Going West: True Crime - Mackenzie Cowell // 16

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

When a 17-year-old girl goes missing in 2010, her small town in Washington is flipped upside down. Surveillance footage of her leaving her beauty school is quickly discovered and it leads police to an interesting suspect. But when they put him behind bars, people start to doubt his involvement in the crime. This is the case of Mackenzie Cowell. **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN ANY OF THE NEWS CLIPS PRESENTED** KXLY News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69nZ_z1rXk Kiro 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNduRZaNiQ  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 Heath, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Before we get into the case, we want to give some shout outs. A big shout outs to Emma and Jeremy in Los Angeles, California. Thanks for listening. You guys are so awesome. Thank you for listening. And also, Sean and Sam in Eugene, Oregon. Thank you for being loyal listeners and patrons.

You guys rock. And if you guys want to become patrons and join the Going West gang, head over to our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash going west podcast and subscribe today. We do two bonus episodes every month and they're ad free. Yeah, it's only five bucks a month and all of our other episodes are free so it kind of balances out, you know? Yeah, and you'll definitely be helping us out quite a bit. And also, we donate 10% of all of our earnings monthly

to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, so you'll also be doing a really great thing. This is episode 16 of Going West. Let's get into it. Her death shocked the community and had young women on edge. 17-year-old Mackenzie Cowell, last scene walking from her beauty school class in Winachie February 9th. No one else was seen in the video. No clues as to where she might be until her body turned up.

Four days later, 27 miles away in Crescent Farm. I know that you out there know who did this, and it's important to my family for you to bring that person forward. You owe it to me inney's honor and was, and to the community who she's so much affected in a positive way. Earlier today, the McKinney Cal Task Force arrested 29 year old Christopher Scott Wilson

from his home beneath this hair salon behind me. They say DNA evidence found on a duct tape where they recovered Cal's body is what led them to this arrest. Investigators say Wilson went to the Academy of Hair Design at the same time as Cal, but friends of Cal say he was not friends with Wilson. People who knew both Cal and Wilson say he seemed like a normal, nice guy. He even went to Cal's memorial and was comforting her close friends. Mackenzie Cowell was born and raised in Wenatchee, Washington on April 1st, 1992. She loved to dance and was even a part of a dance team at her high school.

They were called the Appalettes, because the quaint town of Wenatchi is actually known as the Apple Capital of the World. In 2010, Mackenzie was a 17 year old high school senior, 5'8", and gorgeous. She lived with her father Reed and stepmother Sandy, and was incredibly close with both of them. She had a boyfriend at the time, Joaquin, and they were in love. Mackenzie loved makeup and was passionate about all things beauty-related, so she attended the Academy of Hair Design in downtown Wenatchee, which specialized in hair, manicures, facial pedicures, and waxing.

On February 9, 2010, at about 7.30am, Mackenzie grabbed her schoolbooks and walked towards the front door. Her dad was awake and said bye to her, mentioning that he was going to make teriyaki burgers that night. She told him she loved him and that she'd seen him for dinner. Around 5.30pm, Mackenzie's dad called her, but her phone went straight to voicemail. He started to get a bit annoyed because he was worried about her. He continued to make call after call and leave her a string of voicemails. He started to get a bit annoyed because he was worried about her. He continued

to make call after call and leave her a string of voicemails, saying to call him as soon as possible because he wanted to make sure she was okay. That night, a rancher was passing by Pitcher Canyon in Wenachi and noticed a red car that didn't seem to belong there. It was an unusual sight because the area should have been empty that late. It wasn't a place where the area should have been empty that late. It wasn't a place where people hung out, especially that time of year in the colder months. That night it was a high of 41 degrees and low of 31 degrees, so it was pretty chilly. The rancher reported the car to police. When the deputy arrived, the car was still there.

He ran the license plate and made a call to the registered owner of the vehicle. It was Reed Cowell, Mackenzie's dad. The deputy asked Reed if he was missing a car and Reed said, yes, I'm missing my car and my daughter who drives it. Where's the car? The deputy stated that it was at Pitcher Canyon. Reed got in his car and headed straight there, not knowing what to expect. When read arrived, the police were still there with their lights on.

This obviously didn't help Read's nerves at all. When the police opened up Mackenzie's car, it was empty, but they found her purse. This startled everyone at the scene. They immediately knew something happened to her. Earlier that day, around 3pm, Mackenzie was at the Academy of Hair Design. She asked a classmate if she had to sign out if she was only going somewhere for 15 minutes. It was unknown to the classmate where she was going or why, but it seemed innocent. There is surveillance footage of Mackenzie in the school's parking lot walking towards

her red car getting in it and driving away. It was reported later that at the time she was sitting in her car getting ready to drive out, she texted her boyfriend car, getting in it, and driving away. It was reported later that at the time she was sitting in her car getting ready to drive out, she texted her boyfriend Joaquin, saying, Hey, 15 minutes go by and Mackenzie doesn't return to school. When the school closed at 5pm, she still wasn't there. That's when her father Reed began calling her phone with it going to voicemail. So clearly something happened in those two hours. Police immediately began searching for her from the day that she went missing. They didn't waste any time or wait for 24 hours to pass like many officers do. They knew foul play was involved right off the bat.

