Criminology - Molly Bish

Episode Date: June 29, 2019

On June 27, 2000, Molly Bish disappeared from her lifeguard post at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. Molly's mother Magi dropped her off at work that day and was the last known person to see her alive. When people began showing up to swim that day, they found no lifeguard on duty. Molly's disappearance turned into one of the biggest and most expensive searches in the history of Massachusetts. Molly's body was ultimately found on June 9, 2003, almost 3 years after her disappearance, in a field only about 5 miles from her home. This is a case that has haunted and frustrated people for many years. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Molly Bish. Molly's sister Heather agreed to come on for an extended interview with us and she provides some valuable insight into who her sister was and who might have been responsible for her death so many years ago. 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. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 67 of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you this week? I'm doing good. I'm rolling along and ready to get into this case.

How about you, Mike? No, I'm doing great too. And, you know, we've got a lot of things coming up. You and I are going to be in Chicago. in a couple of weeks on the 13th for a little true crime podcast festival, which I think is going to be interesting. Yeah, it's going to be cool to meet up with all the listeners and the fellow podcasters. That should be a lot of fun.

Yeah, not as big as CrimeCon. And this is the first year for this thing. So I'm really kind of interested to see how it plays out, how it's set up. But, you know, to hear that people are coming from Sweden or, you know, You know, when you hear something like that more, if you're like, wow, really, you are getting on a plane to fly to Chicago for a day to hang out with some of your favorite podcasters. That is very cool. Yeah, it seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm really looking forward to it.

All right, Morf, we had some new Patreon supporters. So let's go ahead and give those shoutouts. We had Liz, Brittany Purdy, Christine Hazel jumped out at our highest level, and Christine is amazing. She was at CrimeCon, one of the strongest women that I know. And we wish her all the best. We had Angie, Nicole Farrell, Lauren Beams, Debbie Self, and Suzanne Fephyly. So more of a lot of amazing support. We say it every week.

we could not be any more appreciative than we are. Yeah, I think that we owe a big, big thanks to all the people that support us on Patreon. It really means a lot. And if you'd like to help support the show on Patreon, you can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology. All right, brother, we have all of that out of the way. Let's dive into the subject for this week's episode. We're talking about Molly Bisch.

It was 19 years ago this week, June 27, 2000, that 16-year-old Molly Bish arrived at Commons Pond in Warren, Massachusetts to begin her shift as a lifeguard. But just less than 30 minutes later, the first swimmer showed up and no Molly. There was no lifeguard on duty. Molly disappeared and was never seen alive again. her remains were found three years later, about five miles from this Commons pond. And while there have been several suspects in her murder, no arrests have ever been made. The murder investigation became the largest and most expensive in Massachusetts history at that time. And to help us tell Molly's story, her sister, Heather Bish, Martin, joined us.

So you'll hear from her a lot throughout this episode. Warren, Massachusetts is a small town in western Worcester County, about 75 miles southwest of Boston. With a current population of 5,135 residents, Warren appears to be the ideal and safe place to raise a family. It's the main reason John and Maggie Bish moved here with her three children, John Jr., Heather and Molly, from Detroit, Michigan. They moved a year after Molly was born. Years after their move to warn, the bishops learned the hard way that no matter the size or appearance of a town, bad things happen to good people everywhere. We have a very small family. My mom, and my mom's family is from Michigan.

And actually, my parents moved out here. I was a toddler when they moved out here because they were living in a suburb of Detroit, and a woman was murdered. A pregnant woman was murdered. and they really, you know, were struggling with it. And it was in their neighborhood. And they felt like maybe we should move back to where my dad grew up, this small town and Central Massachusetts might be a lot safer than, you know, suburbs of Detroit.

And so that's what they did. And, you know, to have what happened to my sister and in our small town happen was incredibly traumatic and detrimental to my parents. Molly Bish was born on August 2nd, 1983, like we mentioned, to John and Maggie Bish, by the summer of 2000, Molly had completed her junior year of high school where she was a varsity athlete. She played both basketball and soccer. She was goofy. She loved funny movies like Forrest Gump and anything with Adam Sandler in it. She loved to laugh. She loved people and she felt the world very deeply.

And she was disturbed by things that were inequitable or unjust. And I remember when she was in high school and I was actually doing my student teaching at the time. And there was a group of special ed kids that would come into her art class. And Molly would write them notes and cheer them or make them feel welcomed and that they were a part of the class. And just to have that sort of that wisdom and that empathy to reach out and try to make

others feel included was really the sense of what Molly was and who she was. And at just 16 Molly was no stranger to work. She had given up her Saturdays to train to become a lifeguard and eventually landed a summer job at Commons Pond in Warn.

A swimming hole surrounded by pine trees with a water slide and a small beach. She had just gotten a second job, she was working at an ice cream place as well as lifeguarding, and she was really proud of being able to buy her own clothes and her own stuff that she wanted, and she was working on getting a car. My brother had been the lifeguard at our local swimming pond for three years prior, and he had come back from college and wanted to make more money and had really gotten into this building and landscaping kind of thing. So he was working for a company building

fences. And so Molly took over the job. He had trained her for a week prior. So it was really her eighth day of work and her one of the first weeks that she was working by herself. I was kind of nervous about Cummins Pond myself personally because again, I'm older and, you know, I knew the pond as a place where like people would go gather to smoke weed or, I mean, that was the worst that was happening back in the early 2000s, 90s as they were smoking weed. We didn't have any big meth scene or any like big heroin scene at that time. But, you know, I knew kids were probably drinking up there and partying in the woods. So I was a little nervous like, oh, you know, there's sketchy characters up there.

I don't know. And I had talked to her about that. And then she had, there was a younger boy who had gone to school with her who had kind of a crush on her. And he would ride his bike up to see her every day and, you know, hang out with her. And again, he was a couple years younger. he's a little bit shorter. And, you know, my mom and I had both talked to her about, you know, he's still a boy.

