Criminology - Autumn Lee Stone

Episode Date: June 27, 2021

On August 30th, 2019, the body of Autumn Lee Stone was found in Green Lake in Seattle, Washington. She was found by a man paddleboarding who thought at first that she was a turtle in the water. When the police pulled Autumn's body out of the water, they found her shoelaces tied together around her neck. Within just an hour of Autumn's body being found police said there was no foul play and told journalists that Autumn had taken her own life. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious death of Autumn Lee Stone. Did Autumn really take her own life or was she the victim of foul play? There are many questions that surround this case. Autumn allegedly told a friend that she was meeting her ex-boyfriend out at Green Lake. There were allegations that this man abused their 5-week-old child. Autumn's family does not believe she ended her life and thinks the police called it a suicide too quickly. Notes written by Autumn and mishandled evidence from the crime scene cloud this baffling case. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. For everyone and welcome to episode 165 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford. What's up with you? Not too much.

I'm refreshed, ready to go. I got a nice solid nine hours of sleep last night, which doesn't happen. But I'm pretty much energized. How about you? Nine hours. Man, I haven't had nine hours. in, I think since one of the bushes was in the White House, man. I don't know.

I don't see nine hours a lot. I was going to say, you get your extra hour in the morning when you sleep in. Yeah, yeah, I do sleep. I sleep later than you. But part of that is just me. I don't really sleep that much anyway. I have trouble sleeping for long periods of time. So what do we got going on?

Let's start out with our Patreon shoutouts. We're seeing some great support. We always appreciate that. We had Alexander Earhart, Stephanie Wakeham, Allison Smith, Stacey Maxwell, Barbara Kennedy, Robin Droppa jumped up to our highest level, Mary Mick, Ashley Stewart, Janet Zidon, Rhonda Resner, and Gary Lidiac.

So, again, a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. it. Yeah, at all those people, we can't thank you enough. That is some wonderful support. And for anyone else that would like to help support the show, they can go to patreon.com slash criminology to sign up. So more of one of the big topics going on right now as it relates to true crime and true crime podcasts and all that is CrimeCon for next year. CrimeCon 2022. It's going to be in Vegas. And I think that's a big part of why you see a lot of buzz, right?

I mean, CrimeCon, a lot of people are into it, but then you see Vegas and you think, ooh, let's marry the two of those together and how epic is that going to be? Yeah, I think it's going to be pretty crazy. I think you're right. And I've heard a lot of people talking about it this far in advance.

It's a little bit less than a year now, but still the fact that people are this excited about it, um, I think says something. And I think our listeners that are, planning on going or hoping to go do it and jump off the fence and buy your ticket because it's going to be a party and I think we're going to have a big get together with us and T-Cat. So it should be fun.

Well, and you said go out and get your ticket. I do think from what I'm hearing, a lot of people are racing to buy their tickets early. And so, you know, there is limited capacity. There always is every year. and I feel bad because I get emails from people that say, hey, I really wanted to go, but I didn't get a chance to buy my tickets. So if you're in that camp and you already know you want to go,

don't wait because there is a chance that at some point, the tickets that you want will be sold out. So like you said more, you know, I don't think there should be a whole lot of fence sitting on this one. And we'll definitely plan sometimes. type of big get together. But the first step is you got to register. And when you do that, make sure you use our promo code, which is criminology. That saves you 10% off your standard badge price during checkout at crimecon.com slash CC22. And you and I could go back and forth on

crime con in Vegas for hours. I'm sure we could talk about how much money you're going to lose and what type of parties we're going to have. But we have to jump into this case because on August 30th, 2019, a woman's body was found in Green Lake, located in Seattle, Washington. Around 3.30 p.m. A man and his two daughters were out paddleboarding. And when passing by the body, they first thought they were seeing a turtle. But when the man was returning to shore about a half hour later, He realized that everything was in the exact same position and he felt like something was wrong. As he paddled closer to what he thought was this turtle, he realized he was looking at the body of a woman. He tried to see if she was alive, but it was very clear that this woman was deceased.

