Going West: True Crime - Kerrie Ann Brown // 89

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

In 1986, a 15-year-old girl in Manitoba, Canada went missing after a party. Once her body was found, an interesting lead regarding a possible suspect came in. This is the murder of Kerrie Ann Brown. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Teeeth and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in today for yet another episode of Going West, and thank you so much to everybody who has listened to the dark parts, which for those who don't know, that's our brand new podcast that both Heath and I co-host once again. Yes, we talk about a bunch of spooky stuff, so if you're into spooky stuff, go check it out. For those who haven't tuned in yet, we have three episodes out for you guys to binge. The first one is on Killer Clowns. The second is on the Urban Legend Killer in the Backseat.

And episode three is about the Bell Witch. So go check it out if you want some spooky stories. It's a lot of fun over there, bit more casual, more chill. I think you guys are gonna like it. And today we actually, for the first time ever, are doing an international case. We're doing a Canadian case today, so interesting.

Yeah, we usually save international cases for our Patreon bonus episodes, but I found this while I was doing some internet searches for different cases, and I just really wanted to cover it. I really feel for this family and felt like the story should be more exposed. So we made an exception this time and are gonna cover

a Canadian case. All right guys, without further ado, this is episode 89 of Going West, so let's get into it. In October 1986, a 15-year-old girl in Manitoba, Canada was at a small party at her friend's house. But after she walked out the front door, she vanished. When her body was found, a witness came forward with an interesting story about a possible suspect. This is the murder of of Carrie Ann Brown. Carrie Ann Brown was born on August 19, 1971 in Berks Falls, Ontario to parents Anne and Jim Brown.

She also had an older brother named Trevor and a half-brother named Ian. Burke's Falls, by the way, is a super small village of under a thousand people. But when Kerry was three years old, she and her family moved a whole 1,640 miles away, or 2,639 kilometers, to Thompson, Manitoba, Canada, which is a small rural, nickel-mining town of under 13,000 people. In this new town, both of Carrie's parents had to change jobs, of course, so her mom and started working as a medical transcriptionist at a local hospital, while her dad Jim started working in the mines, which is actually why they moved to this town. Carrie was known to be an all-around positive light who wanted to help and be kind to others,

and this awarded her a ton of friends growing up. When it was time for high school, Carrie attended local RD Parker Collegiate, which sits right along Mystery Lake. Less than two months after entering 10th grade, R.D. Parker Collegiate, which sits right along Mystery Lake. Less than two months after entering 10th grade, 15-year-old Carrie Brown went to attend a party hosted by her friend and classmate, Doug Crocus. They had small parties that Doug's quite often because his basement was kind of a really

cool hangout spot for kids, and they would just kind of sit around and drink some beer and listen to music and talk. It was just a typical relaxed high school gathering of under 15 or so people that night. It was Thursday, October 16, 1986, and they usually didn't have parties like this on a weekday, but they happened to not have school the following day. So, Carrie and a few of her best friends walked over to Doug's that night, and they had a great night. But after a little while, Carrie's very recent ex-boyfriend showed up to the party with another girl, and this made Carrie feel pretty weird considering they had just broken up, so she decided that

it was best if she left. But she was planning on sleeping at her best friend Nicole's house that night, so she asked Nicole if they could leave. And with that, they headed upstairs and headed towards the door. But then, Nicole realized that she had left her purse in the basement, so she went back down to find it. And we do have a photo from this party. Actually, somebody took a picture, and we put that on our social media if you guys want to get a little bit of a visual of what this party looked like. So while Nicole was getting her purse, Carrie spoke with Doug for a few minutes and waited for Nicole, who was taking longer than Carrie expected her to. Carrie was anxious to leave. You know, she just wanted to get out of there and go