And, you know, they have stronger upper body strength than you, even though you think you're bigger and older and more mature and can handle him. You know, just be careful and cognizant. And we're, again, we're in this, like small town. So Molly would go to this little shed and pick up her lifeguard equipment, including a beach chair. So there wasn't a whole big lifeguard chair that you sit on top of. She was sitting in a little beach chair at the time of her disappearance. On Tuesday, June 27, 2000, Maggie Bish drove Molly to work for her 10 a.m. shift. So Molly had only been a lifeguard for about a week or so.

The parking lot was empty, except for a dump truck that was dropping off a load of sand. Molly told her mom, I love you. and then exited the vehicle. Maggie waited for the dump truck to leave before driving away. This was the last time. She saw her daughter a lot. And it was roughly about 20 minutes later. A woman named Sandra Woodworth arrived at the pond with her children.

She would tell CBS's 48 hours in 2004, quote, the first aid kit was wide open. Backpack was on the big. bench, her towel was draped over the back of the chair, sandals were in the front, the Poland Springs water bottle was right there, but there was no Molly. An hour later, Molly's boss, the Parks Commissioner, showed up, and Molly was still not there. He also noticed her personal items and the open first aid kit.

Now, this Parks Commissioner is important to Molly's sister Heather, and she'll be talking about him more in this episode. Warren police were sent to the pond. At this point, Molly had been missing for three hours. So police called Maggie Bish, who immediately knew something was wrong. John and Maggie Bish rushed a Commons

pond. They were horrified to find that their daughter was not at the pond. We weren't notified that Molly was missing until 1 o'clock. And at that point, I was on my way to take my daughter to my friend's house to go swimming. And my mom called

all hysterical saying Molly's missing, and I thought, well, that just sounds weird. They must be mistaken. I'm like, I'll meet you at the pond on my way to my friend Nicole's house, and, you know, they just have to be mistaken. And as I'm getting into the center of town, I could see my mom driving like a maniac to the police station, so I follow her, and she's hysterical that my sister's not there. You know, we weren't, my family wasn't called for three hours after Molly was abducted. And statistically, 76% of kids are murdered in the first three hours by a non-familial abduction.

So really, Molly was probably dead or in grave danger by the time they even started looking for her. When investigators looked over the scene, there were no obvious signs of a struggle. At first, police believe that maybe Molly left her job to go hang out with friends. But her parents insisted this is something she would never do, right? She would never leave her job, blow it off to just go hang out with friends. She loved this job. She had wanted this job for quite a while.

She put her mind to it and she got it. She also had left her personal belongings behind. Police checked with Stephen Lucas, Molly's boyfriend. They also checked with some of her other friends, but Molly wasn't with any of them. Police also entertained the thought that Molly had drowned. But again, this was something that her parents didn't buy either. She was athletic. She was a good swimmer.

Molly's family felt very, very early on, immediately that she was abducted. She was an athlete playing three sports. She was an honor roll student. So it was difficult for us when we learned that Molly was missing that day. And people had said, well, she's, or the police had said, well, she's probably just with her friends. And we were like, no, that's not Molly. Molly's not, I know she's 16, but she's not just going to leave her job and leave these kids who are just starting swimming lessons to go, I don't know, with her friends and do something. That wasn't her character.

And so right away in the investigation, there were. many negligent errors. And the first one was not looking at the victim's behavior and who she was and what she was. They just sort of, you know, had this bias that she was a teenager and she probably just took off and blew off work. And we were like, but that's not the kind of kid she is. When Maggie Bish started to ask herself if she had seen anything unusual earlier that morning when she dropped Molly off at the pond, nothing stood out. But one thing that was etched in her mind happened the day before on Monday the 26th. That was on a Tuesday that Molly disappeared.

My mom dropped her off on Monday and saw a man in a white car, sort of sitting there smoking a cigarette. And it's like, you know, 9.30, 10 o'clock at the beach. And she just got this weird feeling. My mom's a long-time teacher. And she just got a bad feeling. So she pretended to, you know, fiddle with papers in her car. Molly ran out ahead of her and was setting up her beach stuff.

And the man in the white car just stayed there. And he was like staring at Molly and staring at my mother. And she just was like, this was weird. So she decided to go sit up with Molly for a little while. And the man eventually. And she kind of gave him like a, like a, she calls it a teacher stare. Like, what do you? I know you're doing something kind of thing.

I can't really tell what you're doing, but I know, you're up to something. So he did not react to that. he just stayed there. So she went up and sat with Molly. And by the time, you know, she checked back, he was gone. So she thought, oh, okay, well, you know, maybe it's just a fisherman, maybe just somebody weird. And she didn't really think much of it until the next day. The man made Maggie uneasy.

So she waited about 20 minutes from the lead before driving off. She described the man as having dark hair kind of salt and peppered. He was maybe between 45 and 55. And the man drove a white car. Later on, we're going to discuss some possible suspects, and more than one of those men will be discussing closely resembled the man in this white car. But that night, Monday night before, she had talked to my dad about it, and my dad gave her what's like a little cubitone thing. My dad was a probation officer that went out on the road, and so, like, those little cubiton things, like, they're kind of like hard. You can whack someone with it.

I don't even know if they're legal anymore, but he had one on his key chain. And so he said, we'll just take this, you know, this will, you know, someone gets in your way to kind of just whack them. And so she had that. The investigation continued. And by late afternoon, the Massachusetts state police took it over. It was incredibly chaotic. So therefore, the crime scene was not preserved at the scene. we have a kid missing, not responding, then a crime scene that's not preserved, and stories

in a very different direction. So we finally have to go home that night. And that was probably, you know, the worst night in my entire life. I mean, you can't imagine, you know, going home and not having, not knowing where your sister is or your daughter. And so nobody slept that night. I remember going outside as soon as the light came up and the sun came up and thinking, well, maybe he just dropped her off. Maybe he would just, maybe he freaked out and he just, like, left her out one of our houses because I, like I said, lived down the street from my parents, but I had inherited my grandmother's house. And my brother and I were living on each side of it, like a duplex kind of thing at the time. And I just thought, well, me, you know, if he knows who we are, he'll just drop. off on our street or something and she wasn't there.

