Dark Downeast - The Suspicious Death of Krystal Lee Higgins (Maine) Part 2

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

From the location of her car, to the condition of her body, to the timeline of disappearance until discovery, Krystal Lee Higgins’ sister feels that so much of the case doesn't quite add up to an accidental death. So, we’re peeling back the layers of this case even further with the help of experts. If you haven’t already, go back and listen to Part 1 of this story.View source material and photos for this episode at: darkdowneast.com/krystalleehiggins-pt2 Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

From the location of her car to the condition of her body to the timeline of disappearance until discovery, Crystal Lee Higgins' sister feels that so much of the case doesn't add up to an accidental death. So we're peeling back the layers of this case even further with the help of experts. If you haven't already, go back and listen to part one of this story. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the-old Crystal Lee Higgins, died,

Jessica struggled to accept the final ruling in the case. The autopsy found that Crystal had no significant trauma to her body and no signs of foul play. With her vehicle and body having been recovered from the Pleasant River just off the boat launch in Addison, Maine, the totality of the circumstances led investigators to rule Crystal's cause of death as drowning and the manner of death accidental. Not suicide, not homicide, or undetermined. It was all a tragic accident, they said. Crystal must have fallen asleep in her car as it rolled into the water and managed to escape the car as it sank, but then struggled to safely reach the shore and drown. How she would have sat at the landing with a foot on the brick for a couple of hours. She left that house around midnight, shortly after midnight, and then her phone starts randomly calling numbers at around 3.30. So she sat there at the landing from, say, 12.30 to 3.30 in the morning, with her foot just sitting on the brake.

Like, that alone doesn't make sense to me. The whole theory didn't make sense to me. Jessica mostly kept her doubts to herself without any proof or evidence to back them up. Several years later, when she was around 19 years old, Jessica found a box of stuff at her dad's house. Documents upon documents relating to Crystal's case. The autopsy report, police records, interview summaries, photos, and more. Jessica spent weeks poring over them. Based on what she's seen in the case file, Jessica feels she has every valid reason to wonder if investigators got it wrong, and if someone out there is sitting on a secret

about what really happened during the early morning hours of August 8th, 2004. The flames of her suspicions were stoked even further by two bizarre letters that surfaced in town in the years following Crystal's death. Two letters have surfaced since Crystal's disappearance and death, according to Lorna, the person who found both of them. The first letter showed up shortly after they discovered her body, and I'm going to say shortly within 30 to 45 days.

And it was just random. I, that morning, was getting up, went out to the mailbox for something, saw a piece of paper on the ground, went to pick it up because it was by my mailbox, and said, oh, this writing looks strange. And I don't know why, but I actually picked it up by the corner. I brought it in the house, put it in a plastic bag. Of course, I read it, and I can't remember everything it said,

but it was like, there's a murderer among us, and this person's going to get loose, and somebody knows things, and they're not saying. When Lorna found that letter near her mailbox, she knew what she needed to do. I called the police and they came to my employment and they took the letter and that was the last I heard of it. I've looked through stacks of case file documents and I have not seen record of the first letter in the files I have access to. However, the original detective on the case confirmed there was a letter turned over to police early on. Now, Lorna was aware of Crystal's disappearance and death. It was hard not to hear about it in their small town, but her property had also been searched when Crystal was still

missing. She lived on Webb District Road in Harrington, the same rural road where Crystal had hung out with those four guys on the night she was last seen alive. On November 19, 2015, another letter surfaced on Webb District Road in a bizarre way. Lorna found that one too. Another letter, and I'm not sure if it was the exact letter and it was photocopied or it was different, but another letter showed up on my road, not just in front of my mailbox, but it was like strewn up and down the road like a flyer. And again, I picked it up.

That letter, I believe, I brought to Tara Skeet and showed her and then called the police. And same thing, they took it. That's the end. That's all I heard. Tara Skeet was Crystal's best friend, and Crystal was living with the Skeet family at the time of her disappearance. Jessica has a copy of the second letter, and it's been shared on a Facebook page created in Crystal's memory. You can see it at darkdowneast.com.