He quickly paddled back to shore and immediately called 911. The body found floating. Green Lake was quickly identified as Autumn Lee Stone, a 23-year-old engaged mother of two. Her body was found near the beach, just over a mile away from where her 2013 Hyundai was parked. Her car was actually parked on the opposite side of the lake to the east of Green Lake, though there's a different parking lot on the west side of the lake near where she was found. There were no drag marks on the ground near where her body was discovered. Within just an hour of Autumn's body being found, police relayed that there was no

foul play, telling curious journalists from the Seattle Times that Autumn apparently had taken her own life. But after an autopsy, the medical examiner could not figure out the circumstances of exactly what happened, only that Autumn had died due to strangulation. And this medical examiner left the manner of death as undetermined. Despite the ruling of undetermined, just two weeks after she was found floating in Green Lake, Autumn Lee Stone's case was closed by police as a tragic suicide. And on September 13th, Detective Garcia called her mother, Kirstie Rush, and informed her that the case was being classified as a suicide, not a homicide. So I think it's important here to really highlight what investigators found at the scene when they recovered Autumn's body. Her vest was still zipped up all the way, which was part of why the paddleboarder first thought he was seeing a turtle.

and the waterlogged vest must have created some kind of shell shape just underneath the surface of the water. The zipper was stuck at first. A police officer and a firefighter both had to take multiple tries to unzip the vest in order to examine her body. Shoelaces were found tied tightly around her neck. They had been tied to each other and then wrapped around her neck and tied. though she was found in the lake there was no water in her lungs or her stomach and this is likely why the cause of death was determined by the medical examiner as asphyxiation and not drowning this would seem to mean that autumn was dead before her body entered the water we mentioned that there were no signs of drag marks near where autumn's body was recovered which is something police may have seen when checking the area But it's possible that no one looked for signs of dragging in the right spot. Maybe the grass and shore in the area were walked on so much.

It wasn't easy to spot drag marks, even if you were looking for them. The official police report notes that Autumn had no injuries besides the ligature marks on her neck. There was no sign of a struggle and no defensive injuries on her hands or arms. Curiously, photos of Autumn's body. seemed to show scratches on her hands, but it was assumed to actually be debris since no injuries were written down. Her phone was also found in the water, and it was damaged beyond repair. The SIM card was waterlogged, and the phone would not charge, and no data was recoverable. Autumn's shoes were found about 30 yards from shore, and with an eyesight of the area where she was

found in the water. There are clearly a lot of strange questions surrounding Autumn's death, although police quickly came to their conclusion and stuck with it. Green Lake is not in a rural or secluded area, and Autumn would have had to have entered or been placed in the water between noon and 3 p.m. on Friday, a time when other people and potential eyewitnesses may have been at the lake. Not far from the dock of Green Lake, there is an island with a lot of brush on it. It's called Duck Island and can be easily reached by paddleboarding to it,

but the water isn't very deep. So you can even wade through Green Lake to reach it. This could answer the question of why Autumn was not wearing her shoes. She may have taken them off herself to wade through the lake and visit Duck Island. This is all, of course, assuming that someone did not remove the shoes from her feet. It's puzzling, though, that she was still wearing her white ankle socks when she was found. If she wanted to wade to the island, you would think she would have removed. removed her socks as well. This may point to her shoes being removed from her feet by

Autumn or someone else in order to remove the laces from them. Perhaps it was a combination. If Autumn had her shoes off, whether to wade over to Duck Island or even maybe just to relax by the shore, the shoes or even the laces themselves could have been kept from her so she could not leave the area. She could have voluntarily taken off her shoes and someone else could have taken the laces out. And obviously more if we're just speculating here, kind of throwing a bunch of different things out. There are some things here that seem odd. So, you know, good things to talk about. But I want to go back and kind of talk about paddleboarding. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not. Yeah, it's been a long time since I paddleboarded, but I've done it a few times.

Yeah, my kids love it. We go to the lake quite a bit and we do have a paddleboard. Now, the lake that we normally go to is deeper. You definitely can't just wade through it to some area. But, you know, paddle boarding is fun. You know, I do see how someone who's paddle boarding by kind of looks over and see something under the surface of. the water and thinks, all right, that's a turtle, that's something. That happens to us all the time. You know, if we go out on a boat or, you know, whatever, you see things and you think, okay, that's a snake. No, well, it's a stick. It's a twig or whatever. There's all kinds of things that get thrown into the lake. Some of them float. Some of them kind of bob under the surface and really kind of throw you off and make you think you're seeing something.

that you really aren't. So I don't know. I just wanted to throw that out there because some people might say, well, how could you mistake this for being a turtle? And I've mistaken a bunch of stuff thinking it was one thing when it really turned out to be something else. And maybe that has something to do with the types of lakes that I visit. They're usually pretty low visibility lakes to the waters.

fairly dark, but I could see how that could happen for sure. And then I think, you know, you really kind of have to dissect the official police report. No injuries to Autumn besides the ligature marks on her neck, you know, no signs or indications of a struggle, no defensive injuries. Okay. What does that mean? Does that mean that she knew her killer? She was familiar with that person so she had her guard down or does that mean she was let's say relaxing by the shoreline and somebody was able to sneak up on her and she didn't even have time to put up a fight yeah and obviously the shoelace is being used is interesting so it's a reason to take the shoes off but if she was perhaps walking or waiting across the water which i don't know why she would do that

but let's just assume for a second she is. To me, it doesn't make sense that she wouldn't take her socks off as well. You know, a lot of people, they go in the water, they'll roll their pant legs up, or they're wearing shorts, whatever, and then they'll take their shoes and socks off and wait in the water. So I could see that happening, but to leave her socks on is pretty odd. Then again, if she was considering ending her own life, and that's what happened here, maybe she just didn't care.

