Criminal - Shadowing Sheila

Episode Date: April 20, 2018

SPOILER WARNING: Please listen to our first episode about Sheila, Episode 88: Cold Case, before you listen to this one.  This episode contains descriptions of violence and may not be suitable for everyone. Sheila Wysocki became a private investigator to try to help solve the murder of her college roommate, Angela Samota. She wasn't planning on taking any other cases, but then the letters started coming. This week, we shadow Sheila and her colleagues as she investigates the unsolved murder of Lauren Agee. Phoebe has made a list of some of her favorite podcast episodes right now. Check it out here. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums,

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That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. This episode picks up from our last one, episode 88, Cold Case. So if you haven't heard that one yet, you should probably go back and listen to them in order. This episode contains descriptions of violence and may not be suitable for everyone. If you're in it for revenge, I'm not your person. If you're in it to stir up something because it's the ex-wife, not your person. And I usually can tell who the right people are. There's a sound when I talk to them at first, and I know that sound. I've had that sound. I know the desperation.

After Sheila Wysocki became a private investigator to help solve the murder of her college roommate, Angie Samota, she wasn't planning to take on any more cases. She'd done what she'd hoped to do. But she was inundated with requests from other people who'd lost loved ones. The first letter was from a mother who didn't believe that her teenage son died by suicide. So I'm reading this letter, and of course I'm a crier. And it just upset me so much.

And she wrote her name and number at the bottom, and I called her. Sheila looked into the case and found evidence that there were too many bullets for suicide to make sense. Sheila says her investigation compelled the district attorney to reopen the case. And from there, she just kept going. What percentage, break down who's contacting you. Is it parents? Is it husbands or wives? Is it family members? Who's contacting you?

I would say mainly it's parents, even parents of older, like an adult. So if they're missing or they suspect foul play. A lot of times the moms, I used to say only the moms, but recently I probably had three dads call me, which is unusual. She's selective about what cases she takes. She wants to make sure that her clients understand that they may not like what she finds out. And she often stipulates that they enter into grief counseling during the investigation. The worst part, she says, is telling people no. Last year alone, I gave 101 cases away. Think about that. That's 101 people out there. How many people are out there? There's a bunch

that have questions. So the families know I will go through their case. I will work their case. But they have to, on the other side, do the things that I ask them to do. At any given point, if I, number one, find out that they lied to me, we're done. The second thing is, if I go through and find evidence that needs to be turned over to the police, we immediately turn it over to the police. What they do with it, you never know. The process to become a private investigator varies from state to state. In Tennessee, where Sheila lives, you need to demonstrate that you're working under an investigator who's already licensed and has more experience. You take an exam, send your fingerprints to the FBI, and submit to a background check. You also need to be, quote, of good moral

character and, quote, not suffer from habitual drunkenness. In five states, Alaska, Idaho, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Wyoming, the state doesn't require to do anything special at all. Sheila says she can't imagine how much harder this job must have been 30 years ago, before the internet. But she says she does things the old-fashioned way too, knocking on doors and asking questions. I'm lucky the way I look because people will open the door to me.

I've had people escort me out of their homes. I've had people, and I use that word, I've been thrown out. I've had people open the door and then slam the door in my face. And after going door to door, you'll find it's amazing what people remember. But I have found that nobody's asked them. So nobody knocked on that door to ask the question. And I think that's a mistake. I think canvassing the area and seeing what people remember or what they don't.

And then I take a, it's kind of like an octopus. I try to find who their friends are. because you and I both know people talk. And if they're in a relationship, they're talking. What I find is if they're in any kind of a relationship, at some intimate level, they'll discuss something personal. If that relationship ends, that's a goldmine. Do you stake people out? Do you watch people and follow people? Of course. You have to get a pattern. So you have to know what their schedule is, who they're talking to. If they stay inside all day with the blinds shut, why would you do that? If you're pregnant and you stay inside all day with the blinds shut

and nobody comes and goes, that's kind of interesting to me. Are there a lot of women in this line of work? colleagues showed up, a man named David Gray, who she hires to keep her computer and her house secure. So I have cameras all over my house. You do? I do. You're on TV. No, not that bad, but I do. And so one of the things that David's brought, you want to tell her what it is? Here you go.

Do you need this at all? No, I'm good. This right here is basically a Wi-Fi camera that fits into a light fixture. Oh, this is the stuff we don't actually know exists, but here it is. Yeah. And so this, I mean, it looks kind of like a light bulb, so you wouldn't know. It's a light bulb, and it's got a very good camera built into it and sound. So, yeah, I'm sure people always come over here and look around.