back to Nicole's and have a good night just them girls. And another few minutes passed before Nicole actually returned to where she had left Kerry upstairs. But when she got there, Kerry was gone. The reason it took Nicole a while to return backup stairs was because she got into an argument with her own ex-boyfriend. So they both had exes at this party. And Kerry saw them arguing and just kind of hung out for a little bit before deciding to take off. When Nicole went back upstairs and notice Carrie wasn't there just around midnight, Nicole looked around the inside and the outside of the house for a few minutes looking for Carrie, but she was nowhere. That's when Nicole noticed footprints leading outside, and she could see them because it had just started snowing and then Nicole also noticed some tire tracks where the footprints ended which indicated to her that Carrie had probably been picked up by someone. So it seems like Carrie had seen Nicole fighting with her ex-boyfriend and had just been waiting and then probably just got kind of fed up and said to herself, I just want to get out of here. So she did because part of this argument between Nicole

and her ex-boyfriend happened at the bottom of the stairs while Carrie stood at the top of the basement stairs. So Carrie was able to see Nicole having that argument? Yeah, so from what I can tell from the research is that Carrie was just watching this fight and she's like, oh my god, let's go. You know, that kind of thing. Right, right. And I can't blame her in that position.

I'd probably do the same thing. Well, especially because her own ex is downstairs, like she's just totally turned off by this whole party and she just wants to go. Yeah, she's over it. Originally, Nicole didn't think too much about this and kind of just figured she went home or to a different friend's house.

Carrie and Nicole had known each other since childhood, and it was as if they were sisters because they were that close. And they had sleepovers all the time, but they also had sleepovers with other friends. But in Nicole's head, she just didn't know where Carrie would be since they had planned to go back to her house that night. So Nicole went home, and Carrie wasn't there. And then she went out and kept looking for her because at this point, she felt a little bit worried about her friend. But as she kept searching, she didn't find Carrie anywhere, and she just felt like something had to be wrong. The next morning came and Nicole called Carrie's parents to see if she had gotten home okay,

and this confused Anne and Jim because they thought that Carrie was with Nicole. So Anne called around to Carrie's other friends to see if she could find her anywhere, but no one had seen Carrie at all. So of course Anne and Jim didn't want to worry too much, but they also, like Nicole, just didn't know where the hell she would be. So that afternoon, around 4 p.m., when Kerry still hadn't come home, they called the RCMP in Thompson, also known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in hopes that they would go out and look for her.

And this is one of those super frustrating situations where police don't take it seriously. Since it was such a small town, they felt that Kerry was just out with her friends and she would return, so they barely bothered to even look for her at all. And this always surprises me in general, and we usually talk about it, but whenever this kind of thing happens in a small town, especially one of just 13,000 people, I'm just so shocked when police don't jump right on it, because this is a town where you know your neighbors, you know everyone, so you would imagine that police likely know the Brown family. You know, her dad works in the mines, which is the town's biggest attraction, so it just doesn't make sense why they would kind of just shove this off to the side.

But then at the same time, I wonder if they did this because they had that small town 1980s mentality that bad things don't happen here. That's 100% my guess. And I hate that mentality because bad things do happen everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's a small town, it doesn't matter if you think it's super safe. And the other part to this is the fact that it was snowing So if nobody had seen carry and it's freezing temperatures outside I think you'd be a little bit more concerned that a 15 year old is walking around out there in the snow, right? Well, yeah, and this is October and it's in Canada

So I would say most places aren't super snowy in October, but again, this is northern Manitoba So it's it's starting to get snowy in October, but again, this is northern Manitoba. So it's starting to get snowy and starting to get really cold. To me, as I always say, I just feel like just look. Best case scenario, she is fine, but I'm sure you don't have a lot to do considering this is such a small town. What else is going on? What else is on your to-do list?

Just go look for her. Right. Yeah. What else is going on? What else is on your to-do list? Just go look for her. Right, yeah. I mean, you'd think that the biggest news in a town that's that small would be a missing 15-year-old girl. But at the same time, she didn't have school that Friday because remember, they had the day off. So all the police are thinking is, oh, you know, she's taken the day, she went somewhere, whatever.