She just did it quickly and didn't care that the socks were still on her feet, but that sort of sticks out to me going across. And I don't know what good reason she'd be going across that water wading across or anyway to get to that island. It doesn't seem like there's anything really there besides some brush and some woods. So it's not like it would be a sightseeing place. Yeah, I'm backing you up on that because the leaving the socks on thing really jumped

out of me. Most people, if they're going to wade through some water, they're definitely going to take their shoes off, but you're also going to take your socks off. It just doesn't make any sense to do it, walk through water with your socks on because, so what's the purpose of taking your shoes off? When you put those shoes back on, you're basically going to get them wet because your socks are filled with water. They're soaked.

Despite the strange way in which Autumn died and the troubling aspects of her death, there are some details that seem to support the police belief that she may have taken her own life. Autumn was having a very rough time in the weeks before she was found dead. She had a five-week old baby with a 24-year-old man named Tyler Washington, who, unknown to Autumn, had a criminal record, including an instance of criminal child abuse when he was 19 years old. She may never have learned about his past if he had been able to keep his temper under control and keep that abuse charge a secret.

Unfortunately, on August 21st, Autumn went to Jack in the box to pick up some food for herself from Tyler, since he didn't drive. She left her five-week-old with Tyler at Autumn's grandparents' house where they lived. The baby was sleeping when Autumn left. When she returned just 12 minutes later, her baby was injured. He had suffered broken ribs and had a traumatic brain injury. Tyler insisted he hadn't hurt the baby, but Autumn learned from state welfare workers that he had actually served time. in prison for hurting his own child from a prior relationship in 2014. He had taken a plea deal and still ended up serving two years of a five-year sentence,

and his baby daughter was left with permanent brain damage. Autumn also had a child from a previous relationship, a three-year-old son, before the incident with her and Tyler's baby. She shared custody of the older son with his father, but after Autumn's youngest child was badly injured, the state and child protective services got involved. Full custody was given to the son's father, Autumn's ex-boyfriend,

to avoid the child going into any kind of foster care because he couldn't be around Autumn and especially could not be around Tyler. Now, Autumn was facing having a child with a severe brain injury and another that was taken from her custody. Following the injuries to her, youngest child. She and her grandparents kicked Tyler out of the home and they changed the locks.

Tyler, though, maintained his innocence in the child's injuries as well as his causing the injuries to his other child. Perhaps you could see one of his children getting hurt accidentally, but, you know, many people look at this and say, what are the odds that two of his children would be accidentally injured. The similarities are pretty staggering, though. Both were Tyler's biological children. Both were just around five weeks old. And both of them ended up with broken ribs and a brain injury. So I get it more if why people look at this and they ask the question, what are the odds? You know, could this be a coincidence that it happened twice? and the circumstances were so eerily similar.

Tyler claims that his kids are everything to him and said that he would never harm either of them. According to him, his guilty plea was only to make things easier on his family, not because he was actually guilty. If Autumn was going to cooperate with the investigation in the Tyler or even potentially be able to testify against him in a child abuse case, he may have remembered how bad prison was for child abusers and been determined to stay out of prison, that could give him a motive for harming autumn.

Though Tyler told both Autumn and investigators from Seattle that he never heard his daughter, he admitted to Everett Police that he squeezed and shook his daughter, more than once before when he was upset because she wouldn't stop crying. In the aftermath of all of this, Autumn certainly may have been distraught, though her friends and family thought she was doing pretty well, all things considered, especially due to the fact she had lost, custody of her older child and was not allowed to visit her injured younger child while an investigation was ongoing. At this point, it had to be proven that Tyler, not Autumn, had harmed the child

and authorities weren't taking any chances. Not only had Jacob Johnson, Autumn's ex, and the father of her oldest child taken full temporary custody of her son, he had filed an emergency motion. to require Autumn to be limited to supervised visits with her son. He did not want to take away any of Autumn's parental rights, but he felt that if he didn't take those steps, the welfare workers would take their son from both of them. August 30th, 2019, started off like a good day for Amber. She seemed determined to get her life back in order.

