'd gotten himself into and the fact that his sentencing hearing was the next day and he might be going to prison for a while, that was also kind of known. Did he have somebody in his corner at the firehouse there that night who was like, hey, you know, this woman. husband could be going to prison tomorrow and she's still, you know, stepping out with Randall. And I need to let him know. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely crossed my mind. Someone who sends a quick call, like, just so you know, she just left here in the middle of the night. She ain't home.

She said she's going home, Jeff. So let me know if she gets home because it should only take about, you know, 10 minutes for her to get home. The only pushback I would have just based on previous cases we've covered, if that was what happened here, there would have been more than two calls. If he knows she's out, there would have probably been 10 or 15 missed calls from him trying to call her frantically throughout the night. And the fact that there was only the two, one on each phone, it could be completely innocent. Well, we do know that he was frantically calling people the next morning after he couldn't get a hold of her. That makes sense to me. Because at that point, she should have called back or whatever.

And the fact that she hadn't, that would be concerning. So it's the morning. She's not responding to him. And at this point, he's not necessarily thinking something bad happened or he's thinking maybe she's, She went to a side job and she's not going to get the message that the sentencing hearing was moved earlier. And she's going to still come at the later time and she'll miss it. And then I won't have her as a character witness. So he's calling her family.

He's calling her friends repeatedly. Do you guys know where she is if you heard from her? And it's when he starts hearing that nobody's heard from her and nobody's talked to her. That's when he gets a little stressed out. So before leaving home to drive to his sentencing hearing, Jeff left a note for Brandy letting her know about the hearing. the hearing time change. Now at 7.27am, Randall Richmond called Jeff Hall. At this point, Jeff's on his way to the hearing.

Randall had also called Jeff the night before at 8.44 p.m. And according to Randall, the call the night before had been Randall giving Jeff his support, basically saying, like, I'll see you tomorrow, bud. I'm going to be there for you as a character witness. You got this. We stick together. Firefighters unite. And that call...

Yeah, what an asshole, by the way. I mean, just sleeping with his wife, calling him the same time. He's on the other line talking to his wife and then saying that, I mean, call it what it is. That's an asshole move. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, I think Randall Richmond is kind of an asshole all around. I mean, that's fair assumption.

I mean, at this point, to be calling this guy when you know he has that going on in the morning and you're out there text message and his wife on the side. I mean, that's like a guilty conscience. Like, let me let him know I've got his back in one way. Yeah, I mean, infidelity is not something that's rare in our society. but to be talking to the significant other and pretending to be their best friend. I think that's not completely unheard of, but much more uncommon. I completely agree, actually. Of course, we know that people cheat.

But when you start, like, befriending somebody. That's diabolical. Who's on the other side of it, you know, or you were already friends with that person. And maybe it even started out as something, though, and then it got serious. And then you're, like, continuing this relationship with them. and you have to wear a lot of masks, you've got to play a lot of roles. That would be absolutely exhausting, anxiety-inducing. I mean, if it blows up, it's not just blowing up your marriage and her marriage.

It's blowing up your entire friend group that, like we talked about last time, they develop loyalty and trust for each other because of what they do with each other and for each other. You're blowing that up. You know, now you're not just seen as like a person who's, you know, cheating. You're seen as a person who's lying to their closest friends. seen as a liar altogether. That's a different level of nefariousness. Randall's not going to be allowed around anybody's wife.

That's for sure. Which I don't even... Did you see Randall? I'm not going to judge anybody. I'm not going to judge anybody. I am no supermodel. I'm not saying anything. I can't imagine standing at like a seafood festival fighting with another woman over this man.

I'm sorry. Listen, I've got to be careful what I say here. But it's not always about the look, Stephanie. There's other things there. Maybe he was a charismatic guy and maybe... I don't know. I'm not going to say. I plead the fifth. Yeah. I'm not saying it. I'm not getting myself in trouble. Not today, Satan. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Can we talk about something for a second? Because I feel like people just sort of accept things in life, like bank fees, for instance. No, I agree. I'm definitely one of those people. At this point, I'm just like, yeah, it's part of life. It is what it is. Paying to access your own money, which is crazy, getting hit with overdraft fees, monthly fees. No one really questions it. And that's why I was actually really interested in CHIM because it's fee-free banking built for you, not the bank. Yeah, they're kind of flipping that whole model. Exactly. With CHIM, you get things like no overdraft fees with SpotMe, thousands of fee-free ATMs, which is amazing. And honestly, it just feels like your money is actually, you know, yours, which it is.

Yeah, there are perks as well. You can get cash back on everyday spending. Their savings account can earn up to 3.75 APY, which is way higher than the national average. And if you set up direct deposit, you can even get your paycheck early, which I think a lot of people would appreciate. So it's not just switching banks. It's actually upgrading your bank. And honestly, my younger self would have benefited from something like this. It just makes managing money feel easier, more in your control. So Chime, once again, it's not just smarter banking. It's the more rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. Head to chime.com slash crime weekly. Once again, that's chime.com slash crime weekly. It only takes a few minutes to sign up.

Chime is FinTech, not a bank. So banking services for Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. Stated annual percentage yield and cash back for Chime Prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking based on a JD Power survey published October 20, 2025. For more information, go to chime.com slash disclosures. Okay, so like I said, Randall calls Jeff.

the night before, August 17th. And he said he was giving him his support, I'll see you tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. Already kind of sticking to the plan, he was supposed to be a character witness. That call was only a minute long. So some people have wondered, did they actually talk that much? Was it just basically Randall being like, hey, just checking in on you, see you tomorrow, and then it's done. Now the call at 727 the next morning was a complete 180. And Jeff Hall described this call, and he's kind of funny. He said, said, Jeff Hall said, quote, and then Randall called me up and he was crying. And I said, excuse my French, but I said, what the fuck is wrong with you? He was crying and crying. And I said,

calm down. I can't understand you. And he said, well, I can't come to be a character witness. I said, that's fine. The judge has already made up his mind. End quote. So according to Jeff, Randall calls him the morning of the sentencing. And Randall's like, hey, I can't actually do it. I changed my mind, whatever, and he's crying. And Jeff's like, what's your problem? Why are you crying? Whatever. You know, you can't make it.

You can't make it. At this point, I don't even know where my wife is. Like, do what you got to do. Now, my question is, once again, if the sentencing hearings time had changed. And Jeff didn't know that until he called Brandy the night before. So he wouldn't have known it when Randall called him the night before. At what point was Jeff going to call Randall to tell him the sentencing hearing time had changed? Did he call Randall the night before?

Not that we know of. And I don't think he called him that day. And maybe by the time Randall called him and was like, I can't show up to be a character witness. Jeff was like, oh, yeah, Randall was supposed to show up too. But his mind was so preoccupied with Brandy. He hadn't remembered to let Randall know. But if you were calling Brandy, who's your character witness to let her know that the

time of the sentencing is changed? Why would you not at the same time call Randall and let him know? You would think so. But there could be a few things going on here. here. One, the attorneys might have been handling that calling different witnesses. He just called his own wife because it's his wife. So he might have been under the assumption that the attorneys would handle those making contact with everybody involved. Also, based on what you just said, Randall might not have been at the top of his list where he was indifferent about Randall showing up.

He really needed his wife there. Yeah, for maybe more than just being a character witness. It's like moral support. Yeah, but Randall being there based on the statement you just made as far as not a big deal, the judge already made up his mind. He might have been getting these character witnesses because of his lawyer's request to do so, their recommendation, but he probably didn't think it was going to move the needle too much. And fairly enough, because it usually doesn't. Yeah, maybe it wasn't accurate that the judge had already made up his mind, but in Jeff's head, he's like, yeah, he's, he ain't going to let me off because my buddy comes in here and says I'm a good guy. Yeah, I agree. It doesn't normally work that way. Now, when Brandel was asked about the call,

He did not admit to crying. He said it was a much more manly and straightforward conversation. Randall said, quote, I told Jeff, I said, listen, buddy, I know I told you I would be there, but the position that I'm in and the years that I have in service to the fire department, the things I've accomplished in my career, I can't put that stuff on the line. He said he understood, end quote. That's what Randall says. Who knows what's the truth? What do you think the truth is? I think he cried because the police say that he cried later. So I think he cried. Yeah, he's just trying to be a tough guy after the fact. But remember, this is the morning after Brandy goes missing. Yeah. No one knows what's up with her yet.

Well, that's why the call the night before is so important. Just like all these text messages, like, what was the call between him and Jeff earlier that night? Did he call him to say I'll be there in the morning? Yeah, that's what Randall said, yeah. If he did, what changed in that short window? We're talking, what, less than 12 hours? What time was his call at the night before? 9.30, I thought.

Yeah, around anything that. So we're talking 10 hours. Talking 10 hours. And in that period, you go from I'll see in the morning to I can't do this. You had all this time to come up with this. So what happened in that 10 hour window? Okay, well, listen, I don't have my notes in front of me. But do you have your notes from last week?

Because I have my notes right here. I know that Randall called his wife Anne Marie on the evening of August 17th as well. Do you have that time when he called her? I don't. I don't have that time. We'll have to go back and reference that. So if it was after he talked to Jeff. on the phone, then maybe he was like, you know, just talking in conversation.

He's like, yeah, and I just talked to Jeff Hall and told him I'd be there. And Ann Marie was like, are you serious? You know, that could have been. That could have been. I don't know. I don't know. He was texting Brandy for most of the night. So I think if anything, even if he's not involved, that conversation had more to do with it than his own wife.

Clearly he didn't care too much about his own wife based on what he was doing. was there a conversation between him and Brandy? Let's say for a second that he's not the guy. Randall's not involved with whatever happened to Brandy, right? But there was a conversation after she left work where they're having a disagreement. Maybe she doesn't like the fact that he's going there and testifying as a character witness on behalf of her husband

who she's cheating on with Randall. That could have been the conversation. So Randall goes to bed, wakes up early in the morning to let Jeff know, I'm not coming for you, bud. Okay, I have the time. I have the timestamps here. There we go. All right, at 8.44 p.m.

Randall called Jeff at home. I'm supporting ULCU tomorrow. Yep. Right after calling Jeff, Randall called his wife, Ann Marie, who was also at work. So he called her right after. Yep. And then at 9.02 p.m., Brandy's phone records show a call from her husband, Jeff. And then at 9.30, Brandi called Jeff back to say good night to the kids.

Okay. Okay. And then at 9.38, Brandy gets a text. from Randall, she doesn't reply to it until 1018. And then they kind of start talking back and forth from 1020 for the next 14 minutes at that time. I think that discredits that theory that Randall had a conversation with his wife where he had a change of heart. Because if he did, he just got off the phone with this guy. He could have called him right back and said, listen, man, I just talked to my wife. She doesn't want me to be part of it. He wouldn't wait until 7 o'clock the next morning.

Well, first of all, he might. I mean, according to Jeff, that is what Randall did and called him the next morning and said, you know, I can't be there for you and he was crying and upset. But Randall is going to tell us what he allegedly talked with Brandy about. So why don't we wait to hear that? Yeah, let's wait. It's wait. It's only one side. But initially right now where I'm sitting, it sounds like because they talked more than they did on average, there was some type of disagreement, something that needed to be talked about. Yeah. And the fact that he had this change of heart within a 10-hour period, maybe 10-and-a-half-hour period, that could have been it. I don't think anybody can dispute that.

Well, what both Jeff and Randall can agree on, even though they don't agree on whether Randall was crying or not, Jeff did ask Randall if he had talked to Brandy that day, and Randall said he had not. Now, Randall called Jeff again that morning at 10.04 a.m., but we're not going to talk about that yet. We have to talk about that later. We do have evidence, like I said, that Jeff was calling people Brandy knew, and then those people were calling Brandy.