But then the family's like, no, she wouldn't have just done that. Right, they're probably- Trust the family. Exactly, they're probably thinking, no, she wouldn't have just done that. Right, they're probably- Trust the family. Exactly, they're probably thinking, oh, she's just hanging out at some friends house, because obviously there's no school today. But that Friday had actually passed and the browns just sat and waited, hoping that Carrie would return home to them.

But the next morning came and she was still nowhere to be found. So the family was really starting to lose hope at this point. Later that day, which was Saturday, October 18, 1986, everything came crashing down. Two women on horseback were riding through the wooded area near the Thompson Golf Club at around 2pm. And the Thompson Golf Club is just over the Miles Hart Bridge that crosses over Mystery Lake. So, it's over the bridge from the main part of town where Nicole and Doug and Carrie all lived. So, it's on the outskirts of town in a super rural area.

The Golf Club is also nearby a cemetery and some horse stables, hence why these women were riding horses there. So, as they were making their way through this wooded area, they spotted something laying in the brush near some trees. It was a fairly foggy day, and around this time it was about 55 degrees Fahrenheit or 13 degrees Celsius. So it was a bit chilly, but it hadn't been snowing that day, meaning that it was pretty easy to make out what they were seeing. One of the women noticed some pink and black leopard print item, which stood out against

the fall leaves. As they got closer, they noticed that it was a young girl, and that leopard print item was her outfit, although she was partially nude. She was lying on a jacket and wearing white socks. But what stood out to these women was all the blood on her, so they knew immediately that something was wrong. That's when one of the women got off her horse and went to see if the girl was alive, but she didn't feel a pulse. Then the woman got back on her horse and they both sped over to get help.

This happened less than 40 hours after Carrie was last seen by Nicole at the party. And once Carrie's family identified that it was her later that evening, they were understandably very disappointed in police. But the police just used the excuse that they wanted to wait 48 hours before looking for her because they figured she would have turned up.

I just find this whole situation really frustrating, the fact that police refuse to go out there and look for her. I know, I totally agree. It's just super, super, super irresponsible. Even more infuriating is that around 2 a.m., the morning that Carrie disappeared, and she was last seen around midnight

so about two hours after this, someone called the RCMP and said that he had just killed someone. And this person seemed very scared and they had gotten off the phone fairly quickly. This call wasn't followed up and in fact some investigators report that this call was never even brought to their attention. It didn't come out to the public until just a couple years ago when the woman who took the call actually came forward. But the fact that this call occurred the night that Carrie disappeared and then Carrie was reported missing and police didn't make the connection or weren't told about it

is super upsetting. It's unknown if this call is even connected to what happened to Carrie, but it almost seems impossible for it not to be connected. Considering this town is tiny and no one else at this time had turned up dead. The phone operator states that the man had a northern accent, so she believed that he was local to the area considering Thompson is in northern Manitoba. The man on the other line also asked to speak to a certain RCMP officer who worked at a different police station in Norway House Manitoba, which is located about 125 miles or 200 kilometers from Thompson, so not close.

The phone operator feels that the man on the line must have known this RCMP officer, just by the way that he asked to speak to him. You know, it seemed personal and like he wanted to confide in this particular officer about what happened. And the call was recorded, and the phone operator did play the call back to the specific officer the man had asked for. But the officer said that he couldn't tell who it was because the call wasn't the best quality. Within days of Carrie's body being found, the phone operator apparently shared

the tape with the head investigators on Carrie's case, and they said that they were pretty sure they knew who committed the crime, so they didn't need to hear the tape. And we'll discuss more about this potential suspect later. First of all, if you're an investigator, please for the love of God look at all the evidence. Even if you don't think it will be anything, I mean don't just spearhead towards one particular suspect and refuse to consider other options. Also, part of me wonders if the officer at the Norway House Police Station did recognize the voice and is for whatever reason covering it up. You know, I just feel like it's really suspicious to me that the man wanted to specifically speak to an officer that was so far away

and he named them. So for the phone operator to show the tape to said officer and him not know who it was, I mean, how many people does he know in Thompson? Right, you have to be able to make the connection that somehow this officer or this person knows this officer and probably vice versa, you know? So, I just, it's so strange to me that they didn't fully look into that situation with that officer and just basically took him at his word. And Heath, you said something interesting to me last night about this when we were talking about it. You said that if this man is trying to speak to this specific officer, he's probably trying to either get off the hook or get advice on what to do.