I'm looking up right now. And then you look going, yep, I know she's got something around. It's all over. Before you hit the driveway, you're on TV. Yeah. Sheila told us stories about being intimidated by suspects and having police officers show up at her door, telling her to back off, calling her a liar. It's her job to be adversarial. I'm set up to go in and they're upset with me. I walk through the door and I'm

saying, have you thought about? So a lot of people don't like that. I'm not on Christmas card lists of most people I've asked questions about, but I try to go in with a really, okay, I just want to know, can you help me? If you can, I'm going to move on. David Gray has installed a lot of software to make sure no one can access her computer. He didn't want to say too much about what kind of software or what kinds of things someone might be looking for. But he told us that once, Sheila had a strange experience where someone took control of her computer remotely and she could see them operating her mouse, opening case files.

People are just, you know, nosy. There's a lot of good hackers out there. And, you know, with the business that she's in, I definitely think she's always a target. So every once in a while, you'll have him come look? I have him come look more than every once in a while. It's something, it's a regular relationship because it's so important. And how often are you looking at private investigators' computers? Is this a rare relationship? I do have a few PIs that I work with, none like Sheila, of course. This is what we heard from everyone we met in Nashville.

That there are a lot of private investigators, but none quite like Sheila Wysocki. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Hey, Michael. Hey, are you outside? Okay, bye. So Mike, Michael Kenny.

So we have two Mikes. I don't know how we're going to do this. For one of her most challenging cases, Sheila's working with two other private investigators, Michael Kenney and Michael Sands. My name is Michael Sands. I am a private investigator, and I've had my business 18 years. Former veteran police captain and U.S. Army captain, helicopter pilot. Where were you, what police department? I was in a police department in Indiana where I was a captain and a police officer in Texas as well.

He does a lot of surveillance, child custody, insurance fraud, divorce. Do you still have women calling up asking you to follow their husbands? Absolutely. And actually over the last five years, there's been more men calling to follow their wives. Even when we've had somebody trying to verify stayed overnight somewhere, I went old school and put a stick or a rock on top of the vehicle's tire and took a photo of a date time stamp so we know if it actually moved or not, or a piece of scotch tape on a door frame to see if it had been opened from the outside. You're still doing that stuff? Yes, absolutely. Describe the differences between being a police officer and a private investigator.

I tell everybody as a police officer, it's mainly black and white, but as a PI, we work in a very gray area. We have less restrictions and more flexibility. And in our business, how creative you can be is how successful you are. He's worked with Sheila for about a year and a half, and he says that when he first met her, he was intrigued. I was taken aback a little bit, and after talking to her, we just meshed immediately. I mean, built an immediate friendship and camaraderie.

What were you intrigued by? Just her being the soccer mom or mature mother and just I loved it. I mean just I mean and appreciate strong women with my wife being a professional herself and having that you know drive is is essential. His wife is a federal special agent. The other person working on the case with Sheila is Michael Kenney. By the time he got there, it was a full house, three private investigators and David Gray working on Sheila's computer. Before Michael Kenney became a private investigator, he used to hire a lot of them for his work as an insurance

claims adjuster. And one day, he decided to open his own shop. He says it hasn't made him very popular. Well, I have eight active death threats that I believe right now. I've gotten more than that, but eight that I believe. A lot of times you'll have somebody that, an example would be there's a car wreck and their attorney tells them they're going to get a million dollars. And we go out and show them golfing all weekend. And so that million dollars becomes $10,000. And they don't blame themselves. They blame me.

He says social media has changed everything about the work. I thank the world for, I thank Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook, so people will post what they're doing. I would have not imagined 21 years ago that there'd be websites where people would tell us what they were doing or who their family members were or what they drove, for instance, if it's not coming back to the state. I'll tell you, Michael, Kenny taught me to be nice and dumb. So when I go in, I never know anything. And it's amazing how people want to tell you things when you're that stupid. They want to correct you and tell you what really happened. And also, I go in, a lot of times they have mommy issues, so I go in and they want to tell me what's going on

and cry on my shoulder. People don't realize, like, the police may cool off and move on to the next case, but Sheila doesn't. She'll get focused and she'll lock on and she will not let go until there's an answer. The reason for their meeting today is to discuss the case of 21-year-old Lauren Agee. I received a phone call from a girlfriend of mine when I was down in Florida recovering from another case. And I said, I'm not taking cases. I'm not doing it. And she said, would you please just talk to the mother? And I received an email from Sherry Smith

that was heartbreaking. When Sheila started looking into Lauren Agee's death, she asked Michael Kenney if he would put his eyes on it. Michael Sands had already been working on the case, and then the three of them teamed up. Is this type of collaboration common? Oh, that's the way I do my cases, is I want to be the dumbest person in the room. I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want people like Michael and Michael to come in and tell me what I've missed. Lauren Agee died in July of 2015.