In the morning at 9.36 a.m., she called a friend and confessed what had happen with Tyler and their baby. She told the friend that she was going to Green Lake Park to meet and get answers from Tyler. Her friend says she made it clear that she wanted answers that day. Autumn also told her mother that she planned to go to Seattle in order to get a manicure as well as take a walk around Green Lake Park to clear her mind. She and her ex, Jacob Johnson, the father of her older son, also arranged to meet so Autumn could visit with them that day. She left the house for Green Lake Park around 1030 a.m. And her mother doesn't recall her seeming upset at all.

At 11.31 a.m. Autumn called her mother telling her she made it to Green Lake Park. At 11.51 a.m., she texted her stepmom to thank her for sending her a photo of her baby since she couldn't see him. She also mentioned that she was scheduled for a polygraph the next Tuesday, around 1.30 or 2 p.m. Jacob Johnson received a text from Autumn confirming a planned

visit with her son that evening. By 3.30, the girls that were paddleboarding past autumn in the water thought she was a turtle. The time frame here, Morve, is incredibly tight. What we're left with here

really are just a couple of possibilities. One is that the police are correct. And Autumn took her own life, but the other possibility is that she was the victim of foul play. And if that's the case, is her killer the person Autumn told people she was going to see that day, Tyler, or did Autumn run into someone else who ended her life? We've discussed the abuse allegations against Tyler regarding his children.

Autumn did tell police that she had never seen him be violent at all. And this was after they had broken. up. She really could have stuck it to him if she wanted to, but she just claimed that something like hurting their child would have been out of character for Tyler, as far as she knew. The only other person who could be responsible for their child's injuries at the time, Autumn, now can't defend herself. The child abuse charges against Tyler did get dropped after Autumn's death. Tyler failed a polygraph during their investigation into the child abuse. According to Detective Barrows from the Everett Police Department, Tyler was very cooperative with

him during the child abuse investigation, though. It was Detective Barrows, who informed the Seattle Police Department that Autumn had written what he believed to be a suicide note on the very same day she died. The letter written by Autumn that Detective Barrows believed to be a suicide note was dated August 30th, 2019 at 1026 a.m. In the handwritten letter, Autumn thanked God for her blessing, her two children and vowed to do anything necessary to give them the best life possible. The letter that has been taken as a suicide note could be interpreted by some as a prayer. And it seemed to be something she did often.

There were similar entries in her journal that were undated. It looks like a prayer to God to help her infant son survive and heal in the hospital. She wrote, my two beautiful sons who are my whole world and I love my babies with every piece of my heart. So more of I think we have to break this down. Obviously, to me, it sounds like Autumn was a person who journaled or at least wrote her thoughts down on a regular basis. You know, I think some people would look at this and say, you know, this is a mother, a good mother. You know, really just trying to pour her heart out about what's going on in her life and the fact that, you know, she can't see her kids. One of them is injured. You know, that's a tough time. And a lot of people take to writing things down. One of the things that jumped out at me was, okay, it's dated. That didn't seem strange. What seems strange is that it was actually written.

down as a time. And maybe that's not strange at all. Maybe a lot of people who journal do that. I just took that to be a little different. But again, I don't journal. So I may be completely wrong about that. I guess for me, the bottom line is what led police to believe that this was a suicide note because to me, I didn't read anything in it that led me to believe she was about to end her life. I mean, if anything, she's saying, you know, my sons are my whole world. I love them. I want to give them the best life possible. Is it merely the fact that she died? Police kind of looked at it as though she may have taken her life. And then they find this journal entry and say, okay, we're kind of equating the two things. We're putting them together.

I can see their point on one hand. The timing of it is interesting. She writes this and then goes to the lake and then is found dead and what appears to be a suicide to them. But just like you, I didn't see anything there that says that it's definitely a suicide letter. There's no, I've had a great life. Please take care of my kids. There's a no language in there like that that jumps out to make me think that this was a suicide letter. So I'm right there with you. I just, I think it seems like a caring mom who's putting some words on paper. And it just seemed to be a coincidence that the timing of it happens to coincide with her death.

Well, and I think you make a great point. If this is a caring mom who loved her children as everyone kind of has said she was, and you're going to make that decision or you've already made that decision that you're going to end your life. If this was a suicide note, would you not expect something in there about what is going to happen to your children or asking someone, a family member, something to make sure that they're okay? If she loves them this much, because she's kind of talking about how much she loves them, why would there not be anything about their well-being after she's gone? If this is a true case of suicide,

Autumn would have had to think that the best thing to do for her babies would be to leave them with no mother and a grief-stricken family, as well as leave one of her sons with an alleged abuser as a parent. So you have to wonder if Autumn would ever do that, because at the time, even if Tyler really was innocent and didn't harm his child, At that point, both Autumn and the police believed he did. So why would Autumn ever, as a loving and protective mother, leave her son in jeopardy? Authorities had told Autumn that she was not their suspect, and she cooperated with their investigation.