The handwriting could be described as messy, but is still legible. Some words are misspelled, even Crystal's name is incorrect with a C instead of a K. There are extra letters in words, some letters are uppercase where they shouldn't be, and a few words are underlined for apparent emphasis. I'll read it exactly as written, extra letters included. Quote, Crystal Higgins was murdered on the Webb District Road by socio and psychopathic killers. The police passed by her body. There is pre-explosure sex offendered. Don't let this predator wait for another murder. He's gonna sit and pick, you dumb f***s, end quote. That is exactly what I thought it was all along, that somebody knows more of what happened that

night, that somebody else was involved. Despite the contents of that letter, the case was not reopened. Jessica did her best to move forward, but the letter never stopped nagging at her. In the summer of 2023, about eight years after the second letter appeared on Webb District Road, Jessica and Crystal's dad passed away. While sorting through her late father's belongings, Jessica collected all the items he'd kept relating to Crystal's case. That's when she allowed herself to dive back down the rabbit hole again.

It has now been 20 years since Crystal died, and Jessica wants to feel like she's done everything she can to learn more about the investigation into her sister's disappearance and death, to either put her concerns to rest or get the case reopened. I've never been one to jump out and voice my own side of the story. I just figured it's 20 years, 20 years of myself asking the same questions over and over, not getting any answers to it. I honestly believe that there's somebody out there that still knows something that they didn't share back then. These are among Jessica's biggest questions when it comes to Crystal's case. How did the medical examiner reach the conclusion

that Crystal died by accidental drowning? Why doesn't the autopsy explicitly state that water was found in her lungs? What would you expect to see in an autopsy report for someone who died by drowning? How did investigators determine that she parked her car at the Addison boat launch and fell asleep? How is it possible that Crystal's car and her body were in the water all along

if nobody saw anything for several days? What about the evidence collected during the search for Crystal? Like a reddish hair found on the property of someone police had questioned about supposed sightings of Crystal after she was reported missing? What happened to that evidence and other items collected before foul play was ruled out in her case? To dig into these questions, I wanted to speak with experts who can explain what is typically done or what should be done when a body is found in water, and who can better clarify some of the language in Crystal's autopsy report. I spoke with Andrea Zafaris, a medical legal

death investigator with the Dutchess County Medical Examiner's Office specialized in aquatic deaths. She teaches courses on aquatic death and homicidal drowning investigations, and consults on body found in water cases. I was referred to Andrea by a former student of hers, Joseph Vazari, deputy coroner for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, who also offered his expertise to examine this case. Here's Andrea Zafaris. One of the challenges of these cases is

there aren't the standard investigators available to law enforcement and death investigators. So, for example, if there's a fire fatality, you can have the fire marshal fire investigator out. If there is a fatal crash, a vehicle crash, you have thousands of craft reconstructionists who are available. And those type of investigators have often hundreds and hundreds of hours of training. They have evidence-based research behind them. They have tools that have been proven. There is just not the same thing for aquatic deaths, even though aquatic deaths are more common than fire-related deaths and plane deaths. I think aquatic deaths are some of the most misdiagnosed deaths in regards to both cause and manner of death.

Again, because of this lack of information and myth and misunderstandings. And people just don't know how to work these cases. So they go, eek, well, it looks like a drowning, so it must be a drowning. So that's some of the problems. That if-then thinking is something Andrea advises against. Drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion. There are no medical tests for drowning. So the first question is, I ask my docs or coroners,

whoever is determining cause of death, if this body was found in a field or in a bed instead of a river or a bathtub, would you be calling this drowning? And in most cases, the answer is going to be no. Andrea Zafaris answered one of Jessica's questions right off the bat. Although an image that often comes to mind when someone dies by drowning is water in their lungs, that's not how it presents in the body of a deceased person.