They organized the search that next morning. That search for Molly was a massive one and it lasted over the next several days. A large number of volunteers from the local area also assisted in the search. A composite sketch of the man in the white car was created and it was taped on store windows next to missing posters of Molly. A local company made yellow ribbons and volunteers attached them to telephone poles, car antennas, even to the columns of the town hall. Yellow was Molly's favorite color. Candlelight vigils were held with hundreds of people in attendance and Molly's parents received over 700 sympathy cards. A few of those cards were from the parents of young

daughters who were also abducted in Massachusetts. One was from the parents of nine-year-old Sarah Pryor, who was abducted in 1985 after going for a walk in Wayland, Massachusetts. That's a town just about 30 miles northeast of Worcester, Sarah's remains were found in a wooded area in 1998. Another card that came in was from the parents of 10-year-old Holly Peranian, who disappeared in 1993 from Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Her remains were found in a wooded area two months after she vanished. Sturbridge is a town about 20 miles southwest of Worcester, and Holly's

disappearance was a case that caught Molly's attention. It was on her mind, and it's a case that will come into play in Molly's case later on. Police spoke with the driver of the sand truck that Maggie had seen on the morning Molly vanished. He said that just before Maggie and Molly pulled in, he had seen a white car in the parking lot similar to the one that Maggie saw the day before, but he couldn't provide any specific details about the car or its driver. Other witnesses had also seen the car, first near a car wash at the base of Commons Pond Road, then later a cemetery worker saw a white car at the end of a trail leading from the beach to St. Paul's Cemetery. Authority suspected Molly's

kidnapper was from the area and lived nearby. John Bish believed that the man who took Molly may have asked her for a band-aid. Then when she opened the first aid kit, he forced her up the trail and into his car that was parked in the cemetery. Molly's flip-flops were left behind, something that she wouldn't do. You know, according to friends and family, she would never voluntarily walk through the woods without them. What really struck me is when I went to the pond that day,

she was missing. Her shoes were there. And Molly was one of those kids that wore shoes. Like she wasn't one that like to walk around the grass with bare feet and, you know, be the grounding hippie. She didn't like anything squishy. She didn't want to touch any bugs.

She, you know, She was like, put the Adidas, shower shoes on, and that's it. I'm not, you know, I'm not going in the fan or anything. So again, that behavior, looking at the victim and seeing what do they do and how do they act. And is that normal or abnormal? And that wasn't done in Molly's case. And so right away, the trajectory of the investigation was set in the wrong direction.

The pond sits next to a cemetery in town. and you can access a cemetery from a different road. You can use a path to walk from the pond to the cemetery. There's a lot of different paths behind the pond. We used to go mountain biking behind there and, you know, hiking and stuff. And it's, you know, a beautiful area. But there is a path that leads directly to the cemetery. And there was a white car spotted by one witness at the cemetery.

in that time frame of Molly's disappearance. So it's very likely that that person parked in the cemetery, walked the path, and now where the pond is, there's like a hill that you go up to to hike to this path, to the cemetery. So this person could literally sit on this hill, wait for her to get there, wait for her to get settled, could have faked a distress like, oh, I cut myself, can you run up here and grab me a band-aid?

Molly would have jumped up. She wouldn't have grabbed the police radio if it's just a minor ailment. She wouldn't have put her shoes on to help in an emergency. If there was someone familiar to her, she would have just jumped up and not felt in any way that she needed any protection, so to speak. And given that we believe that the lifeguard or the first aid kit was open, we do think that someone was waiting and feigned an injury and got her out of there somehow that way. The district attorney at the time of Molly's abduction was John Conti. Conti and his team focused on the white car theory and did a cursory search of 125 white cars. The next step was interrogating local sex offenders.

One of them, convicted child rapist Oscar Belargeon, bore a striking resemblance to the composite sketch. He had admitted to meeting Molly at a party, but Maggie, who saw the man in the white car, was not convinced Oscar was her daughter's kidnapper. The resemblance was there, but the hair was wrong, and investigators did not have enough evidence to proceed further. The composite drawing of Molly's abductor became one of the most recognized sketches in the state of Massachusetts, but it led nowhere. One year after Molly's abduction, Maggie Bish contacted fame sketch artist Gene Boland,

who had previously worked on the Unabomber, as well as the Polly class case. For several hours, Maggie and Gene talked while Gene drew the portrait. When the drawing was complete, Maggie felt something was missing. So Gene kept working. She kept trying to adjust this composite sketch when she was finally finished. Maggie instantly felt fear. It was him.

The man staring back at her from this sketch. sketch was the man who took her daughter. Maggie felt that Gene Bolin had accurately depicted the man in the white car. And this sketch morph may have been much, much more accurate, right? As to the man that Maggie Bish saw, but it didn't help produce any leads. And really, very little happened with the investigation over the next two years. Then in late 2002, a hunter named Rick. Boudreau found a torn blue and white swimsuit on a wooded hillside known as Whiskey Hill. Whiskey Hill is near a sportsman's club in Palmer and it's only about five miles from Commons Pond. This guy Ricky left the torn bathing suit where he found it and never even brought

it up until six months later. But when he finally did, it was May 2003, Ricky told a friend about what he had found. And this friend just happened to be a local ex-cop named Tim McGuigan. So obviously as an ex-cop, this guy knew there might be some importance, some extreme importance to this torn bathing suit. So Tim called the police. Tim McGuigan, as it turned out, was obsessed with another case, the abduction and murder of 10-year-old Holly Peranian, the case that we mentioned earlier. Holly and her brother were visiting their grandparents in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, about 11 miles southeast of Warn when they went to a neighbor's house to see puppies.