And by all accounts, she wanted to have her babies back. Autumn texted her father. I know it will be a long process, but I have faith that eventually I will have my babies with me. As a result of Autumn's death, Autumn and Tyler's child now lives with Autumn's father and stepmother. He's now medically fragile due to his injuries, and will live with disabilities for his entire life. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is sponsored by Monarch Money. Are you saving to reach your financial goals? Reaching those goals isn't just about getting more money, but by managing what you have.

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Welcome to another round of Boardroom or Mero Board. Today we talk retrospectives with Agile Coach Maria. Let's go. First question. You've spent two hours in a team retro, but the only input you've heard is Dave's. Boardroom or Mero board? Boardroom.

In Mero, Dave can't hog the space because everyone can add thoughts anonymously, online at the same time. Correct. Next, you need the team to act on feedback fast, so you turn all those retro notes into Jira tasks instantly. Mero all the way. And I can assign those tasks to teammates. You're nailing this. Now, you see hundreds of sticky notes from the retro. A real mess. But you organize them into five themes in just seconds. Miro, I basically get back an entire hour when I use its AI tools for clustering.

And she's done it. people running actually enjoyable and actionable retros in Miro. Get your first three boards free at Miro.com. That's MIRO.com. As far as Tyler's possible involvement in Autumn's death, on Tuesday, September 19th, weeks after she was found dead, Detective Garcia of the Seattle Police Department, contacted Tyler to question him. And Tyler claimed he had no idea that Autumn had even passed away.

According to Tyler, he and Autumn had agreed not to see or speak to each other until the investigation into their child's injuries had been completed. The last time he had spoken to Autumn or any of her friends and family was August 29 in front of the Everett police station. We don't know to what extent Tyler was looked at by police in regards to Autumn's death. One puzzling clue that the medical examiner found when he examined Autumn's body was the presence of cement, indicating that she had sex recently or possibly that she had been sexually assaulted. Now, and I think you have to kind of go back and think about this. Remember, Autumn had a five-week old baby and there's no hard and fast rule. nothing set in stone about sex following giving birth, but, you know, normally there's a period of time after a woman gives birth that makes it very difficult for certain types of sexual activity.

There's also the emotional aspect and some types of sexual activity could be very painful. Soreness and exhaustion kind of tend to dominant. for a number of weeks. The general guideline is to wait four to six weeks after giving birth to engage in any type of penetrative sexual activity, but every woman in situation is different. In complicated births or C-section deliveries, it's important to wait until your body is fully healed. We don't really know what type of shape autumn was in physically from the birth, which

occurred just a little bit over a month earlier. But, you know, it's difficult to imagine that in this short span of time, she would have found a new partner between breaking up with Tyler after discovering his criminal history and her death just a week later so close after giving birth. One frustrating part of this case is that investigators did not initially test the semen for DNA to see if it could be matched to Tyler or anyone else. The circumstances here absolutely called for further testing at the time. This is a deceased woman found in a lake, but she didn't drown, and there were ligatures around her neck and semen in her body.

If it had not been a match to Tyler Washington's DNA, it would have opened up a lot of questions that may have pointed away from suicide. If it turned out to be Tyler's DNA, the answer they're still murky because they had broken up. and according to Tyler, they hadn't seen or spoken to each other. We also have to ask, could this be semen from consensual sex, Autumn had, or could she have been sexually assaulted? Either way, testing that DNA could have led investigators to the truth. Even if they had come to the same conclusion in closed Autumn's cases as suicide, they could have been able to say that they did exhaust all leads, and Autumn's family may have had some shred of closure.

But for whatever reason, at the time, they did. not give much attention to that DNA. Because Autumn's death was never treated as a homicide, her car was never secured or tested in any way. It could have been the scene of her murder, with no one able to hear or see what was happening inside the car, or it may have held other clues, but we'll never know if Autumn's car held any answers. The only issue with the theory that the car may have been where Autumn was killed is, as

we mentioned, her body was found on the other side of the lake pretty far from her car. A killer would have had to have figured out how to get her body to the other side, which would have taken some effort, and he would have had to have done so without being seen or without any drag marks, which would be noticed later by the police. Five months after the case was initially closed, police had a change of heart, and the DNA sample from the semen in Autumn's case was sent for testing. Public pressure in the help of private investigator Brent Campbell is credited with pressuring the police to follow up with the DNA clue.