And you don't just ask someone you met twice about that. And so you had mentioned it's probably either a family member or a relative or a close family friend or something like that. Right, right. There's gotta be a deeper connection there. And part of me feels like this person who had called may have been a younger person because I really, I mean, I could see a younger person

calling in and saying, I killed somebody and then saying that they want to talk to this specific police officer because they want some help trying to figure out how to get out of the situation. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense, which also kind of helps us because did this person used to live in Norway, House, Manitoba, or vice versa with the officer having lived in Thompson,

this connection needs to be investigated and it wasn't. Right, this gives us such a big clue into the situation because now we have something a little more specific going on here. And also, by the way, when he said that he wanted to speak to that specific officer, the phone operator, I mean, it was two in the morning. She was kinda just like, he's not available. How can I help you?

Like, please tell me who you are. This call is being recorded, so I can share it with him later, kind of thing. And that's when the guy got super worried that the call was being recorded. So that really freaked him out, and then he didn't wanna say anything else. But even stranger is that the phone operator stated that the tape sat around for about a

month after Kerry's body was found and then it went missing. Oh no. Yeah, so that just kind of stinks of a cover up. But also this was the 1980s and apparently in the RCMP offices back then, they would reuse tapes. So it's very possible that someone just reused the tape since it wasn't logged away and didn't seem important, which is just so devastating to this case because there's no known copies of it. And this is a voice, this is a confession. All I want to say is that is the dumbest shit I've ever heard.

If you're taking tapes from 911 calls, why the hell would you record over those tapes if they could potentially be used as evidence later on? Maybe they have a small budget and they don't have that many tapes, I don't know, but again. This was so mishandled and this was a huge thing. It's not like there's a ton of murders in this tiny town. There was just this one murder.

How did they not think this was important enough to look into? I don't understand. All right, so back to the crime scene When a medical examiner conducted Kerry's autopsy they determined that Kerry had been raped before her murder occurred And her cause of death was blunt force trauma to her head Considering all the brush and branches in her hair and the discovery of a big, bloody branch near her body, they came to the conclusion that she had been beat to death with this branch right there in the wooded area that she had been found in. Also found at the scene of the crime were tire tracks, which indicated that someone had driven up to that area, committed the crime, and left carry

there. There was also an air mattress and a rubber car mat next to the car tracks. Based on where everything was placed and the deep tire tracks, investigators felt that the car had likely gotten stuck in the mud and had to use both the car mat and the air mattress as traction to get their car unstuck. I'm going to give you guys a visual of where everything was the last night of Carie's the car mat and the air mattress as traction to get their car unstuck. I'm going to give you guys a visual of where everything was the last night of Carrie's life.

So Carrie's family lived south of central Thompson, whereas Nicole and Doug lived northwest. And since it's a small town, the distance between where Carrie lived and where Nicole and Doug lived was only about two miles or three kilometers, so roughly a 35-minute walk. But technically it's across town. Nicole and Doug only lived a four-minute walk away from each other. They were just a street and a half down from each other.