Her brother returned to the grandparents' home alone, and Holly was nowhere to be found. Shortly after, one of Holly's shoes was recovered by the side of the road. On October 23, 1993, a hunter found Holly's remains in Brimfield, Massachusetts. Investigators were unable to catch her killer. At the time, the bathing suit was found. Tim McGuigan was writing a true crime account on Holly's case. He couldn't help but notice the similarities between both cases. The girls were both young and blonde and vanished in rural areas just miles apart.

The remains were found in wooded areas, both by hunters. And there was an eerie connection. Molly was 10 years old when Holly was murdered, and she wrote Holly's parents a note shortly after the little girl vanished. So Holly disappeared in 1993. She was the same age as my sister. when Holly disappeared, we went, you know, we went to the Catholic Church in town, and we all went to catechism and everything. And the priest in our church asked us to write a letter to the family.

And Molly, again, being this really empathetic child, wrote this beautiful letter to the family and included one of our only family pictures from 1988. So if you can imagine the hair, the perfect role that I had. It's so embarrassing. but she sent it to them. And when Molly disappears, you know, seven years later, they come to our home and say, we have a letter from Molly. And so right away, that connected us, just as family victims experiencing the same thing. Here's an excerpt from Molly's letter to Holly's parents.

I am very sorry. I wish I could make it up to you. Holly is a very pretty girl. She is almost as tall as me. I wish I knew Holly. I hope they found her. And these are the things more that I think, you know, can really tug at your heartstrings, right? Molly, at the time that she wrote this letter was 10 years old and was so moved by Holly's

disappearance that she felt she should take the time to write a letter to her parents. Yeah, I think that says something about her. character and her personality. I agree with you 100%. Not every, you know, 10 year old in America would do that. No, I'm not saying if you don't do that, you're a bad person. But I think it says something about Molly. I think you're right. Now, Tim McGuigan, along with Ricky Boudreau, the hunter who first found the bathing suit, they returned to Whiskey Hill with investigators. they went to the exact spot where Ricky Boudreau first found a bathing suit, and miraculously, the suit was still there.

And it didn't take long for police to announce the discovery of the weather-beaten bathing suit, which they said was much like the one Molly was wearing when she vanished. Tim McGuigan began his own investigation at Commons Pond and hired criminal profiler John Kelly to develop a profile of the killer. John Kelly later told the show 48 hours. We felt he had to be a hometown guy because of the way Commons Pond is situated. He knew which roads to take.

I mean, this deed was carried out in an almost perfect way until her body was found. He wouldn't be as good. He wouldn't be as methodical. Because bear in mind, this has been the perfect crime for three years. He got away with murder. And I do think, more,

if this makes a lot of sense, you know, we've heard a little bit about Commons Pond. It's not like you're, you know, on a major road pulling into this place with a bunch of parking spots, right? This is more of a rural setting. And given the fact that there are multiple places for ingress and egress, I do think it makes sense to theorize that whoever took Molly had to be somewhat familiar with this Commons pond and the roads in and out of it. It does make sense that this would be somebody that's local and not somebody that just came in off a major highway.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. You're taking a huge chance as an outsider, not knowing the area at all, not knowing where you're going, you're taking a huge chance to abduct someone and then hope that your getaway is clean. So I think for all of those reasons, I agree with the people that believe this is most likely either a hometown guy or somebody from one of the surrounding areas, right? It doesn't have to live right there to know, but you know, can't be from another state passing through is my thing. A thorough search of Whiskey Hill took place and the first bone was found on June 3rd, 2003. It was an upper arm bone from a person 14 to 20 years old, roughly about 500 feet from

where the bathing suit was found. And over the next few days, they found teeth. They found more bones, including a rib and vertebrae. In total, 20 pieces were discovered. The bones showed no signs of blunt trauma, no bullet wounds. So really very difficult to determine a cause of death. Investigators informed the bishes of the discovery and they felt in their gut. This was Molly. And dental records later confirmed that.

that the teeth found belonged to Molly Bish. And although cause of death wasn't evident from what was gathered of Molly's remains, Heather described for us details about Molly's skull. When we found her skull, there was a fracture. Now we can't identify if that was done, you know, while her body was in the woods for three years and animals just pushed it or if it was something,

you know, and it hit a rock or something or if it was something that, you know, she was really hit. But there was, you know, a crack in the skull. After Molly's remains were officially identified, in a statement read by family friend Marilyn Colty, the Bishis said, Molly has come home, were deeply saddened but grateful that we could bring her back home.

Heather described how difficult the time was for the Bish family between when Molly went missing and when her remains were found. It was incredibly difficult. So I think, you know, again, we were that small family. We would do these things called Fragile Fridays, and we would meet at this little place called Charlie's, and it had, like, fish and chips and, you know, grinders. It was the least fancy place you can imagine. But every Friday, no matter where we were, my brother would come from work wherever I was, Michaela. And, you know, she could get, like, gummies or wallipops out of the, they had the old-fashioned machines there and everything.

candy machines, and we would just eat dinner together every Friday. And sometimes we would talk about what's happening, and sometimes we wouldn't talk about it. And sometimes, you know, one of us would be in a bad place. And other times we would be almost like, quote unquote, normal. But I think that was really, I guess when I talk to people now about grieving and loss and survival, It's that was hanging on. That's what I call hanging on and holding on. We just held on to each other.

There wasn't any answers. There wasn't a secret recipe. There wasn't anything that we particularly did that got us through. I think we just held on and sort of gave each other the space to be angry or be sad or be depressed or be whatever we were. and just held on. Molly, Elizabeth Smart was found in April before Molly was found. And that honestly, we had just met her family before that. And, you know, it just gave us a lot of hope that maybe there would be a resolution that was, you know, that we would get her back.

And so it was very difficult, you know, a month and a half later when we found her bathing suit. And it was torturous. It was a month and a half long search going out different days. I would leave my job teaching at lunchtime and go thank the searchers because I was so afraid if they didn't know that we were grateful that they would stop. And I knew that it was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack because your body, it's been three years. Your bones are spread out. There's animals around here.

