Crime Weekly - S3 Ep161: Crime Weekly News: Missing Woman's Family Scammed Via Cashapp!

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

21 year-old Layla Santanello went missing from Kingsport, TN on June 27, 2023. She was last seen near East Stone Commons Shopping center in a disheveled state. If you have ANY information, please cont...act the Kingsport Police at 423-229-9429, or send a text to the anonymous tipline at 423-212-5804. You may also visit the family's GoFundMe for more information or to help. Layla Santanello GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/has-anyone-seen-layla Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And we got a new episode of Crime Weekly News this week. Real quick, thank you to everyone who checked out the Albert Frost episode. The comments, both in the section on YouTube and also on audio and then also on Instagram and all the other social media platforms. It's been overwhelming. We're happy to see that so many people are embracing this for what it is. And it's a community of people helping to solve cases through coffee which is pretty cool um so i appreciate that and we appreciate all the influx
Starting point is 00:00:50 of sales we've had since that episode dropped it's been overwhelming literally mike is here right now packing orders as we speak just to make sure we get them out to you guys on time so thank you very much for that yes it's awesome derek's been very excited and he keeps letting me know and then I get excited. And we're even getting more local deliveries, right? We are getting more local deliveries. And there's been a couple of questions you guys have had. One being, do we offer gift cards? Yes. If you go on the website, we have now activated gift cards. They're digital gift cards. So the minute you buy them, you'll get a code and you can send that to anyone you want. You can print out the picture of the criminal coffee gift card if you want. You can send that as well if you want to put it in like a physical card.
Starting point is 00:01:34 We do $25, $50, $75, and $100. And the same algorithm we're doing as far as each bag sold, there's a percentage donated. The same thing goes for every $16 on that gift card. That's how we're breaking it down the same way. So a portion of the proceeds from the gift cards will go as well. And then the only other big question I've been getting since the Albert Frost episode has been, Hey, I want to support you guys. Um, do you guys have decaf though? I don't drink regular coffee decaf is coming we already picked the character we're not going to tell you who it is um but it's going to be quarter one of 2024 it's coming but we are currently working on it and it will be out very soon yes we're excited
Starting point is 00:02:17 about that i'm not super excited about decaf because i don't drink decaf coffee but we get a lot of we get a lot of messages about it. I know, I'm surprised. A lot of messages. A lot of people with like heart conditions or whatever it might be. So listen, there's a market for it and clearly there is.
Starting point is 00:02:34 Decaf coffee is a little bit more expensive to make. That's where it comes for us. It's gonna be a logistical thing we have to figure out, but that's our problem to figure out. So you guys don't worry about that. It'll be coming very soon. Yeah. I always wondered like how, if you have like a really bad aversion of caffeine and you go to a restaurant and you order a decaf, how do you know you're getting decaf? I would be so paranoid. That's a great
Starting point is 00:02:55 point. I have no clue. There, there, there was multiple times when I was serving tables or sometimes I'd be like, wait, which one was this decaf or regular? And I would just guess. I guess they got to trust us, right? They just gotta trust that we're not just throwing some alias blend into a decaf bag and calling it decaf. Calling it decaf. I mean, listen, I wouldn't be surprised if that's happened before. Not maybe intentionally, but I'm sure, I mean, listen.
Starting point is 00:03:18 I definitely dosed some people on accident. Oh, God. Don't worry, guys. Stephanie's not packing our orders. No, I'm not serving tables anymore. We're good. We're good. All right, Don't worry guys. Stephanie's not packing our orders. No, I'm not serving tables anymore. We're good. We're good. All right. So thank you again with that out of the way. Obviously we're going to talk about what we're here for this week for crime weekly news. Sad story. I've never heard this case before. I was just reading the first paragraph of the script.
Starting point is 00:03:38 I'll read it to you and then we can get into it with Stephanie. She can fill us in on all the details. So here we go. 20 year old Layla Santanello was last seen in her hometown of Kingstown, Tennessee at an ice cream shop on North Eastman Road on June 27th, 2023. She was reportedly barefoot in a state of apparent distress. Layla asked to borrow the cell phone of a coworker in the ice cream shop before leaving, claiming she was going across the street to Five Below to buy a pair of shoes. After this, she was never seen again.