So from August 18th on, everyone in their mother was calling Brandy, except for one notable person, Randall Richmond. Not good. Never called Brandy again. Say this in all these cases that we've covered and cases that I've covered personally, to me, this is always a red flag. It's always a red flag when you have suspects who are speaking to someone on a consistent basis. You're having an affair with her for 10 years.

Her husband says he can't get a hold of you. It's basically a relationship. You don't immediately hang up and call her to see what's going on? Yeah. It's basically a relationship. you had been talking to her literally within hours of all this transpiring, and now suddenly you're no longer calling her. That looks extremely suspicious to me, and I've said that.

You can look at my track record on that. Some people have said, oh, maybe they're just trying to accept. It's always been a problem for me because the only people that aren't going to call them are the ones who already know what happened. Now, just to qualify here, I don't know how this case works out. Do we have an answer in this case? I mean, I have my answer. Okay, so we don't have an official answer, but without knowing who's responsible.

responsible for this, it's hard for me to justify this action. Now, if you guys in the comments feel differently, please tell me, but when you have someone, when we're talking about averages, right, you're contacting someone on average 50-something times per day. They go missing and you suddenly stop reaching out to them. I don't care who you are. That's a problem. I agree. And Randall's going to have a reason for this, though. Oh, I can't wait to hear it because they always do have a reason for it. Yeah, don't worry. He's got a reason. Okay. Okay. So by the time Jeff Hall got to the court, house for his sentencing hearing, Brandy's parents were there, but Brandy was not. So Jeff ended up being sentenced to 18 months in prison, but his lawyer stated at that time, we're planning to appeal,

and Jeff was given bond while his attorneys worked on his appeal. So after the hearing, Jeff was placed in the Osceola County Jail, waiting to be bonded out, and that's where he was when the news came in that his wife's pickup truck had been pulled out of a pond. Now, it was around noon when Donald Watson was fishing in a pond on Treyland Boulevard in San Felipe Drive in Palm Bay, Florida. Watson was the head of grounds and maintenance of all Brevard Community College properties, at least in 2006 it was called Brevard Community College properties, but then it became Eastern Florida State College in July of 2013, so just understand we're talking about the same educational system.

So this pond was on the college's property, but once again, understand it was very secluded. Most locals didn't even know it was there. The Palm Bay campus is located off Malabar Road and set near Lake Titan with wooded surroundings and open space. The campus is spread out and large enough to include the academic buildings and parking lots, along with plenty of open green space and areas of water. This area around Treyland Boulevard and San Felipe Drive is less developed and it transitions into wooded lots, drainage areas, and the kind of terrain that blends into the broader Palm Bay back country. So for reference, here's a screenshot from Google Earth. I've placed a red box around the school's campus, and there's a red geographic marker to show you where the San Filippo Drive and Treeland Boulevard area is. If you zoom into the wooded area off the trees, the trees are so dense you can't even see through them.

The pond that Donald Watson was fishing in was not small. It was one acre and 20 feet deep. And when reporter John Torres went out there to see it for himself, he went to the right location, but he couldn't find the pond. He had to wait for a local person who was meeting him there to show him where the pond was. So Watson's fishing there, his fishing line snagged something, and when he reeled it in, he discovered it was some firefighter gear. But luckily, there happened to be a Palm Bay fire station right on San Felipe, just about 300 yards north of where Donald Watson was. So he brought the gear over there thinking it belonged to them.

But then they saw that the gear said Malabar volunteer fire department on it. And those firefighters, they said they spent a few hours searching the area before they called the police. Police arrived to the pond around 3.30 p.m. And they immediately spotted a fuel slick in the water. They also saw a cooler floating a few feet away from the fuel slick. And when they reeled that in, they said the soda and beer inside were still cool to the touch. Officers assumed that a vehicle had gone into the water and they noticed there was one tree next to the pond that was bent over at an angle. So they had a helicopter fly over because the pond was shallow enough that from overhead they'd be able to see what was in it.

When Brandy Hall's beloved dark green 2002 Chevy Silverado was pulled from the pond, the back windows were open, and the cab was filled with water. It was discovered that the firefighter gear belonged to Brandy, and she was known to keep the cooler in the back of her truck. Police found blood in the driver's seat, a large area of blood directly under the steering wheel, and on the driver's side door. This was a substantial amount of blood, enough that Brandy could not have survived that much blood loss, police would later say. Now, you might ask how so much blood was found if the truck was pulled out of a pond with the windows open and the cab of the truck was submerged in water. Retired Detective Doc Jones said, quote, it appears to me that the truck sat on dry land at least six to eight hours. And that is based on blood inside the cab. That wasn't washed away when the truck was underwater.

It had to be dry. Blood doesn't dry in 15 minutes. So how long does it take? Best estimate is five, six, seven hours. End quote. It would also be absorbed, right? depending on the material of the seats and depending on the conditions, if it was warmer outside, it's going to dry up a little faster.

There's a lot of things that would have contributed to that. But I've definitely found pieces of evidence that were submerged into water for much longer than this, and we're able to still find blood evidence on it. And they found a lot. I think it's a combination, right? When they say they found a lot, I think, again, speculating, it could be a combination of physical blood that they were able to actually collect or at least obtained some of it for analysis, but also the staining, right? If you have a large pool stain of blood, even if you don't have the physical blood that you can pull from it, like I said, having just an

impression, right, a large circular pattern that would suggest a large amount of blood at some point, you can still kind of deduce that based on the size of this puddle of blood or the circle of it, that there was more than she would have been able to survive. Yeah, well, I mean, if you're looking under the steering wheel, it's probably some carpet, some floor. Lormat. Yeah, yeah, plastic as well. Yeah, the seat probably absorbed, but the way they made it sound was that after Brandy's blood was spilled, it was allowed to dry and coagulate. They said coagulate long enough where the water did not wash it away when the truck was submerged in the pond. That would make sense. And especially if it's not being disturbed, right? Like if it's in there,

but it kind of, as you picture a vehicle going underwater, it's not like this fast process. So the water is filling up slowly, which is creating less of a disturbance. It's not like washing at it with pressure. Right, exactly. It's coming in through the windows, and by the time it's seeping down to the bottom of the vehicle, it's kind of just like pooling up in there. And so by the time it fills up to the top of the roof, the water, like you said, it's not rushing in there. And so the coagulated blood would more than likely still be there, especially like you said, if it's been embedded in the carpet for a period of time. Yeah, so basically they're saying this wasn't a quick thing, right? And I think that's something we have to keep in mind and we have to be aware of. This wasn't that Brandi Jerovoi from the Malabar Fire Station, made a call to Randall Richmond. And then somebody killed her and then put her truck in the pond within an hours period. This had to have happened over the course of a while. Like she had been killed.

And then the truck had sat there. Undisturbed, allowed to dry before someone got rid of it, which you have to wonder why. Yeah, that's my first thought. Yeah, because even if you're not thinking, I mean, first of all, you wouldn't want that. You wouldn't want the blood to dry, right? Because if somebody finds her truck, you don't want them to know there's blood. it because you want them to think potentially that she could have just taken off and hit her truck herself. But now you've let the blood dry and now you're just putting it in the water

without doing any cleanup work, apparently. And you're also putting a lot of time that you could potentially be either seen at this scene more than once, as in like, oh, I saw him go there with Brandy or I saw him leave the tree line at midnight, but then he was back there at 8 o'clock in the morning, you know, you're kind of adding to too much time or a frequency of times you can be seen at a crime scene. Or seen with the vehicle. So there's a couple of things running through my mind right now. If she was killed right away by some random offender, some random attacker, they're not going to

spend the time to come back to the vehicle, like you said, and tie themselves to it. They're going to leave the vehicle wherever it is. They don't really care if you figure out that she's been murdered. They carried out what they did. They're going to get as far away from the crime as they can. There's two explanations I have for why the vehicle would be found in the water. The one, first one being what you kind of said there, where they dump it in the water, hoping that it's never found, try to create the illusion that she, if it's never found,

she could be somewhere with the truck. The second possibility for me is that wherever the murder occurred, the vehicle was in a location that would tie back to a specific person. And so the offender had to take the risk of driving her truck to this location to separate themselves from the crime itself and the risk clearly would have been worth the reward now i would add on to that that if they did this they would have to also have an ability to get back to their primary location and if it's too far away you know how are they doing that they're not just walking down the road so there's a lot running through my mind i don't want to go on too many different tangents here

but just my first initial thoughts that it was a big enough risk to leave the car where it was that they took the chance and dumped it in this location, hoping that it would never be found. Okay, we're going to add little pieces onto this that I think is going to help kind of fill out your theory. And it might change my perspective on it, but that's just the initial thoughts. Because what I also need you to know is Brandy's body was not in that truck.

Oh, I assume that based on what you said here. So this is a secondary location for sure. Or is the location where it happened, but somebody was more concerned about getting rid of her body thinking, I'll come back and take care of this truck because nobody knows about this location. Let's entertain that for a minute because if this person has half a brain, they're going to see how much blood is in the car.

And even if it washes some of it away, there's still going to be remnants of it. So is it that important to get rid of her body at a different location at that point? Is it important to separate the truck from her? Or was she already at another location? She was removed. She was disposed of. And now they were left with the truck and had to do something about it. Let me ask you this.

Let's say Brandy and this person were at the truck by themselves at this location. Okay. Like this is the meetup spot. But it's not the meetup spot as in they both came in separate vehicles. They came there together in one vehicle. Something happened that maybe neither of them anticipated happening. And now they have a truck and a body. And now maybe they need to use that truck to get that body back to their vehicle or wherever

they leave the body and put the body. and then they come back with the truck later to dispose of that because they didn't have their vehicle with them. Okay. How do you get rid of a body if you're not by your own vehicle? You'd have to use her vehicle. So if that's the case, I'm going to, because for her to be, for the blood to be specific to the driver's seat under the driver's steering wheel. She was driving, yes. She was driving and she was in that position for a period of time.

When we talk about how much blood was found there, if she had been removed immediately, the blood would be somewhere else. The blood, she was allowed to die in that seat. So maybe they had to get back to their vehicle, bring their vehicle back. Right. But that would mean that they would also have to move Brandy to another location in the vehicle where she would bleed out more. So I would expect that there would be two locations in the vehicle, either the passenger seat, the trunk, or the back seat of the vehicle where while she was being transported,

there would be another large pool of blood. That would be my first thoughts, that that would be, you would see two locations in the vehicle that have a large amount of blood. The vehicle was searched, and what was missing besides Brandy's body was her gun, which everyone knew she always kept there. And they did search the vehicle for bullets or shell casings, but they didn't find any. And they did also drain the pond. They didn't find any bullets or shell casings there either. So no gun, no shell casings.

So that was taken with Brandy or was left with Brandy. Yes, or disposed of. Yeah. At a different location. Yeah. Depending on how many shots were put off. if that's what happened, right? We don't know what happened because we don't have Brandy.

Yeah. This does lean towards someone who had a connection to her. It always does for me. Most offenders who have no ties to the victim spend this much time or take this much risk connecting themselves to the case by being seen by an impartial party. So that to me always tends to lean in the direction of

someone who had a prior relationship with Brandy and they're concerned about her being found at a specific location. So remember, I said this pond was in a remote boat area. Most people didn't know it was there. Even a lot of locals, a lot of students who attended that college didn't even know it was there. Really, the only reason that guy was fishing in there was because he was like the heads of grounds and maintenance. So he knew every inch of that place. He knew the sweet spot. I always like those guys because they know where the

best fishing spots are. Exactly. He knew. But according to reports, both Brandy Hall and Randall Richmond knew that that pond was there. Yeah. So remember, I said last time that Brandy had worked for St. John's water management several years back. So she was aware of that area because they did like testing and stuff there. And remember, I said there was a Palm Bay Fire Department office nearby right on San Felipe. So most of the firefighters, they knew about the pond because according to retired detective Sid Lidot, they would draw water out of it. And many people told reporter John Torres that Brandy and Randall Richmond would go to this pond sometimes to take advantage of its secluded nature. And the fact that, like, no one really knew it was there, so they wouldn't be stumbled upon.