So Nicole and Doug's houses were very, very close. And since Nicole was 14 and Kerry was 15, they didn't drive. So it made sense why Kerry's plan was to stay at Nicole's that night since they could walk there so easily. And this is why Nicole was probably so concerned when Kerry wasn't found. You know, first of all, why would Kerry get into a car at all

when they had a plan together? And why wouldn't she just walk up the street and meet Nicole at her house? It just didn't make sense. All of their friends were at this party, so no one had any clue who would have picked The first thing that investigators did was question every single person that attended that party. The general consensus after doing so was that no one there was involved, because Carrie was friends with all of the people there, and everyone loved her. Not one person

had any kind of motive to brutally murder her. Obviously Carrie's ex-boyfriend comes to mind as people who could have done this since they had just broken up, but police interviewed him and didn't have any suspicion that he was a part of it, because he had been at the party well after Carrie left and had other people to witness that. He also had no ill will towards Carrie, and he had clearly started moving on since he was already beginning to date somebody, which he was at the party with. There also wasn't any big suspicion on Doug, the guy whose house it was, because although he was seen talking to Carrie before she left, he was at his house the rest of the evening.

I mean, it was his party, so he basically had to be there. Some of the party goers did state that they believe they saw Carrie getting into a van around 11 p.m. though. Since Nicole didn't know something was wrong when she originally looked outside for Carrie that night, naturally she didn't pay close attention to the tire tracks or the footprints. She just kind of figured they were carries since the snow had just started for the evening and no one else had recently left the party. So unfortunately, any information regarding the tire tracks outside of Doug's house was

covered up with more snow that evening. But there are other sightings regarding cars that evening that we should get into. So after news on Carrie's murder flooded this small town of Thompson, Manitoba, two teenage guys came forward stating that they had seen something the night Carrie disappeared that might help with the investigation. Sean Simmons and Larry Leaper had been hanging out that night and pulled over to the side of the road just past Miles Hart Bridge

near the road that led to Kerry's body, which, remember, hadn't been found yet since this was the night of. Sean then saw a 1970s greenish brown muscle car and a white van come from down that one road. The muscle car sped into town while the white van headed towards the McCreedy campground, which is just south of the nearby cemetery. Since it wasn't a significant event, Larry, who was the passenger seat, didn't get a good

look at either of the vehicles, but Sean did. And remember that people at the party had stated that they witnessed Kerry getting into a van. So we don't know if it was a white van, but this seems kind of strange and suspicious. I wish I had the actual statements from those people, but I just know that in my research it just said that a few people at the party think they saw her getting into a van, but they don't have, you know, they didn't pay attention because they didn't know it was significant, which it's not their fault, but I wish we did know, of course. But that is really important to the story because if Sean and Larry are sitting in their car and they see these two cars coming from

the only road that leads to where Kerry's body was found, that's significant. Right, right. Yeah. And like you were saying last night when we were discussing this case, you were talking about how there's only one way to get into that area. So it's not like a two way situation. It's not like around about like, there's one way and that road and one way out. Yeah. And it's in a super rural part outside of town. So that's why it stood out to Sean because he was like, what are, why are there people back there? The day that Sean Simmons had heard

about Carrie's body being found, he was working at his part-time job at a car wash in Southern Thompson. That day a muscle car pulled in to get gas and Sean immediately remembered it from the evening before. The following day, the car came back and the young man inside cashed a check. And when he saw this man in his car, he felt sure that it was him in the muscle car that passed him the evening that carry disappeared. That's when Sean went to police to give them that information. Because remember, for this car, along with a white van, to come from the road so late at night, just seemed really strange. And this was the only road that led to the golf club and the horse stables where Carrie was found, as we mentioned before. Also on our social media, you can find a map of this town, because it's really important to know where everything took place, because again, the murder and where her body was found was north of Thompson, where she lived south of Thompson

and Nicole and Doug lived northwest. So to get to this spot where Kerry was found, you have to go over that Miles Hart Bridge and then pass that area, it's just rural area. So there's not like a bunch of neighborhoods or houses back there at all. There's a highway and then there's the golf club bunch of neighborhoods or houses back there at all. There's a highway, and then there's the golf club, and the horse stables, and the cemetery, and the campground,

and that's it. So again, just rural land. Sean fully believes that the muscle car he saw the night of Kerry's disappearance matched the car that was coming into his car wash, which belonged to a 22-year-old man in town named Patrick Sumner. This is the suspect that we stated earlier, police were interested in very soon after discovering Kerry. When Patrick was originally questioned, he didn't request a lawyer to be present for him because he said he had nothing to hide. He volunteered to take a polygraph test and also gave permission for police to search