But the presence of water or fluid also doesn't necessarily mean someone drowned. The lungs are not a sack filled with water. So water in the lungs is not actually a good term. The term would be pulmonary edema, which is fluid in the tissue. So what you inhale typically gets sent to the rest of the body. And often what's back in the lungs

is fluid from the capillaries, the blood vessels surrounding the little microscopic air sac. Pulmonary edema is what's called an artifact. And an artifact, it means it's a sign that doesn't tell you how it came to be. So you can have, I can suffocate you and you can have pulmonary edema. You can have congestive heart failure and have pulmonary edema, high altitude sickness, opioid overdose.

So there are many different things that can cause pulmonary edema. So even if the lungs were heavy, that wouldn't necessarily mean drowning. When Joseph Vazari read Crystal's autopsy report, he said the same thing. Joseph has a degree in biomedical science and has earned advanced certification with the American Board of Medical Legal Death Investigators. He's also trained as an autopsy technician, so he was able to explain the language and findings of the autopsy in more common vocabulary. The pulmonary system section of Crystal's autopsy reads in part, the lungs together weigh 770 grams. The pulmonary parenchyma is dark red, congested, airless, normal texture, and without focal lesions.

So what that's referring to is the part of the lungs that are responsible for the gas exchange. So getting the oxygen into the blood system and getting the carbon dioxide out of it and expelled. So in saying that it's dark red and congested, that's something that can be supportive of there being extra fluid there when there shouldn't be. And that would be something inhibitory of allowing the gas exchange to occur. So the extra fluid and congestion in Crystal's lungs could be a sign of drowning, but it could be a sign of something else entirely. It's hard to say if the liquid is water or some sort of fluid from an outside factor versus the decomposition process at that point. Just because it's there doesn't mean it's one way

or another. It's supportive of the possibility, but not necessarily indicative of it. And so that's where, once you do this examination, this is just one piece of the puzzle in doing the death investigation. Just one piece of the puzzle. Because the presence of that fluid also doesn't say anything conclusive about Crystal's manner of death. Manner of death could be ruled natural, accident, suicide, homicide, undetermined, or pending. It takes a full and complete investigation considered in tandem with the autopsy findings to make that determination. An autopsy cannot determine whether someone jumped into water, fell into water, or was pushed into water. You can't tell. You can't tell. You can't

tell whether a boat was purposely overturned or accidentally overturned. So autopsies can't typically help with intent in these types of cases. So it really boils down to the investigation of the incident. And unfortunately, law enforcement, who today are overwhelmed in many, many places, they are relying on the forensic pathologist, not understanding that the forensic pathologist should be relying on them. Andrea pointed out some other language in the autopsy. In more than one place, the medical examiner wrote that parts of Crystal's body did not show any significant trauma or scars. It drives me nuts when they write

no significant trauma or scars. Well, does that mean there was insignificant? In cases where a body has been in the water for days, Joseph said there might be post-mortem animal activity or injury caused by debris or rocks in the water as currents pushed the body along. Crystal's autopsy mentions damage to the soft tissue of her ears, nose, and eyes, presumably caused by marine life while she was in the water, but there is no other scarring or injury listed anywhere else. This could have played into the determination that there was no foul play suspected in her case. No broken bones, no cuts or bruises, no defensive wounds. But if she was also lacking any significant injuries from bumping into any rocks or significant damage done by marine life while in the water, maybe it means Crystal wasn't

in the water that whole time. Again, this is where a law enforcement investigation comes in to develop a complete picture of what happened before and after someone dies. And what investigators concluded in Crystal's case is that she parked her car at the Addison boat launch waiting for a boy to call her back, fell asleep with her foot on the brake, her car rolled into the river, and when she woke up, she tried putting the car in reverse but couldn't get out of the water that way, so she rolled down her window partway, managed to climb out of the car, but became disoriented and drowned. Case closed. Is that theory even possible, though?

Let's dissect this a bit, starting with how the car ended up in the water in the location it was found, about 20 yards away from the ramp. According to historic tide and current records from NOAA, taken from the closest active station in Bar Harbor, about 20 miles away from Madison as the crow flies, the tide would have been going out between 1.25 a.m., the time of Crystal's last completed phone call that investigators assume she made while parked at the boat launch, with low tide at 3.24 a.m., which would have been a few minutes before two partial numbers were dialed from her cell phone. There are a number of factors that can impact a car entering and sinking in the water. The tide, for one, and the wind.