Starting point is 00:04:10 Tragic story. I definitely want to know more of the details, Stephanie. So this case, I'd never heard about it before either. It was actually suggested to me in the comment section of a different video on my channel. Okay. And the person who suggested it is Cass90933 and they wanted to know if we could raise awareness for leila's disappearance specifically she said can you and derek talk about this since leila's mother jennifer has been desperately looking for her for make sure make
Starting point is 00:04:37 sure that everyone shares this so they hear that we covered it yeah and and some odd things have happened in this case so three days before leila went missing, Jennifer, her mother, had received a message from Layla's boyfriend via Layla's Facebook account. This message asked, hey, I cannot find Layla. Is she in jail or in the hospital? Apparently, he didn't know where she was. Now, later that same night, Layla messaged her mother, Jennifer, from that same Facebook account saying, I'm fine. I've been with a friend, but I haven't had a phone to text or call. And I saw the text message exchange and Jennifer was like, why would he think you were in jail? And Layla was like, I have no
Starting point is 00:05:17 idea, you know, but just kind of didn't say anything else. She was just like, I'm fine. Don't worry. They exchanged I love you's. And then that was it. Now, according to Jennifer Santanello, Layla's mother, Layla and her boyfriend had had a falling out and Layla had been staying with a friend for a few nights before checking into the AmeriCorp motel on June 25th. Witnesses told Jennifer that when Layla arrived at the motel, she looked disheveled and appeared to be paranoid. They said it was as if she was trying to hide in the shadows.
Starting point is 00:05:49 On June 26th, other guests at the motel saw Jennifer going door to door, wearing a white tank top, black leggings, but no shoes. Jennifer said, quote, there was some kind of commotion happening in another part of the hotel, and the people that were outside that night saw her just kind of freak out and take off across the parking lot into the woods behind the motel. She apparently stayed in those woods until the morning. When she got up, she was seen coming across the field next to a warehouse where one man said it looked as if she was trying to find something in the grass. She asked someone for a cigarette, but they didn't smoke, and then she took off in the direction of the Kingsport Greenbelt Trail. And this is the part that really gets me. So if anyone saw her that morning,
Starting point is 00:06:29 please come forward, end quote. So we know that Layla left this motel. And then after that, around noon, an employee at the Marble Slab, which is an ice cream shop, they found Layla on the back patio sitting under an umbrella at one of the tables. At this point, Layla looked disheveled, distressed, and distraught, so this employee gave her some ice cream and they chatted for a bit. Layla told this employee that she was going to Five Below to buy shoes, but she never made it. After leaving the ice cream shop, Layla's trail went completely cold. Now, Jennifer says that obviously none of this makes sense. Layla's never been afraid of anything. She's personally never seen her daughter in this state of like distress and paranoia that witnesses had described Layla being in.
Starting point is 00:07:12 And Jennifer said that the thought of Layla sleeping in a field all night breaks her heart. It's just out of character. She had a motel room. Why didn't she feel comfortable sleeping in that motel room? Why would you choose and opt to sleep in a field behind the motel? And then about two weeks after Layla had gone missing, Jennifer started getting these strange cash app requests from Layla's account. A request for $100 came through with the subject line reading TWLMG. And within minutes, several more requests with that same subject line popped up over and over again until Jennifer responded. She sent $1 to Layla, or at least to Layla's Cash App account,
Starting point is 00:07:48 and she asked in the subject line, is Layla alive? Now, Jennifer believed that the letters TWLMG were an acronym for they won't let me go, and this led her to believe that her daughter was being held by someone. So Jennifer contacted the police and started questioning whoever was sending the Cash App requests. She said, quote, at some point I started asking, what's your brother's name? What's your baby brother's birthday? And other specific questions like that, that only she would know, but this person just ignored me. And I thought, no, something's wrong here. But then periodically throughout the next several weeks, they kept coming in and the requests got
Starting point is 00:08:23 more and more threatening, end quote. Jennifer specifically referred to a Cash App request for $95 that said in the subject line, quote, for 15 minutes or you'll find her in pieces, end quote. Jennifer said that they started getting very specific about what they were going to do to Layla. But every time Jennifer wanted to ask a question, she had to send a dollar. And she was like, in the end, I feel like I just ended up sending them all the money they wanted anyways, because I had to send a dollar
Starting point is 00:08:49 every time they asked a question. And half of these questions they're ignoring and not answering. So eventually law enforcement was able to find out who was sending the messages. And according to Jennifer, it had been part of some hoax acted out by Layla's friends. I'm using that term loosely, obviously, because