The results came back in May 2020, almost a year after Autumn's death. Incredibly, the swabs that had been tested did not contain any male DNA or any semen at all. Washington State Patrol's technical lead for DNA analysis, Sean Carhart, explained that the discrepancy could have happened due to an improperly stored sample, the kind of equipment used, or sample with a low amount of sperm cells. If the equipment couldn't detect anything and the sperm count was too low, that's one thing, but five months is a long time for a sample to be improperly stored. We can only hope that the answer wasn't once there and lost due to time and improper handling.

And morphis is something that you and I have talked about quite a bit, because it comes up in a lot of cases. You have some type of evidence that is taken at a crime scene and, you know, there's a huge emphasis placed on how that evidence is stored. Because later on, and especially in some of these cases where we're going back many, many years, but later on, you're going to want to do some type of DNA testing on it. And a lot of times they go to do it and they find out that the evidence is degraded. It was improperly stored. And, you know, it's kind of sad because had it been done a little differently, a lot of

times the outcome, I believe would be much different. Now, it's kind of hard to blame people when you're going back 40, 50, 60 years because obviously they didn't know, you know, anything about DNA or, you know, they didn't have the same type of steps or take the same type of steps that, that investigators do today. But this case is not very old at all. And so those procedures would have or should have been in place in 2019. Yeah, I think there's always the chance for the X factor, the unknown, to have. and where you decide all of a sudden you want to go back and look at that stuff and there's human error, there's faulty equipment, stuff gets lost. We hear all the time about stuff getting lost.

So had they done this right at the outset of this case, they might have been able to have that and saved it at least. And then later on, if they still wanted to call this a suicide, so be it. But if for some reason they change your mind and thought that it could be a homicide, they'd at least had this DNA to work with. And the fact that they waited may have cost them answers. We may never know what the importance of that seaman was. And think about how devastating that is for the family. Because, you know, especially, you know, with a family who does not believe that their loved one took their own life.

And then, you know, you find out that there was evidence that made, you know, could help prove it one way or the other, but it's unusable. That's very tough to take. Now, you said something that I think we have to acknowledge, and that's that people make mistakes, right? We're all human. Police officers, investigators, they're no different. People make mistakes, but it's still hard to take because, you know, I think most people look at it morph and think, okay, at their job, a mistake involves something very innocent. There's not much writing on it for the most part. But when you're talking about evidence collection and things like this, it really can be kind of life and death type of circumstances. So a mistake in that setting

means a heck of a lot more than if I transpose a number on, you know, a report or a spreadsheet that I'm going to give to my boss. So no doubt, Autumn's family was disappointed with the news. And I think on top of that, they felt as though they had been unhurt. You know, the police weren't listening to them. Amy Stone, Autumn's stepmother has said, this has all made her feel that no one in the department cared about Autumn or the truth about what happened to her. They just wanted to close the case.

None of Autumn's family, not her father, James Stone, her mother, Kirsty Rush, or her sister, Janine Staley, believe that the Seattle Police Department came to the right conclusion. They each reject the notion that Autumn took her own life. James Stone sees the same letter investigators deemed a suicide note as simply a prayer. Her family also believes that Autumn was too devout in her religious beliefs to take her own life. And her mother, Kirsty, does not think that Autumn would have left her sons without a mother, especially with an infant son being injured and his only other parent being the one who hurt him. To Kirstie, Autumn simply loved her sons too much to have ever taken her own life. I think in a lot of cases, families will sometimes not be able to accept what seems clear to everyone around except them that someone in their family, their loved one, has taken their own life.

I think that's a common human reaction. And a lot of times, police deal with that. and when everything screams that they're right in their findings. But I think in this case, this is truly a case where the family has a right to be suspicious of their findings because this is just an unusual way for Autumn to take her own life. And I think we'll talk a little bit about that a little bit later on about more common ways and more common options that she had if she was going to take her own life. The Seattle Police Department did reopen their investigation in Autumn's death,

perhaps because they felt pressured. Autumn's father, James, fears that it all may be for show, and that there's no actual progress happening or work being done. Tyler Washington still denies having anything to do with Autumn's death. He claims he was at his mother's house 20 minutes away and across Lake Washington and Bellevue, Washington, when Autumn died. His mother corroborated that.

For what it's worth, Tyler Washington believes that it was a stranger who attacked Autumn. He doesn't believe that Autumn would have taken her own life. It was not like her in his opinion to do something like that. Tyler voluntarily gave up his phone to detectives, but they found that there was no location data after August 10th on the phone. Tyler later told a reporter that he always had his location data on no matter what and has no idea why there would be no data during that time. The detectives felt that although the phone itself was missing that data, that a cell phone carrier would still have the information stored.