But if Crystal's car entered the water sometime between the last completed call at 1.25 a.m. and the partial number dialed from her cell phone at 3.30 a.m., then it is possible that the tide brought the car away from the boat ramp. But if it didn't enter the water until after 3.30 a.m., when the tides had started to come in, then the tide would have more likely pushed the car towards the shore. So let's say that Crystal's car entered the water while the tide was still going out, closer to the last complete call at 1.25 a.m.

The water level at that spot during that time is estimated to be between 6 and 8 feet. That's the depth of a standard swimming pool. The car was only 10 feet from the end of the dock, not the ramp, but the dock that also juts out from the boat landing area. An interview in the case file with Crystal's best friend indicates that Crystal was a great swimmer. If she had all her wits about her, if alcohol wasn't a factor, if she wasn't in shock, it's reasonable to think that she could have made it safely to the dock, if not the shore. But alcohol was a factor. Her toxicology showed 0.08 BAC. And who's to say if

she was in shock or not? I think waking up with your car hitting the water or already partially submerged is a reasonably shocking experience. How did investigators even determine that Crystal was parked at the Addison boat landing, though. Andrea had plenty of her own questions as to how that conclusion was reached. What would have prevented her from stopping the car? Like, where would she have parked? Did they have tire marks to show where she had been parked? How are they even assuming that she was parked?

Did they have a vehicle reconstructionist look at this? See, that's what should have happened. I don't know the answer to that question, or many others that Andrea brought to the forefront for me, even after sifting through the case file. But I knew someone who might be

able to clear a lot of it up. I reached out to the original lead investigator on the case, now retired Maine State Police Detective Jeffrey Njemie. It turns out he's a Dark Down East listener. How about that? At the time of Crystal's disappearance, Jeff and Jemmy was a detective with the Maine State Police Criminal Investigative Division,

CID-3, now called the Major Crimes Division. He was called in to assist the investigation two days after the missing person's complaint was filed, and he was made primary on the case as the investigation expanded. He and other detectives followed up on every tip, lead, and rumor that floated their way. Working the case, we worked it like a homicide case and kind of were expecting that result until you know things came up and the facts of the case just didn't match that. And that's how we always have to look at a missing person's case when it comes to that.

And there are all sorts of rumors with this one. He explained that the original search area was determined based on the cell phone track that showed Crystal's phone last pinged the Millbridge Tower somewhere along the Route 1 corridor in Harrington, Columbia, and Addison. And then it was the cell phone tower information, plus the fact that Crystal's crush lived near the Addison boat launch that eventually directed Maine State Police and Marine Patrol officials to the water and shoreline there. Although Jessica and others remember that waterway being searched

in the days before Crystal's car was found, Jeff said that wasn't the case. No official searches had been done in that area. Jeff explained that before the Marine Patrol officer struck Crystal's car tire with the propeller of his boat, that area had not yet been officially searched with sonar for evidence relating to Crystal's case, and that's why they didn't find her car until Thursday, August 12, four days after she was reported missing. The same goes for the recovery of Crystal's body. The case file shows that after the car was discovered and investigators suspected Crystal's body would be in the same area, they planned to drag the bottom of the riverbed on Saturday, August 14th. Crystal's body surfaced that morning. In speaking to Andrea, it's possible that Crystal was at the bottom of the river the

whole time, but only surfaced several days later as gas built up in her body from decomposition. But the question remains, even without official searches near the Addison boat launch until the 12th, why did nobody else see the car or strike it with their boat like the Marine Patrol officer did? It was an active boat launch used by recreational boaters and fishermen, and the waterway had dramatic 10-foot tides. At low tide, the depth was only about six feet. But not even then did anyone notice Crystal's car peeking out from the water. In fact, according to reporting by Catherine Cassidy for the Bangor Daily News, a local obsterman who left the boat ramp around 6.30 on the morning of Monday, August 9th, at nearly low tide, didn't noticeers I know, this tracks. It's difficult to put a boat into the water off a boat trailer at low tide, depending on the ramp. But the lobsterman

specified that he was going into the water at almost low tide, so there's some discrepancy there. It remains a possibility that the car was pushed around with the tides and currents and hadn't always been in the spot it was ultimately found. But the real concern here, among those who maintain their suspicions of the case, is that the car was dumped in the river at a later date by somebody who did something to Crystal, and that's why nobody saw it until four days later. There was rumors that maybe the vehicle got pushed in there. And obviously, in order to push the vehicle in there, you'd have to put it in neutral.