It would make sense because, as we've mentioned numerous times, both these individuals were married. So it's not like they're going to their houses. It's either a hotel or a parking lot or in this case, you know, a secluded area. Funny you say a parking lot because we're going to get there. Okay. Okay. Like I said, they sent a dive team in to the pond to find Brandy Hall's body. They didn't. They drained the pond.

It was cool the way they did it actually because it's a pretty big pond. They split it up. They like almost segmented it off. So they could drain one half. And then they drained the other half. But they never found her. And then the wooded area around the pond was searched. She wasn't there either.

Which also raises some concerns because if it was just a murder, what was the offender concerned about here being found? I would imagine it would be any type of trace or DNA evidence that would link back to them. Was there a sexual encounter prior to this incident that would link. back to this person and they were concerned about it and therefore had to go to a different extreme to ensure she was never found. Yeah. And that could be someone she knew and had sex with before or it could be a completely new person.

I don't want this to sound like I'm inferring that it's Randall. On the surface, does it look great for Randall? No, I don't think that's going to be a surprise to him to hear that. No, it's not a surprise to him. No. He knows it looks bad. Yeah, there are the theories here. I'm not just saying, oh, it's Randall, it's Randall.

We don't have to continue doing this episode anymore. It's not good for Randall, but either way, the offender was concerned that their evidence, their trace DNA could be found on her. Absolutely. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ bar protein bars, IQ mix, hydration mixes, and IQ gel mushroom coffees are the delicious, low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day.

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Ammon butter chip, even though it's been years since we started eating these things. That's my go-to. That's what I stick to. And listen, it's not just Stephanie and I that love IQ bar with over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting more people than ever are fueling their busy lifestyles with IQ bars, brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Again, their ultimate sampler pack includes all three. Yes, and right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners and viewers 20% off

all IQ Bar products, including the Ultimate Sampler Pack, plus free shipping. So this is a great deal. Highly suggest you check it out. When I order IQ Bar, which I do every couple of months, I use our code. And so to get your 20% off text weekly to 64,000, text, weekly to 64,000. Once again, that's weekly to 64,000 message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Okay, we're back. So Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Tom Davis spoke to Brandy's husband, Jeff at the county jail. And by that time, Jeff already knew because he'd seen it on the 6 p.m.

News. He said he'd been in the general population holding cell where he could see the television. And then he started to see them pulling Brandy's truck out of the pond. And then he saw her name on the screen. And then his name on the screen. And then, like, you know, them talking about like, oh, her husband had been involved in a drug bus. And he's like, oh, like my wife, her trucks in the pond, they think that I'm involved with this somehow. And he's freaking out. Now, Agent Tom Davis later said that he genuinely didn't feel as if Jeff had anything to do with whatever had happened to Brandy based on his initial reaction and a genuine confusion. But when Jeff Hall was released from prison, he refused to speak to.

the police based on advice from his lawyers. Jeff's attorneys claim that they were between a rock and a hard place. Jeff wanted to find his wife, but they didn't want the police to start questioning Jeff and getting into the facts of his drug case because in Florida, every statement he made could be used against him in the drug case retrial, which is what they were appealing for. So basically the lawyers were like, you know, we want Jeff to be able to help you guys, but we can't have you asking him questions about this drug case. And based on the fact that his wife's missing and, you know, presume dead, you're probably going to have to ask him questions about that, but we can't have that happen. Yeah, and that's not something we've mentioned a lot of,

but he wasn't doing some small operation here. It was millions of dollars going through there. And so would it be reasonable for the investigators looking for this former drug dealer's wife to, to at least explore the possibility that this was some type of retaliation? Yes, or connected somehow. If you didn't, you wouldn't be doing your job. Yeah. So Jeff's lawyers asked the police, okay, like, if you talk to him, can you give him immunity in whatever he says about the drug case, but they wouldn't do it. And Jeff's lawyers were genuinely confused as to why they wouldn't do that. Like, they weren't asking him to have immunity from anything he said he did to Brandy. It was just like whatever he says about the drug case, like, can that be kept under wraps until after,

you know, the appeal and the retrial if that's going to happen? And they said no. That's a tough spot to be in because this is a significant case that's. they're doing the drug case. It's not something small and you would have to have multiple people who are on the other side of the narcotic side of this also agreeing to that because now you're looking at a scenario where you work this case, you build up a strong investigation against him and now you're having to throw that out just because you need him to talk about his wife who he may have no knowledge of what happened to her. So it is a lot to maybe not get much in return. And I can understand both sides of it because at this point, there's no reason to believe that Jeff was directly involved

with whatever happened to Brandy. So I understand it. Plus, you also have the prosecutor's office on board with it as well. Yeah. So at that point, I guess the police were unable to really get Jeff Hall's alibi and completely rule him out. But like I said, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Tom Davis once again said he was pretty comfortable that Jeff wasn't involved. and Tom Davis was more interested in Randall Richmond, who he talked to at the Palm Bay Police Station on August 25th. This was basically a week after Brandy's truck was found. So Randall told the police that he hadn't talked to Brandy in weeks, which of course we know, in hindsight wasn't true. And by that time, the police already knew about their affair, so they were expecting some kind of emotion out of Randall, but they were not expecting the level of

of emotion that they got. According to Tom Davis, Randall was weeping and crying, showing such extreme emotion that it was actually shocking to the detectives. Like they used that word, they were shocked. Tom Davis said Randall's emotional state was rather startling to him. And he said, quote, my gut feeling was it was more of a fear. I didn't see the genuine, oh my God, I lost someone I love. But what it did was aroused suspicion.

End quote. Randall lying about not talking to Brandy in weeks also caused suspicion. And later, Randall admitted that he knew lying hadn't made him look good when he returned to the police station three days later. So he goes in on the 25th, which is already a week after Brandy's car is found. And then he goes back after his initial interview three days later. And he's like, yeah, I lied. And they're like, yeah. We know. We know you did. So at that time, Randall admitted to lying the last time he had talked to them. And he also admitted to the affair, but But he said it was mainly an emotional affair that they had only had sex one time.

And how many years was this again? 10 years. Okay. Sure, buddy. Yeah. And I'm bozo the clown. Now later, once again, several years later, Randall would admit to some of these other detectives who were going to talk about Sid Laudeau that, yeah, they'd obviously had sex more than one time. I mean, I think a lot of affairs start because of that physical side to it where

this is going to be a one or two-time thing. I mean, there's an emotional connection there which leads to it. Or it's just sex, yeah. Then it becomes something else. I would argue that it lasted 10 years because it was more than just sex. Yeah, that's what the police thought too. I mean, for everybody watching or listening right now, I don't think you have to be a cop to kind of put that one together.

Like, there's something going on there more than sex if you've been together for 10 years. We said it in episode one. This was a relationship. This was a relationship, no doubt. So according to the police, While Randall Richmond was being interviewed, his wife, Anne-Marie, showed up and slapped him across the face. So hard, it caused his glasses to cut his face and make him bleed.

Yeah. So Anne-Marie wasn't in on this. No. Well, no. I guess she wasn't in on it. I don't. Okay. It's complicated.

We'll talk about it. Okay. Okay. So the police officers say this reaction happened due to Randall admitting that he and Brandy were having an affair. But remember, at this point, he's only saying it was an emotional affair. and we only had sex once, which some people were like, well, why would she be so mad about that? Where it's like, I kind of, I feel like, I don't know, I would be more mad about a long-term emotional affair, you know, right?

Like, you cared about this person. You loved this person rather than, you know, it just, it was a, you know, we had sex sometimes and I don't care about her and I don't care what happens to her, right? Like, am I wrong? I think women, more women would care about an emotional affair. I think guys are different. Obviously, guys are different. Guys are what you are. Yeah, I think it's like, yeah, we had some really good conversations and it's like, yeah, but did you F them?

See, that's weird, man. That's weird. For the 2% of guys that are in here with me, defend me, please. Men are weird. But to think that Anne Marie is going to be like, oh, it was just emotional. Like you cared about her as a person and you, you know, talk to her and told her about your deepest hopes and fears and dreams, which is something you're only supposed to do. with your wife. I'm not mad about that. Like to expect Anne Marie to not be upset about that, you know, is kind of crazy. So now, we don't have a lot of specific details from this interview

that happened in 2006. But a year later, in 2007, Randall sat down with the police again. And what he told them at that time was essentially the same story he told when he talked to them in August of 2006. So we're going to go to that interview for some context and dig deeper. Now, Randall was asked what his wife knew about the affair with Brandy, and he said, quote, she knew that we were very good friends, and of course she had the intuition to know that it was getting way too close, way too much, and she didn't know that I actually, you know, had the, see, my wife called it an affair anyway, that whole relationship. My wife didn't actually know about the sex part. She didn't know that we had sex, but my wife called that an affair, of course.

I went to several sessions with her therapist, and that's what the therapist called it, too, that the whole relationship was an affair. end quote. Randall's like, yeah, I mean. That's why you pay the therapist the big bucks. Yeah, my wife didn't know we had sex, but she still thought it was an affair. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's an affair.

This is another thing that's not looking good for Randall because now we're leaning into motive, right, as well, where he would have a reason for not wanting one, not wanting Brandy around because it appears he still cares about his wife and doesn't want to end that relationship. He's very concerned about her thoughts. He was lying to her consistently. So there's more to this story where he may have wanted Brandy to keep things to herself. And maybe Brandy wasn't as willing to do that, especially knowing that Jeff was going to be going to prison for an extended period of time.

So maybe it's a man thing again. But to me, if you're having an extended 10-year affair, you don't care about your wife. And it's more like probably trying to maintain the status quo. I'm not condoning it. But, okay, let's take a show of hands here, okay? how many times have you had guys who are having sex with someone else for an extended period of time or having an affair and yet still don't want to leave their wife? Like they have this other woman and the other woman's like, hey, I want you to be with me. And the guy's like, sure, but in reality, he's comfortable where he is.

He still loves his wife, but he just wants to have his cake and eat it too. Or have they've been together for so long. They have kids together. They have a house together. They have things they've purchased together. And a divorce is going to be very expensive. Yeah. Okay, like it's cheaper to keeper kind of thing.

That's what men say. There's a lot of motives behind it. My point being there was something there still for his wife or I'm sure he could have said, like. Something that made him not want Amory to understand how deep it went. Yeah. And it sounds like from what you told me in the first episode with Brandy, where Randall was kind of talking to his wife at that little festival, the food truck thing, whatever it was. The Grand Food Fest.

She called them out. And so there's clearly a dynamic there that I'm. I'm just not like assuming where Randall was much more secretive about it. And Brandy probably wanted it to be more, probably wanted to be more public and was more willing to put her dirty laundry out there. In fact, I might say that the reason it was such a not so secret secretive was because maybe Brandy wasn't so secretive. Secretive.

Right? So when after we talked last time, I said, oh, the people who had been at the Grant Seafood Festival, they said that the whole kind of like feeling of the interaction between Brandy and Anne Marie was like, I could have your man anytime I want. Right. Well, come to find out when Anne Marie's talked to by the police, she's the one that says the very same thing.

She says that Brandy told her basically, I could have your man anytime I want. So for Randall here, he's like, yeah, my wife knew it was more, but, you know, she didn't know it was sex, but she didn't know it was sex. But now you have Brandy telling Anne Marie at the great. Grand T-food Festival. I can have your man whenever I want. As the wife, I'm going to be like, they're having sex. No, I think Randall's at home.