She and some friends were camping on Center Hill Lake in central Tennessee for a wakeboarding event called Wakefest. Wakefest was the weekend of July 24th, 25th, and 26th. 24th was a Friday. Lauren shows up with Hannah Palmer, and they meet up with Aaron Lilly and Chris Stout, and they camp on top of the cliff. They were there to party all weekend,

and it's kind of... It's like a X Games is what it reminded me of with the giant ramps, and they're doing flips, and it was quite a sight. A lot of talent. But a lot of bikini and booze. And there were families there too. Do what? A lot of socializing.

Oh, a lot of socializing. So the way they have it set up is you go to the wakeboard event six miles out from where the cliff and the marina. And then you come back in and at nighttime you're drinking and having a great time. That Friday night, Hannah, Lauren, another acquaintance, Aaron, and Chris Stout were up there. They go to Wakefest on Saturday. Same scenarios, just rinse and repeat. They go to Wakefest, come back. They're at Fish Lips.

Fish Lips is a bar restaurant. It's a bar restaurant. Reminds you of kind of Florida, divish. And then Lauren goes up on the cliff that night with the group. The next morning, they wake up and she's gone. Lauren's friends said they looked for her, but couldn't find her. According to the statements they gave to the police, they thought Lauren may have left the campsite

and either gone to find an ex-boyfriend or gone ahead to Wakefest. Yeah, the problem with the whole scenario is Lauren's phone, shoes, and clothing. Personal belongings, the phone, keys, purse, everything that she had took up there was still there. So think about that. Your girl, your shoes are up there, your phones, the two most important things a girl could have. A 21-year-old. A 21-year-old.

And it dawns on you she's missing. Wouldn't it dawn on you to make a phone call or call the police or alert the police? Or the fact that you're climbing a mountain without your shoes, or in this case, climbing down the mountain. And then they get on a boat and go to Wakefest. Look at that picture. So this is the day after. This is the day of that she was missing. So looking, having a great time. So this is after she had gone missing. Yes. So instead of looking for her, this is what they're doing. And one of his posts was, what is it?

Best day ever. So their best day ever, and this girl is missing. Do they, at that that point call the police, call her mother, call anyone to say Lauren's missing? Nope. And then what happens? Then at 4.30 in the

afternoon, two fishermen find her body. Thank you. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple

Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions, what should you use it for, what tools are right for you, and what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for. And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Lauren Agee's body was found in the water, not far from the campsite.

The medical examiner found, quote, predominantly blunt force injuries to the top of the head and slightly right side of the head, as well as to the back. They found multiple fractured ribs. The autopsy report concludes, the cause of death is multiple blunt force injuries. Contributing to the death is possible drowning. The manner of death is accident. In his investigative report, Detective Jeremy Taylor wrote, Lauren Taylor Agee's death is consistent with an accident.

At this time, I do not have any evidence to support foul play in the death of Lauren Taylor Agee. So the story was that she fell from, she fell. Yes, that was the alleged story that she had fell from the cliff while they were sleeping during the night. And you think that's not true? I know that's not true. Sheila, Michael Kenney, and Michael Sands, together with Lauren's parents, do not believe that Lauren fell. They've spent the last year doing their own investigation, going back and interviewing everyone they can find, looking at water flow, the angle of the cliff drop, comparing the autopsy report with photographs of Lauren taken at the scene.

They're also curious about the behavior of the friends who are camping with Lauren. Why didn't they go to the funeral? Why didn't they call her mom? So over time and time again, we see that the behavior doesn't line up with a normal behavior of friends. And I want to be very clear about this location because Michael and Michael have both been up there. When I initially took the case, I thought, okay, you know, somebody probably could have fallen off. I have her autopsy pictures. I have the crime scene photos from the EMTs. Her injuries do not line up with somebody who fell off a cliff. And we took a dummy, got it the size that she is. And again, in my investigations, you try to reenact what happened. We took a dummy and we did it more

than once. We took it and tried to recreate what the police came to the conclusion of. And we couldn't get it to make it down the cliff. So what do you think happened? What do I think happened? I can tell you what didn't happen. She did not fall off the cliff and end up in the second cove. In addition to trying to recreate a fall, Sheila has hired a hydrologist to look at the way the water flows in the lake and in and out of the coves around the campsite. There are two very uneven campsites. There's the one where Chris and Lauren had a hammock, which is insane. I mean, no one would choose to camp up here. I mean, if you did move in any direction, you could easily go off the very steep side. And then you had to go down a little area and walk and climb up a shale cliff, if you will, to get to the campsite where the tents were, where Aaron