Starting point is 00:09:05 why would friends do that? And they were attempting to profit from her disappearance. These people did not have Layla's phone. They just had access to her Cash App account. What this did tell Jennifer, though, was that maybe her daughter had not been associating with the best types of people recently. Because during the past several months, Jennifer had noticed that Layla was becoming more withdrawn, more isolated from everyone, like her friends and her family, except for her boyfriend, who she kind of became like attached at the hip with. And she would start hanging out with his friends and stuff. Now, Jennifer says, I don't think Layla ran away. I don't think she's gone of her own volition. She had run away once when she was a teenager, but
Starting point is 00:09:43 she was just gone for a few days. It was typical teenage rebellion. I think we've all done it once or twice or at least thought of it. But otherwise, other than Layla running away, Jennifer is concerned about other things because she truly doesn't believe that Layla ran away. One of the things that Jennifer is concerned about is that Layla may have fallen victim to a human trafficker or a serial killer because another young woman, 19-year-old Holly Lynn Snapp, vanished in Kingsport just two and a half miles from where Layla was last seen on October 15th, so a couple months after Layla went missing. Now, Jennifer and Holly Lynn's mother, Heather, believe that these two cases may be connected. Both Holly Lynn and Layla are shorter. They're both under five feet. They have similar builds
Starting point is 00:10:25 and they kind of have this childlike appearance where if you look at them at first glance, they'd seem to be much younger than they are. The two women also happen to be part of the same social circles and they knew many of the same people. But Jennifer also wonders and worries if maybe Layla had some sort of mental break,
Starting point is 00:10:42 saying, quote, I sometimes wonder if she had some kind of psychotic break or if she was struggling with something mental health wise. My father passed away two years earlier and my dad was a very stable figure in her life. They were incredibly close. Losing him broke her and she had just had a baby at the time, Nova Grace, who was only three months old then and she was already struggling from postpartum depression. She's right around the age that if something was affecting her, a deep mental illness, that would start to show through now. And that's where my mind goes when I think about how people described how she was acting, end quote. So I'm going to tell you guys, once we finish discussing this, how you can help because both of these girls, Layla and Holly Lynn, are still missing, right? So nobody knows where they are. And I would say that they are part of this very vulnerable population, young women. I don't
Starting point is 00:11:30 believe that Layla's been using her phone. And that's going to bring me to another question is where is her phone? When she had messaged her mother on Facebook a few weeks before she went missing, she was like, I don't have a phone. And then she had to ask that ice cream shop employee to use their phone. Where is Layla's cell phone? What happened to it, right? Where is it at? So that is a good question. After we discuss this, I will let you guys know how to reach the Kingsport Police Department.
Starting point is 00:11:55 If you have any information, please keep your eye out for both of these young women. And if you see something, say something. If you know something, call it in. You can call anonymously, but we need to figure out what happened to these two young women. Completely agree. And I don't think Layla's mother, I'm sure she'd be happy with the fact that we're covering this and that it's going to get exposed to the people that listen or watch us. But I think she'd also love to hear our opinion on it, especially coming from our backgrounds,
Starting point is 00:12:22 knowing what we've done. So I want to give that to her. And again, this is coming from a place where I didn't even know about this case until you just gave me the footnotes on it. So just keep that in mind. I don't have access to the actual folder here where I'm getting all the specifics and some of the things that I may suggest or may indicate may not be accurate if I had the whole case file. But with that being said, we'll take a shot at it. First off, just clarification. When you said at the beginning of this, you said that at first Layla's mother received a message from Layla's boyfriend at the time saying, you know, where's Layla?
Starting point is 00:12:53 Haven't seen her lately. But then you said Layla reached out to her from the same account. Are we to believe under the boyfriend's Facebook page? It was Layla's Facebook page that he had reached out to Jennifer through. Okay, so he was under her Facebook account and he reached out to her saying, hey, this isn't Layla. This is her boyfriend,
Starting point is 00:13:12 but I'm under her Facebook page. Okay, so that raises some flags right there for me because him having access to that means that he either had her phone or at least had username and password. You know, maybe I'm from a different school of thought. Or maybe they had like a computer at home that was signed into her Facebook,
Starting point is 00:13:28 like because they live together and maybe he could just- Maybe, maybe. And I mean, that's given him the benefit of the doubt. It sounds more like he had access to something he probably shouldn't have had access to. Maybe her phone. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:13:38 That's where I'm going with this. Like, could he have had her phone? And then, you know, what's interesting is you say that a couple of days later, Layla reached out to her from that same account saying, I'm okay, everything's fine. Well, my question to you and everybody else listening is how do we know that was Layla? Well, we don't. We don't.