We live with bears and, you know, all kinds of wild creatures out there. And so, you know, I think it was really important to our family that the searchers knew how much we appreciated what they were doing because it was June and it was hot as hell and sticky and, you know, thick underbrush and they're climbing and pickers and just picking through years and years of just stuff in the woods. to help us. And, you know, we recovered 26 of Molly's bones. We were fortunate that we did find her skull so that we were able to identify her right away. But over the course of that time, you know, we had to send it to DNA tests. It was like a horrible movie. It's like something you can't imagine. You don't want to imagine living through because it's just so horrific. And I think what the only thing that you know we realized is that there wasn't we couldn't fix us there was no way that we could put those pieces of Molly's body back together and make her alive again you know you just

don't really have a choice but to be okay you don't I mean you have your parents losing their minds they're not the same you have your other siblings you have your other family you have all these people you have to be okay for. So, you know, I guess there's sometimes just isn't a choice, but to keep going, keep holding on. On August 2nd, 2003, Molly Bish was finally laid to rest. As tough as it was to know that Molly was gone, it was relief in some ways to the Bish family to have her remains, as Heather discussed with us.

I think it took away the terror of knowing that my sister wasn't being held and raped every day. That was certainly one way. to, I guess, sort of feel relieved that she wasn't being consistently abused. She wasn't locked in a shed, having kids with some sexual predator. So that, you know, was relieving in some regard. And, you know, we did get to honor Molly's life and to say goodbye. I was always mad at myself because the morning she stopped over.

Like I had said, I was just recovering from the stomach bug, and I always kissed her goodbye. We were just lovy. And I didn't kiss her goodbye that morning. And the next time I kissed her was kissing her skull. So, I mean, you know, I guess there's some things that, you know, you try to tell yourself and give yourself perspective to make yourself feel better. But it doesn't make it any better. I mean, it's still horrible.

In the spring of 2004, district attorney John Conte announced that a special grand jury would convene to investigate the murder of Molly Bish. Between 16 and 23 people would sit on the grand jury and more than 100 witnesses, including Molly's boyfriend, would be called to testify. Conti said 11 people had previously failed lie detector test when questioned in this case. So the hearing didn't take place until 2006, essentially. two years, right, after the district attorney announced that it would, but Conti dismissed the grand jury. No indictments were returned and no arrests were made. It was in 2004 that John and Maggie

Bish collaborated with Anna Maria College and opened the Molly Bish Center for the protection of children and the elderly in their daughter's honor. According to the center's website, the center was established with a mission to strengthen prevention, increase awareness, and expand participation at all levels of the community and to enhance response capacity to meet a broad range of needs for children and the elderly. At the end of 2005, another possible suspect emerged. In the summer of 2004, John Regan was charged in two cases that involved allegations of sexual assault.

It was while he was awaiting trial in those two cases, a Walgreens clerk notified police that Regan had brought in a role of film to be developed on the film were surveillance-like pictures of women getting out of their cars in a parking lot and going into a store or a bank or something like that. Authorities were preparing to arrest this guy when police in New York informed them that he had committed a crime there. On Halloween, 2005, Regan attempted to kidnap a 17-year-old Sarasota Springs high school student. The girl's coaches chased Regan, who was sitting in his van, moments after the girl fought him off. Inside the van, police found a rope, blue tarp, liquor, and other suspicious items. Regan was arrested following the incident. In the weeks after the attempted kidnapping, law enforcement officials in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts examined

and whether Regan may have kidnapped and killed other young women, including Susan Lyle and Molly Bish. Suzanne was a student at State University of New York at Albany when she disappeared from a shopping mall in 1998. More if I want to make this one comment. Nothing good has ever come from a man driving around in a van by himself. Tell me one thing that has ever come out that's been good. you can't do it. Yeah.

And it's, you know, I think in some of the true crime podcast, people joke about those vans. Oh, sure. You know, if you see a van cruising around at the slow speed, the first thing you're doing is looking closely to see what's going on and taking notes and maybe right now on license plates. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to profile people, but if you're a man and you drive around in a large van by yourself, I'm taking special note of you. Let's put it that way. Now, DNA evidence gathered in Regan's 2004 arrest linked him to a 1993 rape in Waterbury, Connecticut.

However, District Attorney Conte confirmed that Regan was not in the area when Molly Bish vanished on June 27, 2000. So this guy looked very, very promising as a possible suspect in the Molly Bish case, but it turned out to be another dead end. In June 2007, John Bish, Molly's father, suffered a stroke, but he survived. In August of that year, Robert Berno Jr., who was then 54 years old, was accused of assaulting a female jogger in Brimfield. On July 21st, he resembled the man seen at Commons Pond when Molly disappeared. Police briefly investigated this guy, But they never charged him in Molly's murder. On October 13, 2008, Stephen Lucas, Molly's boyfriend at the time of her abduction,

was killed in a car crash on Palmer's Fuller Road. He was driving his 1990 Honda CRX on a high rate of speed when he lost control of the vehicle and hit a utility pole. Lucas wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Heather described off Stephen, naturally being Molly's boyfriend at the time, was looked at as a possible suspect. Heather told us how that suspicion affected him for the rest of his life and how the Bish family doubted that he was involved in Molly's death. Right away, Molly's boyfriend became a suspect because that was, I guess, you know, they look at your dad and your, and your boyfriend or your husband.

He was 16 years old. His name was Steve Lucas. He was crucified in the press. If you ask me, here's a kid who, you know, had some learning disabilities, who came from a family who, the stepfather was abusive to the mother. They were known. You know, they had some alcohol issues. And he didn't have the tools for to me as an educator and human development kind of studier. I could recognize that he just didn't have the tool. So he was sort of crucified by the media because he, his relationship to Molly and because of his reaction. And I just don't think he knew what to do.