And he's like, babe, she's crazy. She wants me. She wants me so bad. She flirts with me all the time. She's just mad that I never feed into it. I mean, if Randall had a wife, Anne-Marie, who looked at him, saw who he was and believed that another woman was just that gung-ho and obsessed about him and there was no sex involved, then he should have kept Anne-Marie because she

really had the eyes of somebody that loved him. She was looking at him through rose-colored glasses, is all I'm going to say. Damn, savage. Now, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Tom Davis, a lot of Anne Marie's frustration towards Brandy Hall was due to how much her husband Randall did for Brandy. Randall said he was Mr. Fixit for Brandy and that his wife felt he was being used for, quote, just all the stuff I did for them, all the stuff I helped them with, you know, write down to signing my name to a piece of equipment that was leased, and I never did have to make a payment on it, but you know, end quote, this is going to come back into play. So I think, yes, Randall did co-sign it a piece of equipment for Brandy and Jeff Hall, but they were all friends.

So that's not like a crazy thing. But I think that every time Randall was leaving to meet up with Brandy, he was telling Anne-Marie, oh, Brandy and Jeff need me to fix something at their house, right? No doubt. And he was also playing up the relationship. with Jeff. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The reason I'm interacting with Brandy is because by proxy through Jeff.

Yeah. And you know, Anne Marie's like, what the hell? Why can't Jeff fix his own at his house? You know? And Randall's like, he's just, you know, he's not competent like me. He's not really good with tools like me. Like, come on. Jeff was a fire chief as much as, you know, you know, whatever we want to say about Jeff,

I'm sure he could fix a doorknob or whatever the hell Randall told Anne Marie he was doing for Brandy. There was not a lot of. home improvement being done by Randall for Brandy and Jeff is all I'm going to say. That was a cover in my opinion. A lot of plumbing going on. Yeah, a lot of something going on. Never mind. Never mind. Now in 2000. Over your head. That's okay though. It didn't go over my head. It didn't go over my head. It didn't go over my head. I just chose not to address it. All right. All right. So in 2007, Detective Wayne Ivy asked Randall if he was in love with Brandy. And Randall asked, quote, are you asking me then or are you asking me now?

End quote. Because remember a year has passed. And Detective Ivy said he was asking about back then in 2006 when Brandy went missing. And Randall said no. He said, quote, after I've been to see my wife's therapist, after I've been to see my therapist,

they all said it's called love, affairs of the heart, end quote. Okay. But he's like, no, no, no. I wasn't in love with her ever. But like everyone tells me I was, but I don't think I was. Okay, so Randall said that at the Grant Seafood Festival, after everything went down with Brandy and Ann Marie, Brandy had told him to give her money or she was going to tell everyone about their affair.

I don't believe this. I don't believe that either. I don't believe this. Not one chance. Because I think if she had said, give me money, he would have been like, how much do you want? No, I don't even think, but Brandy doesn't need his money. No, well, she wants the relationship. She did technically, like, after everything went down with Jeff.

but I don't think that especially considering how much they continue to talk after the Grant Seafood Festival and how they were still like interacting at least, you know, 55 times on average a day. It's not, if somebody extorted you for money and was like, if you don't pay me money, I'm going to tell your wife about us. Would you still continue talking to them as much as you had before? All the conversation would be initiated by the other party. And I'm assuming if I had the access to her, his call logs and text messages, he would have been just as involved as her, hitting up Brandy on multiple occasions without being engaged first. Yes, exactly.

And we see that he was. Yeah. It just kind of seems like how do you continue a relationship with somebody after they try to, like, extort you and blackmail you? But okay. She might have mentioned something along the lines of, I wish you would buy me something once in a while, something and he just takes it and blows it out of proportion. Or like imagine how successful we could be if like both of our initiative and hard work and

like salaries were put together instead of our spouses dragging us down kind of thing, you know? So when he was asked about the night Brandy went missing, Randall admitted to speaking to Brandy. He said he had called her to tell her that he wasn't going to show up for her husband, Jeff, in court the next morning. Randall said, quote, well, you know, she's a little upset. You know, you told Jeff that you were going to be there and he's counting on you. And I said, yeah, I know he's counting on a lot of people to go out there and stand up for him and say something. But I said, you know, you've got to remember the position I'm in as a public service

employee, a captain at the fire department and everything else, I just can't do it. I don't think it's going to look good and I don't think it's going to do my career any good. And I think she was let down that I wasn't going to help, end quote. So let's look at this time period. Randall calls Jeff at like 830 that night and says, see you tomorrow, buddy. Good luck. I'm going to be there to support you. And then a few hours later when he's talking to Brandy and he's asked, why were you talking to Brandy that night, even though the first time he talks to the police, he says he hasn't talked to her two weeks. Now he's like, well, I told her I wasn't going to show up for Jeff the next day, even though you told Jeff two hours before that that you were. So did he change his mind that night and not just

tell Jeff until the next day? Or is he lying? And that's not what he said. But since he knows he called Jeff the next morning crying and saying he wasn't going to show up for him, he thought that was a kind of feasible thing that he could have been calling Brandy about. Or is it possible that he was lying to Jeff when he talked to him? Like, hey, I'll be there for you in the morning buddy knowing damn well he wasn't going to show up and he was trying to make it look like a last minute thing. Maybe. Maybe he just couldn't face him. I don't know.

Oh, yeah, I'll be there in the morning. No, he's going to call him first thing and be like, oh, I'm so sorry. I can't do it. You know, I don't know. I don't know. But either way, that's what Randall said. And Randall said that it was clear Brandy wanted him to help Jeff because he was sure that she didn't want her husband going to jail.

He said Brandy had made comments to him before about what would happen if Jeff went to jail and how she would manage everything with the kids. And Randall said, quote, I said, gee, you guys. you got your mom. The kids are in school during the day. There's lots of things that can be juggled around with the kids. End quote. Now, this is where Randall's story got kind of disjointed because Detective Wayne Ivy asked what he and Brandy had talked about after that. And Randall said they talked about normal stuff, business. He always talked to her about the business. Like how was it going with the airboat shop? How were things progressing with the builders? He said the biggest part of the

conversation was when he said, wait, where are you? and what are you doing? And that's when Brandy told him she was leaving. Quote, yeah, I'm leaving. Where are you going? What are you doing? She wasn't real clear about that, you know? I said, what are you doing right now? She said, I'm waiting on money. What do you mean you're waiting on money? I'm getting money. Where are you getting money from? Who are you getting money from? Never. Were there any answers to those questions? Never. End quote. So Randall said that Brandi had told him she was at the Sonoco while they were talking. And when asked if the conversation became emotional after Brandi told her, Randall, she was leaving, he said, quote, well, it became confusing. What do you mean you're leaving? Where are you going? You can't leave. Aren't you violating something to do with your case, with the drugs? I thought I remembered something at the time about how she couldn't leave the area. Maybe I'm wrong. I didn't know. You can't leave. Aren't you going to be violating something? What are you going to do about the kids? What about Jeff? How are you going to take care of the kids? You can't leave. You know things like that. And like I said, nothing was ever answered, whether she was leaving for an hour, three hours, end quote. So Randall just told the police that Brandy was upset. when he told her he wasn't going to show up for Jeff in court and that she had talked to him about, you know, what am I going to do? How am I going to handle the kids when Jeff's gone without his help? And then he claimed she randomly told him she was waiting for some money at the gas station. And then she was leaving. And he didn't know if she meant for three hours, three days or forever.

Now, Brandy and Randall were on the phone for over 10 minutes. But according to him, the entire conversation was basically him peppering her with dozens of questions that she never answered. And I have an issue with this. Like, it doesn't make sense. First of all, why would you be upset that Randall's not going to show up tomorrow and testify for Jeff when, you know, you're kind of like, well, what's going to happen? If you're already planning to leave and you're waiting for money because here comes money again, right? Because Randall knew that at that time, Brandy was not doing what with money. So I think he's throwing that out there as in like, that's something that's provable.

She was working a lot of jobs. You know, financially things weren't great. She needed money. So she's extorting me for money. and now she's meeting some random shady person at the Sonoco station. And he claims he's asking her all these questions. What do you mean? Who are you meeting?

What kind of money? Where are you getting money from? Where are you going? How long? And she just never answers any of the questions. And he just keeps asking her questions and she never answers them. That doesn't sound like a normal kind of conversation, especially with a woman you've been intimate with for 10 years.

You'd probably be like, Brandi. They're probably pretty open with each other at that point. Yeah, like Brandy, what the hell are you talking about leaving? Give me some answers here. Yeah. Don't just sit here being all vague. you wouldn't just be like, well, glad you're leaving and I don't know anything. So I guess I'll talk to you soon, right?

No. No, something's not adding up here. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't make sense. Ten years, like you said, there's not much that's being hidden at that point. You are the secret. So if there's something in line with money that may help her or help you or whatever the situation is, I think she can be pretty transparent about it. And back to what you said as far as her being upset with Randall not being willing to testify at her husband.

trial. I don't know. I mean, this is an interesting dynamic right off the rip. Is there a world where even though she's with Randall and she's been with him for 10 years that she still loves her husband to a certain degree and doesn't want to see him go to prison? I think that's still possible. Maybe she realizes even though it's her, the person she's having an affair with, he might be his only hope as far as a character witness. I don't know. I don't know. It's, it's tough to put everyone in the same box because we know that there's some interesting dynamics and relationships out there that work for one person. I mean, our whole undercover pineapple thing, that's not us, but that's a real thing.

And people are happy with it. So I don't judge, man. Everyone's got their own thing going on, or how they feel, I guess. Yeah, I mean, here's what I think's going on. I think that Brandy doesn't want Jeff to go to prison because basically, like, even if you get a divorce, you still want your spouse to be around to help with the kids. Like, Jeff is not working at this point. She's the only person working.

And not only does she work at the fire department volunteer basis to keep her trainings up, but she's working all these other odd jobs. So it's like, well, who's going to bring now Jeff's home with the kids? That's possible. But she doesn't want him to just like be in prison for X amount of years because now she has to figure out how to take care of the kids and make the money. Yeah, financial responsibility is now on one person. So I think she wanted Randall.

She kind of expected like, hey, Jeff's going to go to jail. I will file for divorce because that's what she does on her friends. Then we'll be together. You leave Anne-Marie. Then we'll be together. Then you help me with the kids. And we have a family here and I have a man who's helping me now again. I have a man taking the place of the man who's already there.

And Randall was probably like, that's a fairy tale. That's not going to happen. There is no possible way Brandy was telling him, oh, I'm leaving, knowing that her husband could be going to prison and her kids would have nobody. That's insane. Now, what I think is happening is no one really in their right mind thinks Randall Richmond is going to be the lynchpin in whether or not Jeff goes to prison or not, right? I'm sure Brandy would be like maybe that, you know, if that's even what he talked about, like, I'm not going to show up for Jeff tomorrow. Brandy would probably be like, well, that sucks, man. You know, he's already suspicious that there's something going on. Now it kind of is going to look worse, but whatever. I don't think she'd be like, how dare you? What's going to happen if you're not there? He'll go to prison. you know, no, I think they know Jeff's going to go to prison one way or the other. And in fact, Brandy's character witness testimony is going to be the most important because she shares a life and children with him. And she can say, hey, it's going to be very difficult to provide for my children when I'm the only one working and I don't have another parent at home to help me

with my children, like who's going to be there for them. That's going to be a more like, you know, persuasive character statement to the judge than like you said, Jeff's buddy who has. happens to work at a fire department. Like, who cares? Yeah. And back to the case real quick, too, just as far as motive. And I actually think Randall saying or being so ambiguous about what Brandy said, as far as I'm leaving, I'm leaving, actually hurts him even more because it gives his

statement gives credibility to the idea that she left under her own free will, that she wanted to leave and she may never be found because she didn't want to be found. And so when you have someone who's presenting something that doesn't even make sense, sense from the dynamic between the two of them that, oh, she gave the impression that she was leaving. It sounds like it could potentially be someone who's just trying to stoke that flame of, oh, you know what? This might just be something where she had enough and decided to go. I think he's being intentionally ambiguous. Yeah, I agree. Well, no, I didn't know if she was leaving like permanently or if she just meant like, you know, I'm leaving tonight. I'll be,

I had no idea. So I don't know what she meant. Having that come from other people would be okay. having it come from the person who at minimum is a person of interest, who has been at this location with her on numerous occasions, allegedly, not a good look. Yeah. And he's asking her, like, what do you mean you're leaving? How can you do that? What's going on? What about the kids?