his vehicle and take samples of his DNA. And this was before DNA evidence could really do much at all, but they took it anyway. Something that stood out to police was the fact that Patrick drove a Greenish Brown 1970s muscle car and that he was spotted by both Sean and Larry coming from where Kerry's body was eventually found. So of course this was the most suspicious thing, because you know first of all it's weird because Patrick's house was on the complete opposite side of town. He lived in the very southern part of Thompson, whereas the road like I said is the very northern

part of Thompson. And secondly his car is fairly unique. So this isn't just like, oh, I saw a, you know, grace a day on. This is a greenish brown muscle car. In a town of 13,000 people, how many greenish brown muscle cars are there? Yeah, probably not a lot. Probably not a lot.

Maybe even just Patrick's greenish brown muscle car. Which is exactly why when Sean came forward, police were like, all right, this has to be him. And unfortunately, it's not like we have video footage or anything, this is just Sean and Larry's word. It's just them coming forward as witnesses. So that's really all we have to go off of. Of course, it was a bit suspicious that Sean and Larry had been in the area as well.

And we couldn't find in our research why they had been there, but they were both cleared by detectives after an investigation into them. So maybe they were just out on that road, smoking pot or whatever, who knows? That's kind of what I was thinking. They were probably just chilling. I don't even know.

That's all they could really do there, it's just sit. Yeah, I mean, that's what teenagers do. You find a rural spot, you smoke some weed, drink a beer, listen to some music, whatever. But when investigators looked into Patrick, they found some pretty damning evidence. In his car, they found stains that appeared to be blood. There was also some very small blood stains on one of Patrick's shirts, and it was determined to be the same type of blood as carries. Under one of the car's seats, they found a piece of hair that didn't belong to Patrick, so they immediately felt it likely belonged to Carrie.

Now let's look at his alibi. The night that Carrie was killed, which is thought to have been between midnight and 1am, Patrick was supposedly with a girl named Claire, who was about 17 years old at the time. But he took Claire home by 8.30pm and then said that he went to a local bar with a couple of his friends. Then he got home at around 10pm, but Claire doesn't remember it this way at all. She says that she wasn't dropped off until around 11pm or a bit later. Claire didn't understand why she had a different recollection than Patrick did,

but this didn't make her suspicious that he did anything because she claims that he's one of the kindest people that she knows, and that he could never do something like this. Another hole in Patrick's Alibi came when investigators spoke with a young woman named Lindsay, who had supposedly been at the bar with him that evening, but Lindsay didn't remember going to the bar with him. She said that she thought that they had just hung out in the day. Since this day wasn't significant to her though, she also doesn't really remember much about it because it was just a normal day.

So she doesn't really remember it, but she also isn't really ruling it out as a possibility. She was just kind of like, I don't remember that. I think we just hung out in the day, kind of thing. And Patrick had told police that he was home by 10 pm where his mom was. And his mom didn't remember the exact time that he returned, but she believed that he had been coming home from work late. And she remembered him making some food

before heading off to bed. Police developed a theory regarding what they think happened that night. They felt that Patrick and Claire had been hanging out and Patrick apparently had a long time crush on Claire. So police theorized that he made a move on Claire but was rejected and that rejection sent him into an angry spiral.

So when he came across Carrie walking, he decided to rape and kill her in his rage. With all of this, the RCMP really felt like they had enough to arrest Patrick for the sexual assault and murder of Carrie and Brown. They had a witness placing him near the scene on the night the murder occurred, they had possible bloodstains connecting to Kerry, and they even had a potential hair sample, and they had his alibi that didn't quite add up.