We always sound hard to believe that a 16-year-old could kill a kid and keep a secret for that long without telling anybody without, you know, having, you know, a wider net of people supporting and executing this whole dumping a body and all of that and keeping that secret for three years. We found that really hard to believe. Steve, unfortunately, became, you know, incredibly depressed and struggled with his own issues in relationship to this and died in a car accident in like 2008 or 9 or something. So that was really tragic. In November 2011, investigators began to look at convicted child rapist, Gerald Battastony, who at the time was 49 years old. he was serving 10 to 12 years in prison for repeatedly raping a 13 year old girl. So obviously more if this is not a good guy in any way, shape or form. But what happened and the reason why he hit police radar, there was a private investigator

named Daniel Malley who went to talk to Battastone. And he was really there talking to him about the murder of. Permanian. So Daniel was probably asking him questions about Holly. We don't know the exact nature of the exchange. But what we do know is that after Mali left the prison, Gerald Battastone slit his throat and tried to take his own life. So, I mean, you can imagine there's something strange to that. And the police would think, well, maybe there's something to it. We need to take a look at this guy. And I think one of the main reasons why this investigator was delving into Battastoni was because the mother of the 13-year-old victim was a real estate agent who had a

home for rent near Holly's grandparents' home. And so she had a sign in the yard and the sign had her name on it. It had her photo, everything. Add on to that, the 13-year-old raped victim lived in Warren near Commons Pond at the time Molly vanished. And according to Battastoni's wife, on the day that Molly disappeared, Gerald was working on their white Chevy car and at some point took it for a drive in the Warren area. Add on top of all of this, the guy very closely resembled the man in the composite sketch in Molly's case. Then we had Gerald Battastony who came on the radar as a result of a child rape case, and he was being investigated by a private investigator out of Worcester. And as this private investigator is investigating this rape case, and the rape case had something to do with a custody situation.

So that's the angle that he was working on this, and he didn't intend or know that. Molly stuff would come out of it. But as he's, you know, investigating this guy, he finds out that jail Battastone is an informant for the Palmer Police Department and that he has impersonated police officers in Springfield. And he was obsessed with a young woman who lived in the area of the cemetery where Molly was close to being at the pond. and she was a blonde-haired girl, 16 years old. He had a lot of sexual inappropriateness with his girlfriends, making them dress up like young women and really weird, weird stuff. He went to jail for the child rape.

Gerald Battastone died of natural causes three years later in 2014 while still in prison for those rape charges. In 2012, new evidence and the reevalue. of existing evidence in the murder of Holly Pranian linked a man named David Pollyott to the murder. Pollyot passed away in 2003. Authorities wouldn't say what the evidence was that linked him to Holly's murder, but forensic tests show that either Pouliot or people associated with him

were in the immediate area at the time relevant to Holly's disappearance and the finding of her remains. Poliott had gone fishing and hunting in the same area where Holly's body was found. But while authorities could link him to the crime scene, They never named him as a suspect. It's worth noting that Pollyett's resemblance to the composite sketch in Molly's case is very close. When asked about Pollyot, Heather Bish Martin was quoted previously in a news story saying, My mom had always referred to the person she saw in the white cars having deep, set eyes, and dark features.

He truly resembled that. Investigators never found a direct link between Holly's case and the murder of Molly Bish. Pooleot did not have a record of violent crimes or sex offenses. A few months later in May 2012, Kenneth Tatro and Iraq War veteran who testified before the grand jury in 2006 passed away. He was only 30 years old. Police were interested in this guy because they thought he may have seen something regarding Molly's disappearance. Back in 2000, Tatro told the Republican he was concerned because he saw a man in a white corset. Hanging around the Commons Pond parking lot and staring at Molly.

The man was in his 40s and not known to the area kids. Maggie Bish was saddened by Tatro's death, saying there is a black cloud of sadness that followed Molly's death. Also in May 2012, the FBI started investigating Molly's murder at the request of Heather Bish Martin. She sent a letter to the district attorney requesting that his office allow the FBI to help. And just a month later, 20 items of evidence found at both crime scenes were tested for DNA. This evidence included cigarette butts found at Commons Pond. The new county district attorney, Joe Early, said, we hope to get a break there. As we've said before, time can be your enemy right away.

but as years past, time becomes your friend. There is a variety of emotions involved with this as opposed to other homicides. This one is unique, unique for so many reasons. In July 2012, a woman named Bonnie Kiernan came forward, suggesting her sister's killer, was involved in the murders of Holly Peranian and Molly Bish. Her sister was Crystal Morrison, and she had been murdered in 2008 by her longtime boyfriend, Rodney Stanger. In 2012, Stanger was in jail in Florida for Crystal Morrison's murder. Bonnie Kiernan had gone through her sister's belongings in a trailer Crystal shared with Stanger.

She was disturbed by what she found. She later described her findings for a news story. She was quoted as saying, there were an awful lot of hair ties, scrunchies, and barrettes that wouldn't fit my sister's age. At 50 years old, you're not going to be wearing a 12-year-old's barrette. Bonnie also found a firearms ID, renewed just before Molly's murder. The photo of Stanger on the ID resembled the sketch of the cigarette smoking man driving the white car in Molly's case. Bonnie told police that she received a cryptic phone call from Crystal right before her sister's violent death. Crystal asked Bonnie about her bird named Molly and then whispered the word murders.

into the phone. Massachusetts state police took several of Crystal's belongings to the state crime lab for testing. And police labeled Stanger a suspect in the case after they learned he lived, hunted, and fished not far at all from Commons Pond, where Molly disappeared from, and the Palmer Woods where her remains were found. We had Roddy Stanger who came in to the... the picture in 2009 because he murdered his girlfriend, Crystal Morrison. They were both from Southbridge, Massachusetts, which is where Molly was trained at the YMCA for

lifeguarding. They lived in close proximity to where Molly was trained. So if she, like, ran up the street to Dunker Donuts, it's possible that she could have run into him. He looked very similar. He had access to a white car. He was violent. He was abusive.

He was drug and alcohol addicted. He was known to. fish at the pond. He was known to hunt in the area where Molly was found. So he had a lot of circumstantial connection. In early August 2012, Massachusetts investigators traveled to Florida to interview Stanger. Hampton County District Attorney's Office also sent an investigator to Florida seeking information related to Holly's murder. It's unclear what came from the interviews, but Stanger was never charged in either case, but he does remain a person of interest. In 2013, More DNA testing was done on evidence in Molly's case.

Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab sent DNA evidence to a private lab in Texas called Orchard Selmark. In fall of that year, investigators returned to the 650 acre site where Molly's remains were found. This is just off Westware Road in Palmer. construction workers were building a racetrack there at the time. And Molly's family thought that maybe they would unearth more bones and more evidence, right? There were some things that had not been recovered at that point in time, such as the pink tank top and the plaid shorts that Molly was wearing the day she vanished. But just in case, investigators spoke with the work.

to explain what to look for while digging. And they were told to contact authorities if they found anything. Investigators also brought in cadaver dogs as the digging was going on, but they didn't find anything. A few months later on June 27, 2014, the 14th anniversary of Molly's disappearance, police announced that new evidence may have been found. A private investigator hired by the Bish family returned to where Molly's remains were found. and discovered a buried paper bag containing plaid boxer shorts and some pink clothing material,

both similar to what Molly was wearing on June 27, 2000. The family believes the killer buried there after 2003. The evidence was sent off for testing in the state lab, but as of now, there's been no confirmation as to whether or not these clothes belong to Molly. In July 2014, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Tim Moll. McGuigan, the former cop who led police to the bathing suit in 2003. Tim had claimed that he deserved a $100,000 reward for leading investigators to the bathing suit. And according to his attorney, some posters indicated that the reward would be paid, quote,

for information leading to Molly. But district attorney Joe Early and his predecessor, John Conti, both testified that those posters were put up by an independent foundation and that the reward was only for information that led to an arrest and conviction. Near the 16th anniversary of Molly's disappearance, Joe Early announced enhanced DNA testing would be done on 24 pieces of evidence in Molly's case. Investigators believe the new DNA testing could take degraded and unusable samples and make them usable. And morph, to me, this is fascinating, right? You know, you and I, we get into this DNA testing stuff. You know,

it's it's some of the things that are cracking these older unsolved cases wide open. This one here, when you're talking about things that previously could not be tested because they were either too degraded or, you know, they were not usable. But now there's a process to test them. Fascinating. The problem is, much like with the clothes that were found and sent off to be tested, we haven't gotten results back. And it's, you know, it's been years. But that information just as far as we know has not been made public. A year later in June 2017, Investigators searched an old former campground in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, a few miles from Commons Pond. They were acting on a tip that the mysterious white car seen at Commons Pond on the day Mali was abducted, maybe buried there.

Now, to bury a car, we probably aren't talking about a guy using a shovel. We're talking about somebody using a backhoe or some kind of digging machine. What do you think, Mike? Yeah, I agree. That's a pretty big project. That's not something you're doing by yourself with a hand tool. And if somebody did bury a car there that seems like they're going out of their way to hide something. Well, I would agree with that 100%.

I don't think anybody buries a car just because they don't want it anymore. There's easier ways to donate, you know, trade in. There's much easier ways to get rid of a car. If you're going to the trouble of burying a car, you have something to hide, in my opinion. The tip about the buried car was the result. of a 2014 tip campaign called Just One Piece. The tip campaign was organized by the Bish family. Incredibly, four separate individuals came forward then

and identified a new person of interest. These witnesses all indicated a vehicle might be buried at the campground. Searching at that campsite for that buried car, along with investigators, with Sarah Stein, a private investigator hired by the Bish's. Peter Massey, a professor of forensic science, at the University of New Haven and a team of students. The group searched the ground of the old sawmill campground for several hours

using ground penetrating radar. Despite this huge search, the authorities have not commented on what was or wasn't found there. Heather discussed some other persons of interest with us, and some of the people on the list might surprise you. And a local police officer who was not on duty on the day that Molly was missing, but his best friend was on duty that day. said to myself and my brother and several of Molly's friends, she's probably just tripping in the woods,

meaning she's probably taking, you know, some sort of drugs in the woods. Now, I'm not entirely sure why a law enforcement officer would say that to a victim's family or their friends or why he would even think that or, you know, I can't, I still can't figure it out. I know that this particular individual has been in a lot of locations where women have disappeared.

This particular individual is online ranting and raving about women, and he, in fact, lost his police position in Warren as a result of threatening young women as they were walking down the street. He was, like, yelling and calling them names, and they actually recorded him on their phones. Yeah, he still is a police officer. We've looked at the two police officers that worked for the Warren Police Department, who are still on the radar. One was on duty that day, and his best friend was not on duty, but he was the one who said that Molly was probably tripping in the woods.

He had a weird obsession with blonde girls, young girls. He just lied a lot throughout the investigation and gave false information to the state police. He, and then when you look at his track record of where he's worked, he worked in Vermont, not far from where some other young women have disappeared. So he's still on the radar. And I believe the chief of Surbridge Police is very aware of these two people because I've let him know. So, you know, and I continue to get tips all the time. Another suspect was the Parks Commissioner. He had a history of sexual inappropriateness with his family.

He lied to the police about seeing my brother that morning. He is currently getting tips on his sexual inappropriateness with women right now. So I feel, I feel he's a good person to continue to look at. I don't know that he's been ruled out or ruled in. I just don't think there's enough evidence yet. You know, I hear that that Parks Commissioner that I previously talked about is being sexually inappropriate with CNN nurses that are coming into his home now. I've gotten several tips on this individual and how he's treating young women who are coming into his home to care for him. And I'm terrified.

I'm terrified that one of those girls was going to get hurt because we couldn't identify this guy. He saw my brother the morning that Molly disappeared in a hardware store in the next. town and he was buying duct tape and some of the, and rope and saw my brother and, you know, John, my brother talked to him and then, you know, 11 o'clock, you know, an hour or so later, or two hours later, he's getting called saying the lifeguards might hear, the lifeguards not here, and he's telling the police, well, John is supposed to be there. It's John's working. It's not Molly. So again, he diverted the investigation initially to the local point. police as well. They're thinking, oh, well, we don't even know who's supposed to be there.