stayed. We were originally told, it was on her stand that she fell out of the hammock, off the steep side of the right side of the point. This side. The very steep side. And the water's flowing to the point. So anything would fall would go to the point. And so somehow Lauren made it down the wooded side. So she would have had to somehow, her body would have had to navigate all the way to the water and then go against the current to be stuck back in the cove. An impossibility in my personal opinion. So how do you think she actually died? I think she hit her head or was pushed or shoved. Or, you know, a girl with no shoes on who's a girly girl.

Lauren was a girly girl. You know, I think there was something that made her... I have my theory, but I think that somebody was doing something to her, and she probably fought back a little bit, and her head was hit, and that's how she died. And her body did not fall off that cliff. I think someone placed it in that cove. After she had died? After she had died.

Did the autopsy show that she had been raped? They did not do a rape kit. No rape kit? They did not do a rape kit. They did not do a rape kit. So my scenario of what happened is she goes into the medical examiner. The police officer said she was drunk and fell off the cliff. Check off, move on. We spent the day listening to the three of them think through all the possible things that could have happened to Lauren Agee.

This is the strange work of a private investigator, testing each part of a police investigation, imagining alternative scenarios, and then seeing if the facts bear them out. Lauren's parents filed a wrongful death suit against the people camping with Lauren that weekend. It's currently pending. Sheila speaks with Lauren's mother, Sherry Smith, many times a day. The reality of a case like this is it takes more investigating. So the information that we keep getting and the interviews we keep doing lead to something else. And I'm still gathering information.

The court case is in the court system. That's not what I've been hired to do. I've been hired to find out what happened to Lauren. Find out what happened to Lauren for who? Oh, I've been hired to find out what happened that night for Sherry Smith and Michael Smith. And that's the difference of what cases I take. The parents I deal with are the ones that want to know what happened. It's not about money. It's not about the legal.

It is only about what happened that night, the truth. And they want their daughter's story to be correct, not she was drunk and fell off a cliff. That's not Lauren's story. I know she doesn't like it when I use the term pit bull, but if Sheila's really on it, she won't give up. She will keep pursuing. That goes for law enforcement. If it's your agency, she will bang on your door as many times we can show. Yeah, it's very thorough. Have you ever made a mistake?

A million mistakes every day, of course, because the only way you can do an investigation is try different things, and you never know how it's going to turn out. So I've hired a private investigator to go in that's younger than I am and would fit into the group, and that did not work out well because they wanted to tell everybody they were a PI. Are you kidding me? Before we left,

Sheila put out an enormous lunch for her team. Quiche and tuna salad and chicken salad and rolls and pie. We're almost to that point. I'm going to heat this up a little bit in the microwave. I hate using the microwave, but I have to. She wouldn't let anyone help her and spent most of the time not eating herself, but asking if everyone else had what they needed. And then we remembered her email address, ScrappyMomPI. but asking if everyone else had what they needed. And then we remembered her email address,

ScrappyMomPI. You know, if I had committed a crime, well, I'd be terrified if I knew you were out there working on it. Are you going to do anything? Not if I knew you were out there working on it. Are you going to do anything? Not if I know you're around. Do you want to tell me something now? Do you want to confess? Yes. Wilson and me. Audio mix by Johnny Vince Evans. Matilde Erfolino is our intern. Julian Alexander makes original

illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter, at Criminal Show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia

from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around. If you haven't already, check out Radiotopia's Showcase, which features original podcast series of all stripes from emerging and leading producers around the world. I'm Al Letson. And I am Willie Evans, Jr. And together we make

Earthang, the greatest podcast known to man. Every episode, we get together, tell stories, do interviews, and have a good time. Earthang, with Al Letson and Willie Evans Jr. Hear it on Radiotopia's Showcase, on iTunes, Radio Public, Stitcher, and any other app you use to listen to podcasts. Go listen. Before we go, I just wanted to say that I hope you'll check out the podcast app Radio Public. It's available for free on both iOS and Android,

and it's a great way to listen, discover new shows, and help support the shows you love. They even have an in-house podcast librarian. I made a little Radio Public playlist of some of the best stuff that I'm listening to right now, like Police Video Cincinnati from NPR's podcast Embedded. We've got a link to my full list in the show notes. Special thanks to AdCirc for providing their ad-serving platform to Radiotopia. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. The number one selling product of its kind with over 20 years of research and innovation. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults.

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