Well, then you'd have to have someone inside to put it into reverse. Both hit the clutch and put the gear into reverse. Very hard to do yourself and get out of the vehicle as well. Crystal's car was standard transmission, and it was found shifted into reverse. So in Jeff's assessment, this would have been difficult to do had the car been dumped or pushed into the water. Jeff's theory of how the car ended up in the water, that Crystal's car rolled into the water after she fell asleep with her foot on the brake,

was based on a few things. One, tire tracks in the mud off the side of the boat ramp. The tire tracks that went on to the left side of the boat landing as it missed the landing a little bit, we believe were her tire tracks. To Jeff's recollection, a witness saw these as early as Sunday morning, and they were still partially there when Crystal's car was recovered. The tracks were photographed and possibly measured for axle length, but not enough of the tire tread impression remained to compare them to Crystal's tires. You can see the pictures at darkdowneast.com. So the tracks were believed to be crystals, not proven to be crystals. But the fact that the tire tracks were in the mud can't speak to how they got there.

If someone had pushed her car into the water off the ramp, it remains a possibility that the tire tracks would be there in that scenario too. The other part that played into the conclusion of how Crystal's car came to be in the water was Jeff's own trial and error field tests in the paved boat landing area. It's for the most part level, it's got a very slight grade. If you're sitting at the top of it, it's got a very slight grade towards the water. In fact, I'd put my cruiser up there at the time and put it in neutral, and it didn't take long for it to start rolling towards the water. He clarified that depending on where you parked in that area, you might roll toward the road versus toward the water,

but you didn't have to be on the ramp itself with its dramatic angle to have a car in neutral roll towards the river. There was no vehicle or crash reconstruction done in this case. There weren't any skid marks or yaw marks that would have been used to calculate the speed of a vehicle. And Jeff said it wouldn't have been typical to utilize that investigative method in this kind of situation anyway. Ultimately, as Jeff explained, the case was closed as an accidental drowning death based on the autopsy finding no sign of foul play, toxicology results showing Crystal had been consuming alcohol that night,

the condition and location of Crystal's car and body, the tire marks believed to be Crystal's at the scene, and the phone calls she made to her crush in the early hours of Sunday, August 8th. The investigative loose ends, like any leads that came in before and after her body was found,

Jeff says those were all followed up with appropriate investigative action, including both of the mysterious letters that surfaced on Webb District Road. I do remember a letter early on. I did remember Detective Fowler talking to me about another letter. It would have been around that 2015 time frame. And it was very similar in nature, if I remember right, something about her being murdered. Jeff had never seen the second letter. It was turned over to Maine State Police

long after the case was closed and after his promotion to sergeant in 2006. So I showed it to him. Yeah, that's the first time I've seen that one, but the first one was very similar in nature. It's just when we looked at the body, there was no evidence of a murder type of thing. There was no sign of struggle.

There was no major bruising as if she was held underneath the water or anything like that. And like I said, in order to put that vehicle in the water, you have to be behind the driver's seat in order to be able to put it in reverse after it gets in the water. Or pick it up with a crane and drop it in the water that way, I guess. It's very unlikely. The letters were deemed as a hoax and not enough reason to reopen the investigation into Crystal's death. But that doesn't mean Crystal's case, or any case like hers, can never be reopened. You know, that case stayed there even today.