So the suspects and persons of interest in this case really run the gamut based on what Heather told us in this episode. You've got some real dirtbags with a history of violence and rape. You have the Parse Commissioner telling lies on the morning Molly goes missing, and he's seen buying rope and duct tape that morning, and then you have the possibility of some shady cops. And this has to be really frustrating for Molly's family, and also for investigators, because they have to weed through this mess of people to see if any one of them is Molly's killer. On the 17th anniversary of Molly's disappearance, the Bish family released a new video seeking information about her death. In the six-minute video, Maggie Bish speaks directly to her daughter's kidnapper.

To the man who took Molly Bish, does June 27, 2000 mean anything to you? I remember it as a warm summer day. We left home. We picked up the police. radio and then we arrived at the pond. The sand truck was there. We watched, mesmerized like little children, as the sand fell gently to the ground. Molly and mom for the last time. Molly said, Goodbye. I love you and ran off. It was her eighth day on her new job as lifeguard. That was the last time I saw or heard from my Molly. I have held those words wrapped around my heart to sustain it from breaking into a million broken pieces. One year later, on the 18th anniversary of Molly's disappearance,

police once again announced more DNA testing was being done. District Attorney Joe Early said, what we're doing right now is we're testing some people. We've gotten some DNA samples from people. We're matching that against some of the DNA we've gathered in the case, some of the evidence. To this day, Neither the DA nor law enforcement have announced the results of any DNA testing performed in Molly's case.

In the years since Molly was killed, the Bish family has really taken on the role of advocating for laws to help find and protect missing and endangered kids and to help identify the suspects that commit these heinous crimes. There was no way that we could put those pieces of Molly's body back together and make her alive again. We couldn't fix this bad guy. We couldn't find him. We couldn't solve this case. We couldn't make the police do the right things. We couldn't make anyone do anything. But what we could do was one tiny thing.

And that was to help other people realize that, you know, maybe we aren't as safe as we think we are. and, you know, we had, Molly was, our foundation started really when they had come to our house two, two weeks after Molly disappeared and said we need a nice head and shoulders shot to put on the news. They were finally letting this come out on the news. I mean, it was really not, again, not best practice on missing kids because you want to get that picture out there.

One in six children has recovered with just a good, solid head and shoulders picture. And we didn't know that. And Molly was the third child. My parents didn't even know where their camera was. So their pictures of Molly were like with prom makeup on or being silly. And so they didn't have a whole lot of just clean head and shoulders pictures of her. Plus she was, you know, at that age where she was cutting her hair and dyeing her hair every other week. So it was tricky.

And so we focused on that one small thing. If we could just help family feel safer, then that was just. just one crumb to make this whole puzzle maybe better. And I think that because my parents did that, they kind of modeled that kind of behavior for others. And a lot of people have taken on those kinds of endeavors. You know, we can't fix the bad things that happen in the world, but if we can just take a piece of that puzzle and try to make it better,

right now I'm working on an initiative, for familial DNA testing in Massachusetts. So we use familial DNA testing as a resource for law enforcement and 12 other states in this country. And in Massachusetts, it's not available yet for our investigators. And they've been solving unresolved cases left and right in California and Utah and many other states. And so I've never written a bill in my entire life,

but I gave it a good old college try a couple months ago. and submitted it to my former Senator Ann Goby out in Central Massachusetts and she agreed to work on it and, you know, clean it up obviously because like I said, I've never written a bill before, but they're working on it.

And now I have a public TV channel who said, you know what, Heather, we want to help you with this too. And why don't we make an educational video so that when you're talking about this bill, you can sort of succinctly show how and who it's going to help. And so they're helping. So I think once you start sort of doing one thing

and knowing that you can't fix the big equation, but you can contribute to something, you get other people that want to help you. And you find those helpers, like Mr. Rogers said, they come out of the woodwork, and they do help you. And things do get better. I mean, because of my parents, we have Amber Alert in Massachusetts and nationwide.

I mean, we have people talking about safety and sex crimes and predators and laws across the country, the Adam Walsh Act. So, you know, just doing one little thing has made the biggest difference. And I think that that, you know, when you're trying to deal with something that's so horrible and is never actually really going to get better, I'm never going to not miss my sister. I'm never going to be okay in June. I'm never going to have a normal life. But I can try to make it better. So, you know, maybe others won't ever have to go through that.

In March 2019, the Bish family announced they are working with state legislators to draft a bill that would allow investigators to utilize familial DNA testing. and you and I have talked about it, Morf, right? Many old cases like Mollies have been solved already using genetic genealogy, including the Golden State Killer, and so many more cases after that. Heather Bish Martin told the media, our law enforcement would be able to look at these genealogy websites and see if a partial DNA match would match somebody in the perpetrator's family. And if so, then they do their old school investigative work. The synopsis of the bill details exactly how law enforcement would use the DNA and how it would be kept confidential until a case was made or a person was charged.

And who knows, maybe these new laws and these exciting DNA advances will help solve Molly's case one day. Until that day comes, Molly Bish's family continues to wait for answers. and they're holding out hope that Molly's killer will not get away with what he did. If you want to learn more about Molly's case, please be sure to check out the Facebook page run by her sister Heather called Who Killed Molly Bish? And if you have any information regarding the Molly Bish case, please contact the Massachusetts state police at 508, 453, 7575. A very special thanks goes out to Heather Bish Martin for joining us to help tell Molly's story.

Thanks also goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistance in this episode. If you haven't done so, please go out. Give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends. Oh my gosh, that helps more than you could possibly know. we appreciate it all. If you want to find us on social media, you can find us on Twitter with a handle

at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast. And if you'd like to join the discussion group, search for Criminology Podcast, discussion and fans. All right, Morf, so that is it for another episode of Criminology. But we'll be back next Saturday night with an all-new episode. So until then, this is a lot of, Mike and Morph. And we'll talk to you then. Take care, everyone.