Police try to get a warrant for his phone data from the phone company. But because Autumn's manner of death was undetermined, there was not enough probable cause to grant the warrant for Tyler's phone records. Interestingly, Autumn Stone was not the first person to be found dead in Green Lake Park. In 1926, 22-year-old Sylvia Gaines was found almost nude on the shore near the north end of Green Lake. Autumn was found about 20 yards from the north shore of the lake. Police believe that a stranger attacked Sylvia, but evidence and witnesses ended up pointing a different way. And her father was charged with her murder. The coroner determined that Sylvia died around 9 p.m.

And there was a witness who saw Bob Gaines, Sylvia's dad, at the shore around 9 p.m. that night, standing over something. The Green Lake neighborhood is just north of downtown Seattle, and it's situated at the northeastern shores of the lake that the area was named for. The lake is called Green Lake, not necessarily the color you would associate with water due to recurring algae blooms that turn the water bright green. There's a paved asphalt path surrounding the lake for joggers, cyclists, and sightseers, and it's well utilized. Green Lake Park has over a million visitors each year, and it's the busiest park in all of Washington State. Yet the day Autumn died, there were no eyewitnesses. The area that Autumn was found in is unique in the park. There is a piece of land that sticks out into the lake, and the shore there has thick swaths of trees.

leading the dock to be pretty secluded for such a busy and crowded place, the tennis court near the area parking lot is surrounded on all sides by trees. Making the tennis court a viable area to do something with no witnesses, Green Lake Trail has bushes lining either side, as well as thick clumps of trees separating it from its surroundings, including the parking lot, a theater, and the main road. There is probably one area with any semblance of privacy in the park, and it's exactly where Autumn was found.

Some wonder why Autumn would choose Green Lake as the place to end her life, if that's what really happened, when it would have taken quite a while for her to do so in that location. She would have had to tie the shoelaces around her neck and weighed out into the lake and waited to die. Just four and a half miles south of Green Lake is George Washington Memorial Bridge, also known as Aurora Bridge, which has seen more than 230 suicide since it was built in 1932.

The bridge is such a popular location for jumping that has actually been referred to in the media as a suicide bridge. The first suicide took place before construction was even completed. Autumn had her own car, and it was less than a 20-minute drive from where she was parked at the Green Lake Community Center. Using shoelaces to take your own life. involves a lot of time to change your mind. This may have been why if that's what happened,

Autumn zipped up her own vest so tightly. It took multiple tries to get it unzipped, meaning she would not have been able to frantically unzip it while she was losing consciousness. Officers can be heard on body cam footage commenting about how odd it was that her zipper was all the way up. Why would she walk a mile around a lake in order to take her own life in such a complicated manner, rather than going to one of the many bridges in the area?

In February 2011, a $4.8 million $8 foot high suicide prevention fence was built on Aurora Bridge due to how accessible it was and how popular the bridge was for people looking at. to end their lives. There are at least four overpasses in Seattle that saw an increase in suicides since the prevention fence was built on a war bridge. While we don't know what really happened to Autumn Lee Stone the day she died, what we do know is that she's remembered as a loving and responsible person. Kirstie credits her daughter Autumn for helping her get sober, and she can now call herself a recovering alcoholic instead of someone in active addiction. As far as Autumn herself, she faced a battle too. She was very stressed.

She actually ended up with stress ulcers when she was in high school that caused her to drop out entirely. She had to earn her diploma at a later date. By summer 2019, Autumn appeared to be thriving, doing great, and was happier than anyone had seen her before. Her friends and family remember her for always having a smile on her face. Autumn's family believes that there are more clues out there. In her case, they're asking the public to help give them some answers.

They feel that with so many people visiting Green Lake Park daily, someone out there may have seen Autumn the day she died. And obviously, more if they have a ton of questions that they would like to see answered. Was autumn alone? Did she seem upset? Was she wearing her shoes? They've also asked for anyone with photos or videos taken at the lake that day, August 30th, 2019, to come forward. Since Autumn's death was treated as a suicide, there was never any bulletin or announcement about her death and about her being at the park that day.

Even the man who called 911 remember seeing a man sitting on a bench near the scene and his wife recalls a man. calls a man around six feet tall with a salt and pepper ponytail leaving the area when sirens could be hurt. But they've never come forward because perhaps they don't know that their info is useful and is needed. If you saw anything or know anything about the death of Autumn Lee Stone, you can call the Seattle Police Department's homicide tip line at 2.0.0.5.5.5.5.5.5.5.5.5.com tip line at 206, 233,000, or email the Seattle Times tip line at Greenlake Tips at Seattle Times.com. Also, if your loved one is considering self-harm, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is available to call 24 hours a day at 800, 273, 8255, and the crisis

text line is always open. Just text hello to say. 741. 741. So Morph, as we wrap up this case, it's a perplexing one. There's no doubt about that. And I think, you know, most people view it that way. I get it. The police kind of quickly ruled this a suicide.