I'm just leaving, Randall, for how long? Just leaving, Randall? Like, come on. That's not happening. And she's going to decide all of this in the middle of a work shift while her kids aren't where there. There's a lot there that doesn't make sense from a common sense perspective. The night before you know what's happening with your husband sentencing. Yeah. Doesn't make sense.

I mean, I can see maybe finding out, okay, he's going to prison for 18 months and then you're like, I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving. Like somewhere is easier where no one knows me and I don't have to say maybe that. But like people are targeting me. Law enforcement's targeting me. I'm out of here. Yeah. My husband's definitely going to prison. I don't know for how long, but he's going to prison. So I too am going to leave. So my kids are orphans and have nobody and just are traumatized completely. Doesn't make a lot of sense. So Randall claimed that before hanging up with Brandy that night, she told him to throw away the special phone that he had for the express purpose of talking to her and that she would find a way to reach out to him and page him. Okay. So now we have another kink because you said, well, couldn't they get Randall's phone and see what the messages were about? No, because Randall threw that phone away because that phone was a special phone to talk to Brandy with. And she told him, throw it out.

Yeah, how convenient. So no one can come on. How convenient. So that wasn't even the main phone that the conversations were happening on that you've described, or was it, where there was a back and forth communication? That was the main phone, yeah. So there's another phone. Apparently there's another phone.

So he probably has like a work phone and a personal phone. But he's saying, no, this phone was the phone that I specifically talked to Brandy on. And before getting off the phone, she told me throw it out. So we have her two phones. And he has also two phones, at minimum, two phones. Yeah. Okay. And so once again, we have this not making sense where it's like, I didn't know if she was leaving for an hour or three hours or forever, but she's telling you to throw out the phone that you guys talk to each other on.

But you thought maybe she could possibly be leaving for an hour. You weren't questioning like how the finality of this kind of request. Yeah. Like this guy's named Brian Higgins by any chance. No. Dumped it in a. He took the battery out, put one in one dumpster, drove 20 miles. Yeah.

All because she told me to. Yeah, she told me to. Yeah, that makes sense. So Randall said that Brandy asked him to not tell anyone anything. So that's why he lied when he first talked to the police. He said he lied to respect her privacy. I appreciate that. That's great.

He said, but then after a few days passed and he didn't get a page from Brandy, he started to worry. And then that's when he went back to the police to come clean. But the thing is, by the time Randall Richmond talked to the police for the first time, It had already been a week after Brandy's truck with her blood in it had been pulled from the pond. So a week would have already passed not only long enough to get a page or not get a page from Brandy and be concerned. But to know Brandy's truck was found in a pond with her blood in it, which means she probably didn't leave Randall. Probably something bad happened to her. Randall?

And if you're the one that has this information about Brandy meeting someone at the gas station in a sketchy way to get this money the very same night she's went missing and then her truck was found with her blood in it. Wouldn't you want the police to have that information ASAP so, you know, before the person got away? Like, none of that makes sense. The timing, he's like, I waited a few days and then she didn't page me and that's when I got worried. No, wouldn't you get worried when a week had gone by you didn't get a page from her and her blood? Talk about this all the time. Fifty times a day they're talking to each other. And by the way, and by the way, I'm not getting rid of my phone right away. I'm going to hope that she changes her mind and text me or calls me the next day. Like most people wouldn't say, I'm sorry, I was overreacting.

I would keep the phone. I would have it for a buffer for probably a week or so just to make sure she really wasn't going to call me on that anymore and she was going to call me on something else. Yeah. I definitely wouldn't have thrown it away after realizing she hadn't called me in three days because I would assume that maybe something happened or something was wrong and I'd want to keep that phone in case of an emergency. Her trucks pulled out of the pond the next day with her blood in it. This was well-known information that there was blood in the truck and that her truck was in the pond. So she didn't leave. And yet he still felt the need to get rid of the special phone.

And he still felt the need to go to the police and claim he hadn't talked to Brandy in two weeks because he was trying to respect her privacy. Yeah. If Randall's completely innocent in all of this, he's made a lot of poor decisions. I think that's not up for debate. If Randall's completely innocent in this, then the universe hates him, absolutely hates him because this is crazy. And it gets crazier. Like I said, I'm not done. Crazier.

Okay. I know. I know. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. It feels like everywhere you look right now, everyone's talking about, you know, losing weight by getting injections because the results can be so dramatic. Yeah. And let's face it, that's not for everyone, including me.

A lot of people aren't interested in doing weekly injections, especially when you start hearing about some of the side effects. So if you're trying to lose weight and looking for another option, then. That's where Lean comes in. Yeah, exactly. And Lean was created by actual doctors. So this isn't just some random person on the internet. Yeah, Lean is a weight loss supplement created by doctors at Brickhouse Nutrition. So that's designed for people who feel stuck and need something to help support their progress.

The ingredients in Lean are studied and they've been shown to help support blood sugar levels, curb appetite and cravings, and help your body convert fat into energy, which is cool. Yeah, so it's not working against your body. It's working with it. And I'll be honest with you guys right now, I got Lean. a couple weeks ago saw it come in the mail. I have a project coming up. I'm pretty consistent in the gym, but I'm like, you know what?

I read the ingredients. I did some my own research and looked at the forums. So I hopped on lean. I'm on it right now. And I'm happy to report. I haven't lost a ton of weight, but I've lost a few pounds. But most importantly, I'm not sitting there with the shakes. I'm not sweating profusely.

I don't have the hot flashes, which I've had with some previous fat burners. So so far, I'm liking the product and I'm staying on it. Yeah, exactly. important to know lean isn't for someone trying to lose just a couple of pounds it's designed for people who have 10 or more pounds to lose and they're ready to take it to that next step and I know that you know every time Derek has something coming up he'll kind of go into high gear I go into freak mode yeah he does he goes into freak mode and he's like her right I got a I got to take a few pounds off like I got to be looking fat on camera Stephanie get to the gym no you can't and I gained it all in my face

too it's not good and so it's not necessarily for someone like me I'm I'm in the five to 10 pound range, but I can tell you it's working. And I've had multiple products that have worked, but I felt miserable on it. So not the case here with Lean. Yeah, it's really about having another option if injections aren't something you're comfortable with, which I think a lot of people fall in that category. So let's get you started with 20% off and free rush shipping so you can add Lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. So visit TakeLean.com and enter Crime Weekly for your discount. That's promo code Crimeweekly at TakeLean.com. Okay, so according to Randall Richmond, he did not see Brandy that night, August 17th,

and there was no plan to meet her anywhere. He said he was at the fire station when he talked to Brandy, and from that time forward, he never left the station. So Detective Wayne Ivy pressed Randall and reminded him of his earlier lie, and Randall said, quote, I never left the station. Why are you still pointing the barrel at me like you just said? I know there's a lot of people out there who said, we know he's the one who had to do it, because him and her had that affair, end quote.

Now, can I stop you real quick? Yeah. Let's just put it out there. If Randall's innocent, he was supposedly working at the fire station, right? So if Randall's not our guy, we know that whatever happened to Brandy, more than likely happened in that window, right? Between that night when she last spoke to Randall and the morning where you have Jeff trying to call her around 7 o'clock multiple times.

Well, they think it happened by the time Jeff called her the night before to tell her about the schedule change and she didn't answer. I believe it. But I'm just giving us that window, right? Yeah. So, as we all know at this point, Randall can't be in two places at once. So if we were able to confirm Randall's statement here, and I don't know where this is going to go, that he was at the fire station that entire time, Randall's innocent. We can all agree on that. That's all I'll say. Let's see if that holds up. Because that is an important factor here. Where was Randall on the night when this all occurred? Where was Randall?

Let's talk about that. So Wayne Ivy told Randall, listen, he could give him some reasons of why people are still suspicious of him, including the police. Reason one being that Randall and Brandy talked on average about 52 times a day. And Randall responded back, quote, whoa, end quote. Yeah, that's a, whoa, that much? Whoa. All right, you got me there. Yeah.

And then Wayne Ivy said, quote, yeah, and all those things, all the things I asked you are in the telephone records and I already had the answers to, end quote. So Randall asked Wayne Ivy, well, did I answer them honestly? And Ivy replied, no. And Randall asked, well, what didn't I answer honestly? Yeah. And Wayne Ivy said, quote, not all of them, but that's all right. We'll get into that at a later point, end quote.

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell you what you got wrong so you can come up with a news story to make it fit, give you a second narrative. It's funny that Randall would even be like, okay, so I didn't tell the truth about everything. Can you tell me what I didn't tell the truth about? I had an occurrence where I confronted a guy who I believe was involved in Michelle's case, and I said to him, you know, I think you killed her. And his response to me was, well, what do you have on me? Why do you think that there? I was like, what do you have on me? Not, I didn't do it. Just, well, what do you have on me? I was like, are you kidding me? It's too easy. I love it when they ask for a roadmap, you know, because logically it makes sense, right?

Because they're in their head calculating like, all right, well, how do I get out of this? I can only get out of this if I know what the police know because then I can only refute what they know and come up with a story that makes sense and, you know, isn't going to like fall apart. How screwed am I really? How screwed am I? And how can I save this, but I can only know that if I know what they know. So let me just disclose everything to you. And he's like, so what did I lie about, you know? Now, if you're the investigators in the Tom La Horstford case, you would just sit there and tell them everything.

And also your theories on what happened. But that's not normally what occurs. Wayne Ivy would be like, actually, you know, we have no idea what happened here. None whatsoever. No motive, no suspects. Sounds like an accident to us. In fact, we just happened to stumble upon the truck because, you know, somebody caught it with a fishing pole. Otherwise, she'd still be missing.

So the police did look into Randall Richmond's alibi. and they found out that he was working that night. Okay. Good start, Randall. There had been no emergency calls, so he had no professional reason to leave the station, and his crew of five firefighters said he never left because his vehicle was inside the whole time. Okay. However, however. That means nothing, but okay.

So a report had come in from a police officer about the evening of August 17, 2006, a report that didn't resurface until five years after Brandy, Hall was missing. Officer Jasmine Campbell with the Palm Bay Police Department had just finished her 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, where she was assigned to patrol the east side of Palm Bay. Officer Campbell needed a few things from Walmart, so she drove south on Babcock Street, which intersects with Malabar Road, and then she turned right on Malabar and headed west past the I-95 overpass before turning left onto San Felipe Drive. She then made a right-hand turn into the parking lot of Home Depot, which led to the parking lot of Walmart.

While driving through the Home Depot parking lot, Officer Campbell noticed a dark green pickup truck parked across three spaces. Campbell could tell someone was in the truck. It was parked towards the back of the store by where they sold the trees. It's kind of like the backside of the store. You know what I'm talking about?