So the RCMP arrested and charged Patrick just days after Kerry was found. Patrick's Summner spent nearly four months behind bars up until his preliminary hearing, but during his hearing, the judge decided to free Patrick because they didn't believe that there was enough evidence to convict him of the crime. After looking further into the stains in Patrick's car, it was determined that they were not blood, and these were tested in a lab. The weird thing about the blood on his shirt is that it actually is believed to have been his dad's shirt, and the blood on the shirt matched that it actually is believed to have been his dad's shirt,

and the blood on the shirt matched his dad's blood type. So we're not sure why his dad would have gotten his own blood on his shirt, but we definitely understand why this would be suspicious when they originally looked at it. The hair that was found also wasn't proved to be a match for Carrie's hair, and even though it appeared similar, the judge didn't feel like this was a good enough piece of evidence since it wasn't confirmed to be Carrie's. This was obviously very upsetting for Carrie's family and the community, but many think that the reason why Patrick was potentially railroaded was because there was a lot of pressure from the

town to solve her murder quickly, because people were terrified that there was a murderer in their small little safe town. One potential suspect that we kind of hate to bring up is Carrie's half-brother. We don't like having to mention family as possible suspects, because they could very well just be completely innocent people who are going through enough just having lost someone, but we felt like we should mention it after seeing a lot of speculation surrounding him on the internet. On Reddit and on another web forum that I read, I saw some comments from people stating that her half-brother didn't have the emotional capacity or empathy that people should have, and that this was known to carry and her family. And I think the other brother

was the one who actually stated this. So this was known to the public and to different people in the community. They also mentioned that he had apparently watched carry undress at one time and this made her super uncomfortable and she told her friends that he kind of freaked her out. This person and others also mentioned that on the night carry disappeared, he returned home late and through the basement window wearing muddy boots. His excuse for coming home so late and muddy was that he was at work late, which was never confirmed. Again, we can't verify this because it didn't come from a credible source, but because

it's so heavily discussed, we just wanted to bring it up. So don't come for us, we feel like it's important to include all possible avenues when looking at cases, and we're not trying to be disrespectful to a grieving family at all. We feel so much for the Browns, but it's been heavily discussed on the internet, so we wanted to mention it. And apparently, police did question him, but soon after they were totally focused on Patrick, so they didn't question her half-brother Ian any further nor look into him as a suspect. But because of these statements from Carrie's friends regarding her feeling uncomfortable

by him, and with the fact that he left town after her murder, he said that he moved because he was so depressed he didn't want to be in the town totally makes sense, but at the same time people are looking at it like that's suspicious that you were looked at for this and then you left town. Yeah definitely and I can understand that, but again some people like to jump to conclusions like you mentioned it might not be a credible source, but again, it was so heavily talked about through your research that it's kind of hard to avoid bringing that up.

To this day, Sean Simmons is 90% sure that the man in the car that he saw was Patrick Sumner, so he still believes that he's the one behind Carrie's murder. Meanwhile, Patrick still lives in Thompson and maintains his innocence completely. He says his life has been incredibly hard ever since his arrest because a lot of people still look at him like he's the killer, and it's made it really hard for him to get jobs and be accepted as a member of the tight-knit community. Although many people believe in his innocence, he was also never proved to have not done it.

Police just didn't have enough to prove that he did. So this factor alone makes people feel kind of weary about him. He also does interviews and speaks very openly about the whole thing, stating why he's innocent and backing up his original story. And I do think it's very interesting that he never left town. This reminds me of the Leah Freeman case that we covered a few weeks ago, you know, about Nick for those of you who listened, how he went back to living in co-kill and he's looked at as a killer as well in the town by a lot of people who think he's guilty. So same thing here.