After only four days of searching, on February 13, 2010, they found the body of Mackenzie Cowell in the shallow end of the Columbia River in Crescent Bar, Washington, which is about 48 miles away from her home. Sadly, it was clear that she had suffered. She had duct tape across her mouth and was beaten, strangled, had blunt force trauma to her head, multiple stab wounds, and a slit in her throat. The knife that was likely used to do all of this was still stuck in her shoulder. The police took this as a sign that the attacker was attempting to cut off her arm, but gave up. There wasn't any sign of sexual assault, and she was still wearing her school uniform. The medical examiner on the scene determined her time of death was between 3.30 and 3.45 on the day she went missing. Meaning the attack happened just 30 to 45 minutes after she left school and about two hours before her dad called to check on her.

So we have to wonder right off the bat, what was her car doing at Pitchard Canyon? It was only a 10 minute drive from her school. Right, but if she says she's going somewhere for 15 minutes, like, what can you do in 15 minutes? You can pick something up, but if she was going to someone's house or going somewhere to pick something up, they would have found that record in her phone, right? But did they ever find her phone, I wonder? Yeah, I would assume that she would have texted somebody and said, hey, I'm coming over to pick something up. And I'm not saying that this is even the scenario, it's just kind of strange to me because, like you were saying, they reported that she had been killed somewhere between 3.30 and

3.45. She leaves school at 3 o'clock. That's just not a whole lot of time. And then her body is found 40 minutes from where her car is found. So to me, she had to have been killed somewhere close, obviously, and then her body later put 40 miles away. Right, but what's interesting is that her car was found the night that she disappeared. How did somebody kill her, stash her car somewhere, unless she met someone at Pitcher Canyon, but like we said, Pitcher Canyon is a 10 minute drive from her school.

So they are in back, that's 20 minutes, not 15, and then to do an exchange with someone, if she was getting some weed or she was just meeting someone there for whatever reason, you know, that's an extra 5, 10 minutes. So that's a 30 minute outing, not a 15 minute outing. So I don't see her driving to Pitcher Canyon. I see somebody putting her car at Pitcher Canyon to get it away from wherever they killed her. And this also really doesn't seem like an accident. I mean, you look at everything that was done to this poor girl. She was strangled and beaten and stabbed. And you have to kind of assume that there must have been some sort of passion involved in this crime

because it's not like it was just an accident that happened. She accidentally was killed and they needed to hide her body. I mean this was a clear murder. It was a very hateful murder. Yes, very hateful and very vicious. And I would say maybe she went out to go get some food or something like that, but it was also three o'clock and she was supposed to be home for dinner within a couple hours of that, and also that would have meant that she was abducted in a public place, and I think that's a little less likely. Yeah, I'm assuming she was probably abducted somewhere that was a little bit more enclosed and

nots, and maybe somewhere a little more private. Especially since, as you guys will learn as we discuss more details, nobody had seen her at all, so you know that's a little bit weird too. Yeah exactly, if she was out in public she might have been seen by at least somebody. The police immediately began trying to think of who would have wanted Mackenzie dead. As most officers do, they started with the family and friends of Mackenzie to rule out those close to her. When they questioned Joaquin, Mackenzie's boyfriend, he willingly volunteered to take

a lie detector test and was very adamant about not being involved in her murder. The one question he apparently kept failing on was, so do you know who killed Mackenzie. But he openly admits that he failed this question multiple times, he just didn't know why. He says he has no idea who killed her and was not involved in any way. He loved her. Turns out Joie had an airtight alibi, so they pretty much ruled him out, but still kept their sights on him. Another potential suspect was Joey Fisher.

Joey was Mackenzie's mom's boyfriend. It was reported that they didn't get along very well at all. Joey had a drinking problem, and apparently, he got in a fight with Mackenzie the night before she disappeared. That night, Mackenzie told her mom to make a choice. Her or Joey? When the police checked on what Joey was doing on February 9th, he had a solid alibi. There was no evidence linking him to the case, so he was exonerated by police. Mackenzie's memorial service was held shortly after her body was found at an arena in town. The seats were filled by grieving locals and classmates, all completely shocked that something like this could have happened to such a nice girl in their little town. The Appalettes danced in her honor and wore t-shirts with her photo.

They released pink and purple balloons and prayed for her peace. They even put her on billboards stating how much they missed her. Afterwards Mackenzie's mom Wendy went on the local news and pleaded for whoever did this to her daughter to come forward. She begged that if anyone knew what happened to do the right thing and tell somebody, top investigators from around the country and the FBI entered the investigation determined to find whatever happened to Mackenzie Cowell. Two months after Mackenzie's body was found, a witness came forward. Her name is Liz Reed,

and she said that the parking lot surveillance footage was not the last recording of Mackenzie alive. She even named names. She said that the killers were two convicted drug dealers and criminals of the area. Liz said that the two men, Emanuel Seros and Sam Quivas, abducted and murdered Mackenzie Cowell thinking she was someone else. Specifically, someone in the drug world, a police informant, or a mole. Apparently, these men told Liz that they had done this. The reason they told Liz is because she herself used to be involved in drug dealing, so she knew a lot of people who were involved in drugs in the area. One of the men told Liz that they had to strangle her two times because after the first attempt,