We all have Home Depot's, yeah. Sometimes they can't fit in the store. They get the mulch and everything back there. And it's kind of like towards the side back area where you might load and unload stuff. Home Depot was closed at that point, right? it's 11 o'clock at night. And Officer Campbell made a mental note that this seemed out of place. And I think we can understand that, especially if you're a cop, you know, you're off,

you're off duty technically, but you're still in your cop car. You're still in cop mode, too. You're still got to grab some stuff from Walmart, which is open because Walmart stays open late. Yeah, usually you see like a Walmart with next to a Lowe's and a Home Depot. There's probably some strategy behind that, but they're usually in the same plaza. So Walmart's open late. Home Depot's already done been closed. And Officer Campbell notices in a kind of not obvious place, of the parking lot. There is a green truck there and someone's inside, but the store is closed. So what reason do you have to be in the parking lot?

The store's been closed for at least an hour, at least an hour, depending on how late that Home Depot stayed open. Some of them only stay up until nine. Sometimes I will say at Walmarts, not Home Depot's, but at Walmart you'll see like trucks or RVs because at one point they were allowing, especially at probably back in 2006, they were allowing people to park there and camp there overnight. Like long haul truck drivers. I think they've done away with that since.

but they wouldn't be in the Home Depot parking lot. And it wouldn't be just like a passenger truck. Correct. Correct. There'd be something attached to it for sure. So when Officer Campbell left Walmart not long after, she's in there like 10 minutes, she's got to grab something. She still got her cop car, you know.

She pulls out and she again saw the green pickup truck and she saw a woman and someone else inside. And so she tried to call in the tag, but there was an incident happening somewhere else in the county. I guess there was like there was like an on foot pursuit. and so Palm Bay had the channel held. Now, do you know what that means? You have to know what that means, right?

The Palm Bay had the channel held? Yeah, there was like another incident happening. So she wanted to call in the tag, which I assume to be the license plate of the green truck. I'll be honest with you. I'm not, I've never heard that term before. We've had in law enforcement, we have a channel one and a channel three, which channel three isn't go. It doesn't go out to the police scanners. It's more of a like a protected channel.

I've never heard of calls being tagged or held. So I think she wants to call in the plate to like dispatch. For dispatch? Okay. And so she wants to call in the plate to dispatch, but they are holding the channel or closing it. So it's for emergency traffic only. That makes sense. That makes sense.

Yeah. They're basically saying, hey, right now we're not running plates. We're not taking any of that info because we want to keep the lines open. There's a bigger situation going on. We want to be able to respond immediately. Yeah, basically means that all police officers have to stop using the radio for like routine, not essential. Okay, we call that keeping the line clear. Okay, so they had a held, they wanted to keep the line clear. So something like calling in a plate would be considered non-essential. You're not going to conduct a traffic stop while this is going on, period. You want to keep it open, keep the line open so that if they got to call something in or whereabouts or whatever they have the free line.

So she wants to call the tag in the license plate. But then again, right, she's off duty. Technically, she got off at 11. And it's really nothing. It's just something in her police instinct like, hey, I just want to make sure this is legit and on the up and up. But the channel's held. What are the odds? And by the way, more than likely it's exactly what you think it is.

It's to young adults or whatever and they're in there doing something. They probably shouldn't be doing. but it's not going to be anything more than that in most occasions. But still, you want to know because what if one of those young adults ends up dead the next day? You would. You would absolutely. I've been on patrol where you go by a park or a parking lot and you see a car with people inside. And in my 13 years on the job, it never turned out to be anything bad or nothing ever came of it.

But you would still stop to ensure, hey, listen, is everybody all right in here? Is everybody here voluntarily? That would be the number one thing. It could be two people in there doing something that, you know, you shouldn't be doing in a car. My bigger concern was always- Is that illegal technically by it is? It is, yeah. It is, right? It's like public indecency or something. Yeah, it's indecent exposure. It's definitely illegal. Also, if you're on private property, you're not supposed to be there. But you would want to ensure that both parties are there voluntarily.

And of the age of consent, possibly. That was a second thing. The second thing you would always do is ensure that both parties are the age of consent. and then you would still document it and send them on their way, just in case something came back later. So she makes a note of this, right, but she can't call it in. So she's like, whatever. Now, on her way out of Walmart and after passing through the Home Depot parking lot, Officer Campbell turned left back onto Malabar Road, and she passed the Hess Station, where she made another mental note when she saw a Palm Bay Fire Department Supervisors' SUV truck.

Now Campbell thought this was odd because the Hess Station was closed at the time. As you can see from these screenshots, the Home Depot and the Hess Station, they're very close to each other. Within walking distance, some might say. Yep. And on top of that, the Home Depot is just over a half a mile from the pond where Brandy's truck was found. A few days after Brandy's truck was found, Officer Campbell gets a call because her patrol car was seen on surveillance in the area of the pond the night Brandy went missing because she's driving home. That's right. And she's by the pond.

Yeah. So they call her and they're like, what were you there for? What did you see? Blah, blah, blah. And Officer Campbell's supervisor at the time was Sergeant Mike Bandish. And she said, well, I did see this green truck in the Home Depot parking lot. And I saw this fire captain's truck right basically next door at Hess. And I thought that was weird.

I tried calling it in. The channel was closed. So Officer Campbell said that Sergeant Mike Bandish swore her in over the phone to make a formal statement about this. And Campbell said that because she'd been sworn. worn in, she assumed her verbal statement had been recorded, but apparently it had not been. And so all the information she gave bandish over the phone just disappeared into the ether. And we've got to look into that because don't you think that's kind of important as the Palm Bay police that a car that matches the description of the victim's truck was seen in the home people parking lot

with her and someone else in it half a mile away from where it was found? Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And you would want to have at least not all, especially 2,000, We always had struggles with recording phone calls. We had a device that we would use that you'd have to keep in your ear. And it did a pretty decent job. But not only would you swear them in, but you would inform them that they were being recorded. So that is concerning that at least just to make sure you had an initial statement, you wouldn't document that. Kind of seems like Bandish was just like, what did you see?

Trying to get the download? That's my, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I would, my first question is like, does he have a relationship with Randall? Maybe. You know, that would be something I'd want to look in. to. I mean, Palm Bay Fire Chief, Palm Bay Police. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm sure they knew each other. Is he just being nosy? You know, what's the, what's the deal? We'd have to dig into that one. Either way, he never told anybody this, right? Bullshit. Just never, never came up. Yeah,

that's, that's bullshit. And this isn't just like an eyewitness, like some random person calling in and being like, I saw, it's one of your officers. Who has no reason to lie. Who has no reason to lie. Who's no reason to lie. And you know was in the area because you saw her her vehicle on surveillance. Substantiated claim. She's there. And in most cases, a police officer innately is going to be more observative, maybe able to document things more correctly. That's what they do every day. So that's someone that you would consider a credible witness. So we've got a truck that matches Brandy Hall's truck in the Home Depot parking lot with someone else in it. Then we have a fire chief's vehicle at the Hust station not far away. And this is all half a mile from where Brandy's truck was found. But not any fire, just fire chief's truck. Fire chief truck. But from what station? Palm Bay. Okay. Important.

Important little detail. So five years later, Palm Bay Police Officer Mike Pousa Terry, who had been on Brandy's case, was riding with Officer Jasmine Campbell. And she asked him, hey, like, what did you ever find out about that tip I submitted? You know, about the fire captain's truck at the closed test station on Nalaura Road. Now, he was like, what are you thinking about? I can't imagine being in that cruiser or whatever they were in. Yeah. He's like, what the hell are you talking?

I was on that case. Like I was on that case, we never knew that. We never hurt that. That would be a game changer, right? Yeah. So as it turns out, the night of August 17th, 2006, there were only two fire captains on duty in Palm Bay. There was one guy who's already been ruled out and Randall Richmond. So let's return to Randall Richmond's alibi, which wasn't really that anyone had seen him at the fire station.

It was more that they had seen his truck. His personal vehicle. Yeah. Well, no. they saw his fire truck. So it was parked inside. Like there's like, you know, a fire, a firehouse. It's got like a big garage door. Yes. Or multiple garage doors. Yeah. And so his truck, his fire truck is inside. And this is the vehicle he would bring to and from home. So this is just what he always drove around in. And so when you're saying fire truck, we're more referred, not an actual fire truck. We're referring to like an SUV, but that's it's painted and probably has light bars and stuff in it. But that's a supervisor vehicle. Yes. So it's inside. though, the big garage doors. Keep it inside. Keep it warm. You know.

So it was more that they had seen his truck and they knew that if he'd left, they would have heard that large garage door opening and also his truck starting because it was a diesel truck. Okay. So it was very loud. So this is basically where it all comes from. They're like, there was no emergency calls that night. So none of us left.

But obviously it's like also overnight. So a lot of people are sleeping. But they're like, yeah, even if we're sleeping, though. You'd hear the garage doors. We're firemen. You know, we're used to waking up when we hear the sound of like a radio call or something. We would hear the garage doors. We would hear the diesel truck starting.

That didn't happen, which isn't a great alibi, by the way. But all right. So there's two retired detectives who worked on Brandy's case. And these two guys were named Sid LaDoe and Doc Jones. Now, they weren't just retired police officers who, like, you know, started doing PI work because the family asked them or because they were just interested in the case and they were bored and retired. They got in on it. No, the Palm Bay Police asked them to help because of how good they were and because they were stuck. Yeah, that's great.

So Sid had retired from the Palm Bay Police, but he still found a lot of purpose and passion in investigating crimes. He was good at it. His colleagues referred to him as the human bloodhound, so they'd bring him on for hard cases. Now, when Brandy went missing, the Palm Bay Police Department asked Sid, along with Doc Jones to help investigate. And Sid and Doc would interview dozens of people. They would write in-depth reports, authorized polygraph, tests, conduct searches, and more. They weren't just like peripheral people. They were pretty much in the fray. Now, Brandy's case became an obsession for Sid Lidot, and he would spend the last 10 years

of his life dedicated to finding answers before he passed away on April 24th, 2019. Sid used his own money to continue printing and hanging posters with Brandy's picture and information on them, and every year on August 17th, the anniversary of Brandy's disappearance, he would call Florida Today reporter John Torres and ask John. to print something about Brandy so that people wouldn't forget and so that her case wouldn't fade from the public eye. And both Sid LaDoe and Doc Jones were certain that Randall Richmond had gone out to meet Brandy Hall on the evening of August 17th. But they could not figure out how Randall could have snuck out without the other firefighters hearing his loud diesel truck leaving. And this stumped them for

several years until Sid LaDoe was one day talking to a retired firefighter, Jim Bliss. So Sid is you know, he's not even really like actively like investigating or taking like witness statements at this point. He's just, he can't get this case out of his mind. It's like that puzzle you do and there's one piece missing. And whether you dropped it or the dog ate it, you don't know. But like, I can't stop thinking about that one puzzle piece that if you had it, you could just place it in there. And everything would make sense. So he's talking about it.

And sometimes he'd go and hang out at the fire station and kind of just chat with the firefighters and try to like get a feel for things and understand things. better. And he talks to this guy, Jim Bliss, and it suddenly changes the whole scope of things. And we're going to take our last break. And when we come back, we're going to discuss that. Okay, so it's, you know, the end of April. Spring is here officially, especially like in our neck of the woods. We kind of see the seasons are changing. We get some warmer weather. Almost top off time. What's top off time? Summertime, baby. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So spring's here. and every time spring gets here, and we get out of those winter months where it feels like, you know, you'll never see the sun again, all of a sudden everyone's like, oh, man, it's bikini seasons coming up. We're going to be going on vacations. We're going to be by the pool. We're going to be wearing less clothes. And that's when a lot of people start thinking about their health again. But the problem is it's easy to start something. It's actually hard to stick with it. So that's what we like about Weight Watchers right now because it's designed for real life, not some extreme plan that falls apart after a few weeks. It's not just tracking anymore.