Starting point is 00:13:55 But she still was seen after that point. She was seen after that, which I have no doubt. Yeah. No doubt about it whatsoever. We have multiple sightings of her. But my question becomes, and again, it could be completely exactly the way it looks. Is this the boyfriend reaching out and saying that to make sure that her family members and friends aren't looking for her, aren't worried about her because she's telling them she's okay. Just, you know, it wasn't a FaceTime. It wasn't a phone call. It wasn't in person. So you have to approach that message with some level of skepticism. Doesn't mean there's anything there, but it's something to think about. Okay. So some of the things you, and I apologize, my voice is trashed tonight.
Starting point is 00:14:32 I don't feel good. So you just got to deal with it. I'm sorry if you're listening to the audio. Few things here. And I'm glad that Leila's mother brought it up. It does sound on the surface like there could have been some type of mental breakdown. Some of the behaviors that are being described are not normal, especially from what she's told us about Layla in the past. So it could either be some type of mental break or it could be under the influence of some type of drug as well.
Starting point is 00:14:58 Some type of substance that's changing her brain chemical makeup where it's causing her to act out. She's obviously anxious over something, maybe seeing things that aren't there, et cetera. So there's a lot of different behaviors that are being displayed that seem out of character from the people that know her. So that's my first question. Why was she acting this way? Was she staying in the field when she had a hotel room or a motel room because she wasn't in the right state of mind? Or was she staying in the field because there was someone else in that room that she didn't feel comfortable around, that she didn't feel safe with? That is also a possibility. But walking around with no
Starting point is 00:15:34 shoes, eating ice cream from straight, there's something going on there. And I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying that, but there's a couple of things that could happen here. First, as an investigator, we have to get to the boyfriend. We have to get to his associates and police officers and detectives have to interrogate them to the fullest capacity. They were the last people to be seen with them. They are the people that she was hanging out with at the time around of her disappearance. And more than likely, if anyone knows what happened to her, it's one of them. And it's possible that one of them are involved. Again, especially considering that other missing girl, Holly Lynn, ran in the same circle.
Starting point is 00:16:13 Exactly. So this could all tie into one specific person or group of people. And that's where my head goes. Now, I have to disqualify it and say, is it possible that based on her behavior leading up to her disappearance, someone who was looking for these serial killers, they don't necessarily have a person in mind. They have a type of person in mind. So when they see someone that fits the role of who they see as susceptible to an abduction, they become a victim of opportunity. So it could be a situation where
Starting point is 00:16:45 she put herself in an environment where someone who had nefarious intentions took advantage of that by presenting themselves as someone who could help her. Hey, I have a phone. I have a place you could stay. I have money, whatever it might be to get her to go with them. Yes, of course, that's a possibility and something that needs to be explored. But my first thing I'm doing is I'm vetting all the friends that she was associating with, especially, especially these ones that were trying to get money out of her, out of her mother. Because again, I'm not no, I don't know if I buy the whole, we were just trying to get money. There could be more to that story. But I'm hoping. Well, apparently the police checked their house and they didn't find any like sign of leila and stuff
Starting point is 00:17:26 so that's a start but doesn't mean regardless like what kind of scumbag and it doesn't mean she wasn't somewhere else like why would they be sending those for weeks not knowing if leila could stroll back in at any time and they're still sending these cash app requests a hundred percent and there's one more scenario i want to give because it's also not good, but the best scenario out of the three. Okay. Best scenario is Layla is going through some type of mental health struggle. She's being influenced by the wrong people. And this is an attempt to get money out of her friends and family. The more time that passes, the less likely that is the case. But for me personally- Well, it's been five, six months. It's not good.
Starting point is 00:18:07 That's what I'm saying. It's not good. But it's one of those situations where I'm sure as a father myself, that if that turned out to be the case, obviously her mother would be very upset. But the fact that she'd still be here, and you said she had a daughter as well? Yeah. I think she's two or three. So, I mean, that's two or three. she's somewhere with people who maybe have wrong intentions or if she's being held somewhere against her will it's it's by people that are not treating her poorly and eventually they'll let her
Starting point is 00:18:50 come home but it doesn't sound like there's been any more requests for money or anything recently right well no because they caught them yeah so those people are out of the loop so i don't know that's where i'm going to me the things that led up to it the days in advance knowing there were some struggles there knowing the type of people she was hanging out with, knowing that her behavior could be suggestive that she was taking something that wasn't necessarily the best for her, all this could play into this equation. And if they haven't done it already, which I'm hoping they have, a detective should be all over the asses of the boyfriend and his counterparts.