But to me at the same time, again, Heath and I were talking about this last night, as we were like, if we killed someone, we probably wouldn't want to stick around either. So that to me is interesting that he didn't leave despite all of the rumors about him. Yeah, I mean, that's just such a tough situation because you automatically expect somebody to leave the area

after they become a suspect in a murder case. But the fact that he just stayed there almost leads me to believe that he really doesn't have anything to hide. Of course, this might not be true, but it's just kind of interesting. I agree. We would never kill someone by the way,

but I was just trying to put my my brain into his brain and I Wouldn't have stuck around I don't think don't lie. Definitely is planning out my my murder as we speak I'm never I love you too much. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah So there was some DNA found at the scene of the crime But unfortunately investigators believe that it's been contaminated over the years Which is why this case is so difficult Because it seems very solvable and the fact that the town is so small a lot of people believe that many know the truth of what happened to carry It's just a matter of whether they're ever going to speak up or not

So we do believe this case is solvable Which again is why we wanted to cover it even though we never cover cases outside the US It seems like more people need to know about this so we can hopefully get answers for the family. And again, it just is really frustrating that we don't have that tape and now they don't even think they have usable DNA evidence to get the killer locked up. And if you want to know more about this case, I definitely recommend listening to season 5 of someone knows something.

It's a podcast. And I only included information I could find online and in newspapers obviously. And there's honestly not that many articles regarding this case. So I'm sure that podcast does a really big deep dive into the case because I think the host actually went to the areas and interviewed everybody involved. But I obviously didn't want to take any information from his show, so I will just recommend that you guys listen to it if you're interested. I know I'll be listening because this case is just so strange and tragic and I just hope

someday it will get solved. To this day, Kerry's case is unsolved and still open and being investigated. If you know anything about the murder of Carrie Ann Brown, please contact the Thompson RCMP at 204-677-6909. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. To me, this case is very solvable. It just seems like there's too many connections, there's the police officer, that the person on the phone had asked for, there's the air mattress

that was next to it and the floor mat, the car floor mat. It just seems like there's too many connections and there's too much evidence for this case to go and solve. Also, I think that that white van is very suspicious in my mind because if Patrick had nothing to do with it and the green brown muscle car had nothing to do with it, we have to consider that white van as being potentially suspicious. That's actually a good point because there's two cars in this equation, so it's possible that they weren't involved at all, and maybe it's just the white van that should be looked at and not the green muscle car.

And this is still the biggest unsolved murder in all of Manitoba to this day. I read that there are 14,000 documents logged away in evidence for this case. So they have a lot on it. And unfortunately, so much time has passed, it's gonna be a lot harder to figure out the truth, but get on it. Yeah, please share this episode so we can get Kerry's case out there into the public eye

and so that it can be solved. Thank you so much everybody again for listening and thank you so much to everybody who gave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much to Adrian and Fairfield, California. Thank you to Katie and Oklahoma, and big thanks to Daphne and Long Island, New York. And then we have a big thanks going to

Kathy and Corona, California, Brooke and Portola Valley, California, and Monica and North Carolina. Thank you so much to Liz and Idaho, Luke in More Park, California, and thank you to our fellow Oregonians, Kaylee and Parker in Sisters, Oregon. Thank you so much to Claire and Ottawa, Canada, and a big thanks going to Victoria and London England, and also a big thanks going to Tyler from Louisville, Kentucky. Hey Tyler. Last but not least, we have to give a shout out to our buddy Andrew.

He has a podcast called Unforbidden Truth, so definitely go check that one out. And thank you so much to our new patrons who joined our Patreon in the last week. That's where you can get bonus episodes, and we just released a super super tragic and crazy case from 1991 in California and that is the murder of Denise Huber. So go check that out and thank you so much for no patrons, thank you Shay, Emily, Hannah, Elaine, Andrea, Richard and thank you Sarah. Big thanks going out to Nicole, Caitlin, Joanneanne Pauline and thank you to coke shorn last but not least Thank you so much to Anya Stacy Cassie and Sophie it means so much that you guys joined our patreon. Thank you immensely yes

Thank you so much for joining our patreon community this month. I have some really good cases for you guys. They're gonna be kind of spooky ones. They're gonna be related to Halloween. So definitely check those out. Head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. Hit the subscribe button. And we've got about 25 bonus episodes for you guys to listen to right now. So check them out. Alright, so for everybody out there in the world, Cheerio and Delvia Stranger. you you