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Yeah, and we've talked about one skin before. And what we've learned is this is more than just a temporary fix. Yeah, and I mean, a lot of skincare I've used doesn't even make your skin look good for the moment. And you just hope it's doing something underneath. You know what I mean? So that's why one skin stood out to me initially and why I've been using it still this long in. I love it because it's actually based on science, not hype. And I see a difference as, you know, time goes on.

So the founders are longevity researchers and they focused on something called sentient cells, sometimes called zombie cells, which is cool. Pretty cool, yeah. Yeah, they basically build up over time and they contribute to visible aging. So things like wrinkles, fine lines, dullness. loss of elasticity. Yeah, and this is great because it's not like just putting a band-aid over the problem. It's actually targeting the root cause. Exactly. One skin's actually targeting those sensient cells. And that's where their OS1 peptide comes in. It's designed to help reduce those damaged cells and support your skin right at the source. And what I like is that it's not complicated,

right? It fits into your normal routine, but you're actually doing something more meaningful for your skin. Yeah, and I feel like, I mean, we've been covering them a while now, but you've been using this product for a substantial amount of time. I love the eye cream. It's the only eye cream I use. For me, the biggest thing is how it feels. My skin just feels healthier, more balanced. It's one of those things where it doesn't feel like I'm layering a bunch of products. It just works. Yes, and it's backed with real data, too. Clinical studies, thousands of five-star reviews. And it's been recognized as a leader in skin longevity. So it's not just a trend. There's actual research behind it.

Born from over a decade of longevity research, one skin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For limited time, try one skin with 15% off using code crime weekly at oneskin.com slash crime weekly. That's 15% off at one skin.com slash crime weekly with code crime weekly. And after you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support the show and let them know we sent you. Okay, we're back. So Sid LaDoe, he's kind of talking about the whole thing. He's really frustrated about this. He's talking everything out with Jim Bliss and he told him, you know, I just can't figure out how the hell Randall had gotten his fire chief's vehicle out of the fire

station with no one knowing because his diesel truck would have been so loud and that garage door opening and closing, that's not quiet either. You know, something would have happened. Like, they would have heard it if that had happened. And so I don't think it did happen, but how did he get out of there? I already know where this is going. And in a interview with John Torres, the Florida State reporter, Sid told us what Bliss responded. Quote, that's easy. He didn't take that one. He took the spare in the back. End quote. Okay. So Palm Bay Fire Department had two fire captain's vehicles. One was diesel that was parked inside. That was the one that Randall drove around in. And one was gasoline that was parked outside. It was like a backup.

Outside of those differences and the numbers painted on them, the two vehicles were reportedly identical. All right. So Sid Liddo believes that when Randall was on the phone with Brandy, while she was at the Sonoco station, he was already outside taking that call. And then he hopped into the quieter gasoline vehicle already parked outside and drove to the Hess station where Brandy was waiting for him. Randall got out of his car and into Brandy's. She drove them down to the Home Depot parking lot where they sat and talked. And that's when Palm Bay officer Jasmine Campbell spotted them. Lidot theorizes that when they saw Campbell's police vehicle checking them out, Brandy and Randall got spooked and decided to move the party elsewhere

just over half a mile away at a secluded pond they had gone to before for a long time. Sid Lidot said that in many interviews he had conducted, he'd heard from a lot of people that Brandy and Randall had been arguing constantly for almost a week. Brandy was telling Randall to leave his wife, and he was saying he couldn't because they had three young children together. He and Anne-Marie were making good money. they had a really nice house and all of these things that would end up costing Randall financially and emotionally in a divorce.

Sid Ledot said, quote, it could be that Brandy lost her temper. Maybe she hit him a couple of times, could have pulled a gun on him. I don't know what happened. I just don't know what happened in that truck. If he pushed her or grabbed for the gun and hit her, with her head being like it was in the side of her face, it was probably pretty fragile. She could have hit something and broke something loose in her head because we know the blood came out of her head, logically, her nose or her mouth, because that's where the blood was on the

floorboard. You know, I have really looked at this thing for hours at a time. Was it an accident? Was it self-defense? Quite frankly, I don't know. End quote. Yeah, this all lines up. And it was something that I was questioning when you first mentioned it, because I know at our fire station, shout out Central Falls Fire Department, there was the main building and the supervisor's truck was in a separate bay. So if they have to go out, a lot of the times it takes the fire truck a little bit longer to get out and get on the road. And the supervisor vehicle is usually at the crime scene or at the fire scene before them and they're able to report back and say, hey, this is what we need? But what if that truck goes down? There was always a backup vehicle that was in our back building that they had

access to not only in case of an emergency, but let's say there was something blocked in the front bay. They had another. There was a redundancy there. And sometimes they, and they, they maintenance on the back vehicle, so it may just be there getting worked on. So my first thought was, well, usually they have additional SUVs in case one goes down. You have to have a truck. That was number one. Everything you just laid out, though, it makes total sense. And normally that's what happens when you have pieces of the puzzle, but not all of them. And that's what we have here. You're filling in some blanks, but what you just laid out gives you means, gives you motive, and opportunity. And I would imagine if I were working this case in the

was an ability to go back and look, this type of behavior where Randall would leave the station and sneak out to go meet up with Brandy, if this is in fact what happened that night, it wasn't the first time. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. Like, they went to the pond in Brandy's truck. So if something happened, which probably was unexpected, like I'm not saying, first of all, I'm not saying that Randall Richmond did this. No, we're speculating.

It's not looking good for Randall. Do I believe that it looks like that's what happened? Yes. Do the detectives who were on this case for years think that's what happened? Yeah. Yes. I'm not saying, but if I am saying that, I'm not saying this was premeditated, as in this was planned.

I don't think it was planned. I think that he wouldn't have gone there in her truck with her if it was planned. But at that point, when they're sitting at the pond, a conversation happens, it gets heated. It probably goes something like, you know, Jeff's going to go to prison tomorrow. We've been talking about you leaving your wife for years. Now's the time. I need a man in my life now to step up. And that needs to be you.

We've been together 10 years. You've been saying you're going to. You haven't done it. And now is the time because I need the man in my life to step up and help me with my home, with my children. Help me reach my goals. And I will help you reach your goals. But my husband's going away. And if not now, then when?

And he was like, you know, actually, like I know I said I probably would do that and I think about it. But I don't think I can do that. I can't do that to Ann Marie. I can't do that to kids. You know, he's, that's probably. what the conversation was kind of about where she got upset. She was like, how could you go back on what you said? It wasn't him going back on testifying for Jeff.

It was him going back on probably what they had promised to do because, I mean, 10 years is a long time to be kind of interacting with somebody intimately if there's no end game there. Yeah. Right. I agree. So then maybe she does pull a gun on him, right? She's angry. And we know Brandy was, she could hang with the best of the boys, right? She was tough.

She was strong. Well, we know she's a hothead. She called out Randall's wife, like in the middle of the public place. She's a hothead. Her calling out Randall's wife kind of shows she's like getting a little impatient with this whole charade that she thinks is happening. And she's under the impression that everyone knows about it. It's a foregone conclusion. So why are we pretending? I think she's also under the impression that Randall's going to leave his wife because why would she look at Anne-Marie? No, exactly. That's what I'm saying. She thought this was everyone was in on this. Because I think that's what Randall was telling Brandi. Like, yeah, Anne-Marie knows it's over.

but, you know, we just got to keep things going for the kids in the community. So she's looking at Amrini. She's like, this is my man now, right? Okay. So maybe she pulls a gun on him and then he gets scared. He tries to get the gun from her. Now, does it go off? Or like Sid LaDow said, does he take the gun and, like, hit her with it trying to, I don't know, like, what do you call it?

Just trying to incapacitate her so that she can't shoot him? I don't know. It's a lot of blood. It's a lot of blood for it to be just that. Let's go back just a couple steps here. When we're both saying, because I'm about to say the same thing, that I don't know if Randall killed her, but this is what I think we can conclude with a high degree of certainty. Randall met up with Brandy that night. And we're coming to that conclusion from a place of logic, right?

Reasonable deduction. There's only two vehicles in service at that time, at that fire department. One would be inside, which, according to impartial witnesses, didn't leave the station. The other one would be in the back of the station. Nobody can confirm that one. The uniqueness of this vehicle being specifically tied to that fire department makes it a high likelihood that that's the vehicle we're looking at. We're not talking about another red SUV. It's a fire chief's truck parked at this gas station just a few steps away from another vehicle that looks like Brandy's vehicle, right?

So it all lines up and Randall was working that night. There was phone calls going back and forth and to not just be redundant here. I think it's reasonable to assume that it was Randall with her at least at the Home Depot. Now, is there a possibility? She leaves him and something else transpires. Of course. I can't say that for certain. He may still be innocent where he's not acknowledging the meetup because he knows how bad it looks.

And yet he's still not responsible. However, then you got a factor in the motive and everything that was leading up to this. And I think what you said is a very strong possibility that there was a conversation on multiple occasions where the understanding was once Jeff went to prison, that was going to be our time. I'm no longer tied down. You've been telling me you were going to leave your wife. This is the time. And it makes even more sense when you consider the abruptness of Brandy leaving the fire station. She didn't tell the chief ahead of time.

I might have to leave early tonight. This wasn't some plan that they were going to get together that evening. Most of the time, they probably just talked to each other while they were both at work on their special phones, right? But something happened on this night where Brandy felt the need to go meet up with him in person. Yeah. So that's not for a good thing. Yeah.

That kind of made her feel like, okay, wait. Yeah. And let's be blunt. They've been having sex for 10 years. So it wasn't, oh, I need to have sex right now. It was something more than that. And so that would be over more than likely a disagreement. And so to think that a disagreement led to someone being hurt or killed, I think is a fair

assumption. As far as the actual injuries, to me, I would lean towards gunshot wound or stab wound when you consider the fact that our victim was in possession of a firearm. It could have been a couple things. It could have been her saying, I'm going to expose you. If you don't come out and say it yourself, he might have grabbed the gun off of her and shot her. It also could have been her taking the gun out and waving around, pointing it at him, him grabbing it, or maybe them fighting over it, and there being an accidental discharge.

We will never know because Randall hasn't been transparent. And I can say without a fact, like we don't know if he did it or what or what happened, but we can definitely say for a fact, he's not been honest. No. And the fact that the car was dumped in that river, again, that would be someone who has knowledge of that location and has more than likely been there before. Maybe only once or twice. I had said earlier, maybe they're not tied to it at all, but from what you're reporting, they were known to go to this location because it was secluded. Yeah, and the Palm Bay fired location there, they were known to draw water for their trucks from that pond. So I do have more questions, though, and I'm going to save them, but let's just say all of this up to this point.

They're at this pond. There's a shooting and Brandy's badly injured or killed in that moment. What happens from there? Does he leave that truck there with Bram? Andy, get back into his truck, go back to the station. That's what we were discussing. Yeah, so his truck is back at the Hust station. Yeah, so he's got to get back there. So I'll stop talking, but these are the thoughts that are running through my head because this first part makes sense, but how does everything else unfold according to the lead

investigators? So at this point, we have two potential suspects, right? Brandy's husband, Jeff Hall. And I think he's still in the game, yep, for sure. Who may have known about the affair between her and Randall and whose alibi was that he was at home, asleep with the kids who were five years old and 10 years old at the kids. time. And Randall Richmond, Brandy's long-term affair partner, who she was in constant contact with that day, who she talked to right before she went missing, who lied about his relationship with her,

and then claimed she had told him she was leaving, whatever that meant. Now, Jeff Hall was self-aware. He knew that the first suspect is usually the husband. He knew his alibi was pretty weak, so he agreed to take a polygraph test, which he passed except for one question. Do you know what happened to Brandy? Now, Jeff answered no, and the test showed deception. And Jeff later explained that it was because by then he already knew about the affair and he knew that Randall had lied to the police. So in his mind, he was thinking, yes, I do know what happened here. Yeah, Randall killed her. Yeah, but when he answered, he said, I didn't do anything to her and they told him that he needed to answer yes or no. So he said no. And then that came back as deception.