Starting point is 00:19:29 Obviously, the first time when I heard this boyfriend's reaching out and saying like, oh, where's Layla? Is she in jail or in the hospital? I'm immediately suspicious of this person. And then when I find out, oh, they've had a falling out, Layla staying somewhere else, I became more suspicious. Then when I hear these people that are trying to get money out of Layla, it wasn't directly said, but basically the mom, Jennifer said she started hanging out with like a group of people and she was isolating herself from like her old friends and her family and hanging
Starting point is 00:19:54 out with her boyfriend and like his friends. I'm going to put two and two together and say like that group of people that's like trying to extort her through cash app, probably known to be boyfriend. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. So a duck so all of this stuff is happening and now i'm thinking okay leila got away she's staying with a friend maybe no one's gonna bug her there but now she's staying in a motel she's by herself and maybe he or his friends are going there trying to intimidate her trying to scare her even messing with her doing weird things just to try to scare her. And that's why she like ran away and slept in the field because she didn't feel safe being there. It is obviously not anything I know,
Starting point is 00:20:31 but allegedly, in my opinion, it looks like the boyfriend is involved somehow. Okay. Just in my opinion. Now I give Jennifer a huge amount of credit for even coming out and saying something a lot of parents in these situations don't usually feel comfortable saying. This could be a mental health issue. We see that all the time, right, where these people are acting strangely, acting out of character, and then the parents are like, no, absolutely not. They've never had any mental health issues. There's no possible way. Something nefarious happened here.
Starting point is 00:20:58 Jennifer is saying straight on. It sounds like she's done her homework. This would be the age where if there was something underlying, something kind of waiting dormant, it would pop out now. It seems like she's done her homework, this would be the age where if there was something underlying, something kind of waiting dormant, it would pop out now. It seems like she's done her research. She's talking about this from an educated point of view. And she's also accepting it as a potential possibility, which means to me
Starting point is 00:21:13 that she truly just wants to find her daughter and she doesn't care what it looks like at this point. However, I will also say that that other young woman, Holly Lynn, going missing just a couple months later, that is very suspicious. That is very suspicious. And I think that the police, the law enforcement agency in the Kingsport Police Department, they once again are not commenting. They're not saying anything. It's
Starting point is 00:21:34 fairly, I wouldn't say it's fairly new because it's been months, but they aren't really talking about anything. But I want to know, who did she call when she went to the ice cream shop and asked to borrow that person's cell phone? Who did she call? That is what I want to know. I, because it happened right before she vanished, right? So maybe she told this, this employee, I'm going over to five below to buy shoes. Cause I'm sure the employee was like, oh, hey, you know, do you need shoes? Can I help you? And she was probably like, oh, no, don't worry. I'm going to go and get some. But instead, when she used the person's cell phone,
Starting point is 00:22:08 she called and said, hey, can you pick me up? I need a ride. And so she never even ended up going to Five Below because she was never planning to because she was getting a ride from somebody. Who did she call? To me, that's the linchpin there and kind of this big unknown. And I feel like if we knew who she had called,
Starting point is 00:22:23 which the police, I think, most likely do, maybe things would be a little bit easier. Well, it's the first breadcrumb, right? I would think so, yeah. It's the first breadcrumb to try to retrace her steps. I agree with you. Yeah, I agree. I think you're right on. And the mom has, Jennifer said multiple times, she had been pulling herself away for multiple months now.
Starting point is 00:22:42 And she had struggled with postpartum. And the fact that she's being, I love when parents are open about that because it gives investigators the full perspective, not saying they're going to investigate it any differently, but by being accurate with what transpired prior to the disappearance. And instead of trying to paint them as like this perfect person, because here's, surprise, nobody is, right? So by doing that, it allows them to develop a better assessment of what happened here. And it still doesn't mean she wasn't taken advantage of by people she knew, but it is important to have all the right facts. Yeah. I'm really, oh, I feel terrible about this
Starting point is 00:23:20 because I agree. I think Jennifer Santonello is being as upfront, transparent, and open as possible because at the end of the day, she just wants to find Layla. So she feels like, I'm going to put it all out there on the table. I'm not going to try to make it seem like Layla is this perfect, like, oh, I never do anything wrong. I've never run away, you know, kind of person. This is what it is. This is what it looks like. And more information will help people find her sooner. But yes, this young woman has left a daughter behind. I would also say that she probably didn't go missing of her own volition, from what I can tell. And there's always the option that she's involved with drugs, right? If it's not a mental health break, the way she was acting would be consistent with
Starting point is 00:24:02 being on some sort of substance, maybe a psychedelic of some sort. You're seeing things, you're scared, you run trying to get away from it. And how deep does that go? What's the deal with that? It could be a situation that she had an accident, just to throw it out there. We're putting out all the, because we got, everything's on the table right now, right? If she's under the influence of something or, or just not in the right mind state, we already know she slept out in the field one night. Did she go out somewhere in the middle of the night where she couldn't see that well and she tripped or fell or something injured herself and was unable to get back before, you know, before she expired, could she still be out there?