If, for some reason, new evidence came up, they would assign another detective to it. Crystal's case remains closed today as an accidental death. The title of these two episodes, The Suspicious Death of Crystal Lee Higgins, is our own choice of words based on Crystal's loved one's suspicions about what happened that night and the leads they feel were left open. The boys Crystal was with on the night she disappeared, including the boy she had a crush on, were cooperative with the police investigation. Several of their names are even included in Crystal's obituary.

These guys were close friends of hers, and from reading the case file documents and interview summaries with these individuals, there doesn't appear to be any motive to harm Crystal on purpose. Is it a little odd that the letters alleging Crystal was murdered appeared on the same road where one of the guys lived and where they were all hanging out part of that night? Yes. Is it also a little odd that Crystal's crush told police he happened to lose his phone on the night he last saw Crystal when he stopped to urinate at a cemetery, which is why he didn't answer his phone or even know Crystal had called at 1.15 and 1.25 a.m. until the next day? Yes, also a little odd, but what's a coincidence and what's a connection to her case is difficult to discern. I can see from Detective Njemie's report of the case that there were other people looked at and interviewed while they were still trying to figure out the circumstances of Crystal's disappearance and death. There's a report that Crystal's stepmother, who she had a well-documented terrible relationship with, had allegedly made threats to kill Crystal in the weeks before she disappeared. The stepmother denied making these threats.

They did not appear to be taken seriously, given the stepmother's mental state at the time she made them. Another tip in the case file stated that someone who didn't get along with Crystal's dad was released from prison three days before Crystal disappeared. Did that person come to find Crystal and harm her as retaliation against her father? Once the lead was followed to the end, that information turned out to be incorrect. According to interview summaries in the case file, the only person her father didn't get along with in prison was actually still incarcerated at the

time of Crystal's disappearance and death, but had been transferred to another facility, not released. So what about the guy I'm calling Michael? You'll remember from part one of Crystal's story that he made some comments to the detective about seeing Crystal in the days after she was reported missing, that he pointed out places on his parents' property that would be good for hiding a body, and that a detective found a reddish strand of hair in the doorframe of the camper in his yard and collected it as evidence. Crystal had reddish-brown hair. But to Jeff and Jemmy's knowledge, that strand of hair was not tested or compared to a sample of Crystal's hair.

He's not sure if it still exists, but I can see in his report that it was one of two pieces of evidence that was not destroyed as of 2004. The pornographic magazine and missing person flyer found at the grocery store while the search was still ongoing, item number 009, that was destroyed. A plastic blanket with a brown stain found on Willie District Road in Harrington, that was destroyed. A Newport cigarette wrapper, a red-stained paper towel, a black purse with a pipe and a plastic bag, those were all destroyed. But item number 002YA, one glass bottle labeled Contents of Bacardi Original Orange Rum Bottle, and item 010, one white envelope labeled JC-1, Hair from Door of Camper. Those were not destroyed at the time. The liquor bottle was likely retained as part of future charges

against the person who bought Crystal alcohol, but the hair seems like it would be significant in a case that involved foul play. It seems to me that detectives thought there might be something there with Michael. At 7 p.m. on August 16, 2004, two days after Crystal's body was found in the river, Detective and Jemmy received a phone call from the Portsmouth Police Department in the neighboring state of New Hampshire. They had Michael in custody. There was a protection order in place against Michael, that night, August 16th, he'd taken a taxi from Maine to New Hampshire, where his wife lived, in violation of that protection order. When Portsmouth PD picked

him up, he asked the captain an interesting question. Michael wanted to know if he was a suspect in the disappearance of Crystal Higgins. Detective Njemie advised the Portland PD captain that Michael was not a suspect, but if he would voluntarily consent to a DNA sample, Detective Njemie would like one. The report notes that the sample had nothing to do with the case he was working on, but regardless, Michael consented to a swab for DNA. Where it went from there, I don't know. There was no sexual assault kit as part of Crystal's autopsy, and I don't see any indication that foreign DNA was found or tested or compared to Michael's DNA,

or any other DNA at any point in the investigation. Since I pointed out that piece of evidence, Jessica wants to know more about that single strand of hair, if only to rule it out. She plans to contact the Maine State Crime Lab to see if it still exists or if it has since been destroyed, and ask about options to have it tested for Crystal's DNA. There's one more thing that I feel can't go unaddressed. The two partial number calls on Crystal's phone will never stop bothering me. In the conclusion written by Detective Njemmi, he theorizes that the numbers were dialed,