So the police and Sid Lidot decided to schedule another polygraph test and they asked that question a bit differently and then Jeff passed. Sid Lidot said, quote, he went on the polygraph twice, them. And then over a period of, say, a year or so, Doc and I observed him and would lay verbal traps to see what kind of an answer we got. And we decided that man could never have done that, end quote. I don't even know how it would play out with him because Brandy would have met up with Randall. Somehow Jeff would have found out about it. And he would have had to have intercepted her at this meetup pond location without Randall being aware of it. So at minimum, Randall should be able to say, yeah, I left because Jeff was blowing up her phone and was trying to track her down.

I got out of there before he arrived. But there's none of that. So how would Jeff intercept her without Randall being aware of it? And we know Jeff wasn't blowing up her phone. He wasn't. Exactly. So, I mean, you could make the, you could pose. Or Jeff went to the fire station, stole the vehicle.

Yeah. Yeah. Posed as Randall. No, what I'm saying, Randall could have taken, like the meetup could all be true. But if somehow Jeff learned that they were meeting. up that night that maybe from some insider at the fire station like, hey, Brandy just left and said she's coming home. Is she home with you? No, she's not. She's not. She's at the pond. So he knows that she's out there somewhere and he could have, but if he shows up to the pond, he's going to show up

and see who? Randall. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And that's why Randall would say at that point, yeah, he showed up. I got out of there. She's dead. Never said that. No. And I mean, Listen, like, Jeff Hall is a lot of things. Got into the marijuana business. Maybe he wasn't thinking about his family, got into this trouble. But at this point, what kind of cold-ass person would you have to be to know you're about to go to prison and your kids are going to lose their father for an indetermined amount of time? And you're going to kill their mother before you do.

Can I throw one more thing at you that's just running through my mind here? I know what the detectives are saying as far as Jeff's not a viable suspect. They know more about the case than me. I'm just sitting here listening to it. But what about the scenario of, I'm not leaning this way, but what about the scenario of they meet up, somehow Jeff knows about it, Brandy eventually goes home after meeting up with Randall, and before she even gets out of the car, something happens where Jeff's waiting for her. He could have dumped the car back at the pond to incriminate Randall. Again, I'm speculating here. If he knew about the pond.

He knew about the pond. I said he didn't know about the pond. How do we know? We don't know that Jeff knew about that. Well, that's what I'm saying. This is a lot of just what ifs. I acknowledge that. I'm just trying to cover all our bases.

If he was more in on what was going on than we know, I don't know how he would, but stranger things have happened, where he knew that she was out meeting up with Randall at the pond at that moment. She comes home. He confronts her. He kills her, brings the car back there,

dumps it to set up Randall. Yeah, I guess. Do I think that's what happened? I'm going to put it out there. I don't. But I feel that Randall has more of a motive than Jeff at his point. A hundred percent agree. She's his character witness for the morning.

She's his character witness for the morning and she's the one who's going to continue caring for his children while he's locked up. But what if, oh, my God, I'm getting crazy here. But what if he's in on it and he knows that, oh, they're going to be together when I'm going to prison for this? Not happening. Not happening. They think that this is going to be the start of a new relationship? I don't think so. Kids will figure it out.

They're better off without her. I don't know. I kind of feel like Brandy was the only person that thought Randall was going to leave his wife for her. No, I agree. I think Randall's looking really bad here. But we do know from Jeff's statement to Randall, yeah, the judge has already made up his mind anyways. Yeah. Like he was going to serve time.

He knew that. Yeah. But I'm with you. I think it looks, if you're making me choose, Randall's not looking good here. Yeah. So Detective Mike Pousetary, we talked about him recently. He's the one that was with Officer Campbell. And she was like, whatever happened to that tip?

And he's like, well, the hell? That's crazy. That's just crazy. So he was an active police officer on Brandy's case. He said the same thing about Jeff. He said Jeff was eventually sentenced to 18 months in prison for his drug charges. And when Jeff got out, he was finally able to talk to the police. And Pousetieri said that when he went to meet with Jeff, Jeff was relieved.

And he was like, oh, my God, thank God. I finally get to talk to you. I can tell you everything. And Detective Pousetary said, quote, Jeff's behavior was consistent with someone who is not involved with her disappearance. And quote. And he's referring to behavior that happened on August 18th when Jeff could not get a hold of Brandy and he called her parents and friends repeatedly,

trying to find out if anyone knew where she would. was or if anyone I talked to her. Detective Pousetari said, Randall never calling Brandy again after August 17th was so suspicious. But Jeff calling so many people so many times was not suspicious. Pusetary said, I've seen, you know, people call, you know, after trying to find someone who they genuinely think is missing. And I've seen someone call, not call someone who they aren't calling because they know they're not missing. They know exactly where they are. And that's what was happening with Randall. So basically, Detective Pousetary is also kind of pointing over to Randall Richmond. Yeah, I agree. I've seen it both ways. We covered Robin Pope, where we had someone there, Wayne Pope,

who was making calls frantically looking for, and I believe he knows more than he's told law enforcement up to this day. So it is tough. It all depends on how the person is, but I do think, and I agree with the detectives on this one, not calling her at all after the fact is it just doesn't align with your previous behavior. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it doesn't align with you being with somebody, even if they're like a friend of yours. And then that person goes missing. Yeah. And you just never call them again. So Randall Richmond was also asked to take a polygraph by agent Wayne Ivy in 2007. And Randall told Ivy that he didn't kill Brandy and that he had no reason to kill her. And Ivy said, well, one of the tools we use to kind of rule people of interest out is a polygraph. Now Randall said, I already took a polygraph. And Wayne Ivy said, no, you didn't. You took a voice stress analysis. And this was true. Randall had taken a voice stress test. And according to Sid Lidot, he failed miserably. Now, we don't take any stock or put much stock into polygraphs or... Yeah, they're a tool, but they're not a guarantee. Yeah. But the theory with the voice stress thing is that when people experience stress, especially the kind of stress that comes from lying, their vocal cords

produce involuntary micro tremors in a frequency range of roughly 8 to 12 hertz that human ears can't detect, but software can. So in a relaxed voice, those micro tremors are present and regular, and in a stressed voice, the theory says they get suppressed or distorted. So the software charts those patterns and it flags which answers the subject was, you know, quote unquote stressed on. VSAs aren't admissible in court, and the scientific literature is not kind to them. In the most cited studies, including a major one funded by the National Institute of Justice, they have found that VSA, the voice stress analysis, performs at or near chance levels when it comes to actually detecting deception. So some studies put accuracy

in the 40 to 60 percent range, which once again, that's essentially a coin flip. In investigation, you said, functions like you said, more as an interrogation aid than a fact-finding instrument. So a Failed VSA won't put anyone in prison, but it can move the investigation forward either by producing a confession, by justifying continued focus on a suspect or by giving detectives a read on which parts of a story the subject seems least comfortable talking about. The three questions Randall showed stress on were, do you know who killed Brandy? Did you kill Brandy? Do you suspect anyone of killing Brandy? So after he took the VSA, Randall was told about the blood found in Brandy's truck and he again started to cry. And according to those present, at this time, his wife, Anne-Marie, was blowing his phone up, calling repeatedly.

And these were calls he did not answer. So something's going on there. Now, maybe some of these puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place. But over the next few years, Brandy's belongings began to surface. And what was found amongst those and where they were found will deepen the mystery of this already very convoluted case. And we'll talk about that in our next and final episode of the Brandy Hall case. Yeah, and I definitely have questions. Obviously, some years have passed, which is unfortunate,

but I would have loved to know this information that Officer Campbell had relayed to her supervisor because at the time, you could have gone back, seized that vehicle, and it would be my belief that if that was the vehicle being operated by Randall after he killed her, there would be some DNA evidence in his vehicle in that truck at one point. Not five years later, though. With all the blood that was found in her truck, it would be safe to assume that some of the blood spatter would have been on him as well. And you would have been able to find traces of that under a crime scene analysis. But all those years later, you can't.

Although I don't know where that truck is right now. We're talking 2006. So I'm living in Kuku World right now. But if that truck was still in existence somewhere, who knows? We've talked about this in other cases where you can find DNA evidence that's been preserved accidentally, right, in the seam of a cowgirl. or in the seam of a backseat of the truck or in one of the panels where you can unscrew it and find remnants of the blood that was left behind in one of the panels of the car because even though they did a thorough cleaning of the exterior, I should say the interior of the exterior,

they didn't actually dismantle the car to clean behind it. Yeah, but wouldn't you need a warrant for that? And five years on with what information they had, especially with Officer Jasmine Campbell's statement not being on the record, wouldn't that be hard? wouldn't that be hard to even get a warrant to look at a vehicle like that five years after with no official statement? I don't think it would be hard and I'll tell you why. Because I would go over there as the chief of the police and go over to the chief of the fire department and say, hey, we work together. I'd like a consent to search.

There's nothing to hide. You guys want what we want, right? We want to find out what happened to Brandy. Would you give us a consent to search? Why would they say no? If they even had that vehicle anymore. Well, that's the thing. I'm answering your question.

if they have the vehicle and it's sitting in the back lot, I don't think if there's a working relationship, which in most departments there are, you would say no. Now, if they were asking Randall for that consent to search, that might be a no-go, but you have to understand, too, they don't own, the firefighters don't own that property.

The municipality does. So if you go to the mayor and say, hey, we would like a consent to search for this vehicle, they're going to give it to you. There's no reason not to. So unfortunately, that again is fantasy world. The car was probably no longer around, God knows what happened to it.

And then you run into chain of custody issues, right? Now there could be DNA in there from someone else and when was it there? How long had it been there? Is it in fact, Randy's a lot of questions come into play. I mean, I would say the working relationship between the police department and the fire department is why that report never made it into any official capacity to begin with. That's a whole other can of worms. I don't understand that. I don't understand that for the life of me why that wouldn't have got in there.

But on the surface, Jeff and Randall right now, they're your primary persons of interest with it heavily being favored in Randall's direction. Again, he had means motive opportunity. And if you could have proven that he had left that fire department that night and he lied about it, that would just be another feather in the cap of he's got something to hide. And yet here we are. Guys, just kind of wrap this up. I wanted to bring everyone back to this because we haven't been talking about criminal coffee a lot. But I wanted to make sure that we keep you guys up to date on it because you're the ones buying the coffee you deserve to know.

We are trying to get two cases funded right now. I'm in the middle of working with the organizations on it. We're also working with the police departments. And it's kind of been an uphill battle, which it has been every time. We've tried to work a case. But in the meantime, because we want to make sure that we're out there making a difference, using your money for good causes. We've been donating to some different foundations. I just wanted to read off a couple of them.

So you know where the money's going. We're talking about the Higher Hope Foundation. We're talking about the Gabby Petito Foundation. We're talking about Mr. Ballin Foundation, Elizabeth Smart Foundation. We had talked to Elizabeth after we stopped recording and told her we wanted to donate to her organization, seasons of justice as well. So if you go on the Criminal Coffee website, we will be constantly updating this. So in between working cases, which can take a long period of time, we want to also donate to organizations that are out there helping solve cases but also supporting the. victims that have been affected by it. So thank you again for all your support on criminal coffee.

We don't talk about it enough. We're trying to make it focused on these cases. But if you'd like to go check it out and get an update on it, you can always go over to criminal coffeecofco.com. As always, guys, we appreciate you being here, the love, the support. We're going to continue covering this case. We'll be back next week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon. Bye.