Starting point is 00:24:41 I mean, if it's been six months and she got injured out there, more than likely she would no longer be with us. But we do know that she was in a field. So is it out of the realm of possibility that she went somewhere and was injured while out there? It's possible. Not likely, not at the top of my list, but it is something that we have to cross off. That involves rescue efforts being done out in that community to grid search that area
Starting point is 00:25:04 to rule that out as a possibility. And they are doing searches, but I'm going to link in the description box a GoFundMe for Layla. They said that they're ready and willing to do anything that it takes to bring Layla Santanello home. Layla is a white female, 4'10", weighing 115 pounds. She's very petite. Her hair color was bleach blonde with the dark roots at the time of her disappearance. Like I said, last seen wearing black leggings, white tank top. She was barefoot. She has multiple tattoos.
Starting point is 00:25:35 Most noticeable are the Roman numerals on her collarbone and her daughter's name, Nova Grace, written beautifully down her left forearm. I'm going to link the GoFundMe in the description box, and we're going to have Shannon put all of this information right here up on the screen. If you've seen or heard anything at all regarding this case or the case of the other young woman that went missing, please contact the Kingsport Police Department by calling 423-229-9429 or call or text the anonymous tip line. And that's going to be 423-212-5804. They said, we will not stop until we find Layla and bring her home.
Starting point is 00:26:15 Our family and all of our friends are so deeply grateful and truly appreciate all the support and kindness already shown. As of now, I'm really surprised. This case has not gotten a ton of exposure. So I'm really glad we're covering it. Thank you so much to the person who recommended it, but they have a $50,000 goal and they've only raised a little bit over five grand. Yeah, let's get that higher. Let's get that higher, yeah. One thing to witnesses out there, because I think this goes, it should be
Starting point is 00:26:40 obvious, but it is a lot of times as a detective, I'll ask these questions and like, oh, I didn't get that. If you happen to see Lila, right. And you don't feel comfortable approaching her because she's with someone else or whatever. That's okay. Get a description of her, obviously. But if there's a vehicle, get a description of the vehicle, get the license plate. If you can, that's number one, get a description of any of the people she's with, because she may take off, but you may see the gentleman or woman that she's with. And there may be something specific about them, like a tattoo or a scar that means absolutely nothing to you. But the minute you say that to a detective who's
Starting point is 00:27:15 interviewed her friends and family members, that may identify someone immediately. So no detail is too small. So play detective in that moment, be a good witness. As soon as you see those things, write them down, write them down on your hand because you might you might think you're going to remember it as time passes. You will forget. So colors of vehicles, registration plates, distinguishing marks on the car or the people she's with. All that matters. Be a sponge.
Starting point is 00:27:43 Take in as much as you can. Every little detail can help solve the case. Yeah, I feel really bad about this. I hate this, actually. Why do you think I hate doing detective perspective? Just not knowing what's happening out there to this young person and knowing even the mental state that she was in. If it wasn't a mental break, if it wasn't drugs, she was truly terrified, right? That's the other option. And so any of those things is bad and she needs help. She needs support and we need to find her. So please, please, please keep your eyes out. Check out
Starting point is 00:28:16 the GoFundMe, support this family, support Jennifer. If all you can do is just send her a message of hope and prayer and positivity. Do that. But yeah, we'll do what we can. Thoughts are with you, Jennifer, and the rest of your family. Anything else? Final words from you? That's it? No.
Starting point is 00:28:34 All right. We're going to wrap it up. That does it for here for us on Crime Weekly News. We appreciate you being here. Stay tuned. Later in this week, we will be releasing the audio version of Maya Kowalski's, I believe, part three. It's the last part, right?
Starting point is 00:28:45 Yes. Yep. Last part of Maya Kowalski on audio. And then on Sunday, the YouTube version will come out. Everyone, stay safe out there. We'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.