You can question that and say, was that the right thing to do? You know, with a lot of these types of cases, the thing that I always look at. is once you make a ruling like this, it has serious ramifications to the investigation, because if you're going to rule it as a suicide, then what is there really to investigate? There's no crime, there's no suspicion. There's no reason to really go out

and interview a bunch of people, canvass the neighborhood. But a lot of times, I think, would we be better served or would the victims and their families be better served if it kind of went with an undetermined for a period of time while police looked into it? And again, not knowing all the ends and outs of it, I don't know the ramifications of that. But I think you have to look at a case like this and think, well, how could they be so sure so early on that this was indeed a suicide? One of the things that really jumps out

at me morph is the cause of death. You know, when you talk about asphyxiation or ligature strangulation, you see in movies sometimes where someone puts a bag over their head, they tie the bag. Okay, there are ways to do it that I don't really want to get into, but to me, to take off your shoelaces, tie them together, and then tie that around your neck. That seems to me to be such a strange way to try to take your life. Yeah, I think I don't want to just automatically fault the police here, but I think there's some question about how they handled this right from the beginning. It's my understanding that when you have a mysterious death that you first treat it as suspicious that it could be foul play.

And then you rule it out from there. You find things that will rule out that conclusion. It might lead you to suicide or accidental death or whatever kind of death it may be. But when it's mysterious, you always err on the side of caution and treat it right from the beginning as possibly being a homicide. So for them not to do that here, you can't go back and put the genie in the bottle once you just automatically go suicide from the beginning, you lose investigation time and things they would have looked for early on. They didn't look at her car at all. So you can't go back later on

and start from the beginning and start as a homicide investigation. Yeah, yeah, that was kind of, you know, my thinking exactly. And I think you also have to factor everything that was going on in her life and the issues that she was having with Tyler. You know, what happened to her son and finding out that Tyler had this record and the fact that, you know, he hurt her child. So, I mean, you can't discount that because you have to look at everything going on in her life and think, okay, is there a reason why someone would want to harm her? I'm not saying he did. I'm just saying you have to look at all those aspects and I don't know.

It just seems like such a strange way. And I think you mentioned it at one point. There are much easier, quicker, more efficient ways to end your life. It's not something that you and I like to talk about. I think you have to in this case because the way police believe that. that she did it, it's not efficient. It's not full proof. It seems like a very strange way to do it. But we've seen a lot of murders committed in similar ways. You know, go back to the fact that there were no defensive wounds.

And I'm sure that's something police factored in when they, when they were looking at this as a suicide. But you could also look at that as she, knew her attacker possibly or she was so surprised by her attacker that she had zero time to even put her hands up put a fight up that's one of the the reasons why we wanted to cover this case because to me there's some mysteries here that have not been answered the sad part is I don't think anyone's trying to answer them yeah and it is a sad case that on one hand if it's a you know, that's tragic for the family and something that they'll live with and it'll be in

their hearts forever. But on the other hand, if it's a murder case, then you have someone that's getting away with a crime and there's no chance for justice to be done. So I think either way that the family is in a bad situation dealing with all of this. Yeah, absolutely. You know, your heart goes out for them because of everything that they, they've gone through and will continue to go through because, you know, if nothing changes, it will just be an ongoing thing, right? They don't know. They'll never know if there's not some type of revelation. Someone comes forward and says they saw something or they, they know something. You know, that's the tragic part about a lot of these cases that we do.

Thanks goes out to Sunny Lannon for writing and research assistance in this episode. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends. A word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology podcast discussion and fans. Some more, if that is it for our episode on Autumn Lee Stone.

But we want to make an announcement to everyone. We are not going to be putting out an episode next Saturday night. You and I are actually taking a pretty well-deserved week off. So we'll be back with everyone on Saturday, July 10th, with an all-new episode of criminology. Yeah, next week weekend is the Fourth of July weekend. So happy Fourth of July to everyone. Yeah, absolutely. And it just felt right, right? More if I mean, you and I, we've been pretty much working nonstop. We haven't taken off any time since Christmas. And you just need that downtime. You need to recharge. And the Fourth of July holiday just seemed like the perfect time. Yeah. It's middle of the year. So it's a nice split between that and Christmas. Yeah, absolutely. But we'll. be back with everyone on Saturday, July 10th with a brand new episode of criminology. So until

then for Mike, we'll talk to you then. Take care, everyone.