quote, possibly because of the salt water touching the cellular phone, end quote. Now, I remember my old cell phone from the early 2000s, similar to crystals. That would splinter into a thousand pieces and send the battery flying across the room if you dropped it from any height. I also remember that pesky water damage sticker inside the back of the phone that turned red with any moisture exposure. I once had a cellular provider point out that my phone wasn't working not because of a defect, but due to water damage because my sticker was red, even though my phone had never contacted water. At the most, it turned red after I kept the phone on the bathroom sink while taking a

too-long shower that steamed up the bathroom. All that to say, I am really not convinced the phone on the bathroom sink while taking a too-long shower that steamed up the bathroom. All that to say, I am really not convinced the phone self-dialed due to saltwater contact. Butt dial, sure. Water dial, I don't buy it. Detective Njemie worded his theory about the partial phone calls slightly differently during our conversation. I think it was around 3.30 in the morning. Several numbers were dialed and sent twice, but it wasn't actually a phone call. We believe that's probably when she was panicking, trying to call, and was probably in the water at that time. This seems more realistic between the two options, if we only have two to choose from. Maybe there's a third unknown option as to why those partial numbers were dialed,

and why there's a two-hour gap in time between those and the last complete calls she made to her crush. Like many things in this case, at this point, we just don't know. In the opinion of Andrea Zafaris, who has spent years studying and understanding aquatic death, there's more that could have been done in Crystal's case before it was ruled accidental drowning. That said, she doesn't fault investigators for what wasn't done. Resources are scarce and training is limited, if not non-existent. She made numerous suggestions for what to do next, should the case ever be reopened. So we needed weather, water movement, wind movement,

needed a crash reconstructionist to look at how the car possibly could have gotten to the water, what was done in regards to the search, why her body wasn't found once they had the car, find out more from the medical examiner for the minor. Were there minor injuries? Where were they? What were they? What was her toxicology in relationship to what could have incapacitated her to causing her death? So there's still lots of questions that should be asked. She raised an important point about body found in water cases. And the thing was, if her body had been found on land,

it would have been treated very differently. And unfortunately, the moment we find a body found in water, we're assuming the water is the cause of death, and we need to not do that. So one of the things I teach, whatever you would do for a body found on land, you need to do the same thing for the body found in water. Don't make assumptions. Just like, just because there's drugs around somebody, don't assume it's an overdose. Just because there's water, don't assume it's a drowning. As for Crystal's sister Jessica, she remains passionately dedicated to learning more about her sister's death and keeping Crystal's memory and legacy alive.

It's something that will never leave her mind or the minds of others who still talk about the kind, giving, hardworking, and fun person they lost two decades ago. Mostly the ones who talk about her the most is the ones who still care, still have answers, who are close to her. I still get the occasional when somebody sees me real quickly they'll call me Crystal.

There's still some people that will come up to me and talk to me about what happened, what are my thoughts, like the usual. It makes me happy that I remind them of her because the longer that they see me and think of Crystal instantly, the longer she actually stays alive and she doesn't get forgotten. Jessica shared so many memories of Crystal with me, all of them beautiful and special. If you want to know who Crystal really was, who she still is in the heart of her little sister, this is all you need to hear. Our last Christmas together, I was in foster care. She was living at her friend Marnie's house. And I was able to come down and have a visitation with Crystal around Christmas time. And the foster mother I was staying with let me go

shopping with Crystal and then because it started snowing she allowed me to stay the night. That was the time when she told me that she wanted me to sing at the top of my lungs with her. It was one of the biggest things she ever wanted to do with her sister was ride around the towns and sing with her sister in the car. So that's what we did. Woke up Christmas morning and she had presents upon presents for me. That was when she stepped into more of the sister role than the mother role. She allowed me to just be me without worrying about anything else. And it was just us being two sisters doing silly things. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East.

You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?