they thought she was dead, but she wasn't. Liz even described the murder weapon to police before it was ever released to public. The knife had a very saw-like look to it, and that's how she described it to police. After this, they really believed that they had their killers. Liz stated that she had even been shown a snuff film of Mackenzie being murdered on a secluded bluff at an overlook. To this day, Liz breaks down when describing this video. She says the torture that Mackenzie endured as the killer's laugh was so horrific it still haunts her. However, police were getting very suspicious of Liz's story. They searched and searched for this so-called

snuff film, but couldn't find it. They were openly starting to lose trust in their witness. When suddenly, Liz retracted her story of ever seeing a snuff film on Mackenzie's murder. She apparently only did this because she was afraid she would be charged for Mackenzie's murder because of what she knew. Police say that Liz was never a suspect. They just thought that she wanted attention, which is why she made up this story. It's definitely possible that Liz just wanted to insert herself in the investigation, but if she retracted because she was afraid

she'd be charged, then wouldn't she have been afraid the whole time that something bad was gonna happen because she made up a whole story? I don't necessarily believe she made this up and we'll discuss this more later, but it's just very specific and not that lies can't be specific, but it's just so specific. These two people, they did all of these things. Like that's just a lot to say if it's not true. Right, and then also describing the knife and what it looked like, that's, you know, very creepy, especially because police hadn't already released the, you know, the details of the

knife to the public. Yeah, she knew exactly what kind of knife it was. So how else would she have known that? Police were feeling pretty hopeless, months passed, and they were in complete disbelief of Liz's story. Suddenly, police received a tip about yet another suspect. His name is Christopher Wilson, a 29-year-old classmate of McKenzie's at the Academy of Hair Design. Someone named Theo Keys, who at the time was in prison for exposing himself to a barista, wrote a letter to police saying that Chris Wilson had an interest in dead bodies and serial killers.

He had apparently been friends with Chris Wilson and basically told police that he thought Chris was involved in McKenzie's murder. Theo was also a police informant, but he had a criminal record as well as a record of mental illness. And now it gets even crazier. On the surveillance video of the school's parking lot, Chris is seen walking out the very same door she did just 72 seconds after she did. Christopher had jet black hair and tattoos and played music.

A lot of people were set off by his appearance because this was a small, normal little town where he didn't fit in at all. People describe that if he had been in a big city, he would have just blended in. Police were very skeptical right off the bat because of his Hannibal Lecture tattoo on his arm. I mean, Heath has a tattoo of Jason Voorhees on his arm and he doesn't slash teens. I really think that the police were profiling Chris and we're going to get into the details of why they actually think he did it, but I just think that a lot of the approach towards him was very unfair and it was very judgmental.

They really emphasize how strange he is and how much of an outcast he is, but all of his friends said that he wasn't like that at all. He was just a super nice guy and he wasn't sinister, even though he may have looked sinister. He was just very super nice guy and he wasn't sinister, even though he may have looked sinister. He was just very eccentric and artistic. Daphne and I still both, you know, wear black and watch horror movies and like creepy spooky things, so it's not out of the ordinary. And you can't judge a person based on their look, you can't judge their morality. But we're going to get more into why Chris Wilson is a great suspect after this short break.

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It might be the person sitting next to you right now. Might be your best friend. Your bank tower. Good be you, who knows. Whoa oh join us each week as we tackle a new fandom talk about some stories and make a couple of jokes along the way you can find us on Fireside FM iTunes Spotify YouTube and don't forget to follow us on Twitter thanks and we're back. Chris also worked at a funeral home,

which is information police ran with, saying that he was obsessed with death. Many of his friends say, well, thousands of people work in funeral homes across the country. Does that make them killers? Part of me, I get it. He works at a funeral home.

He has a dark image. Somebody gave a tip that it could have been him. So I understand why they're looking into him, I just again think that it's kind of profiling. Yeah, I think the biggest reason why they should be looking into him is because of the video surveillance of him leaving right after Mackenzie. I think aside from all the other bullshit like his hair color, his interest, his music, whatever, I think the most important part is he left right after her and it's on camera. What I would love to know is if he usually got out at that time because for all we know he always gets out of

class at three and he just happened to leave at that time or was it weird for him to leave? Did he tell someone he was going somewhere too? I would love to know that. Yeah, I think it's important to be able to look at both sides of the coin here because we don't really have all of the information, so we're just doing our best to kind of go through it and see what we can come up with. Please say though, that him working at a funeral home had nothing to do with him being a suspect. It was the evidence they found.

A piece of duct tape was found near McKenzie's body that held DNA evidence of an unknown person alongside some of Mackenzie's blood. When they received DNA from Chris, they concluded it could potentially match, but that they were unable to fully confirm this. Regardless, they bring Chris in and ask him if he's ever been to Crescent Bar, and he says no, never. The police explained that his DNA was found there, and Chris states that he wants a lawyer. An officer then tells Chris that he is under arrest for the murder of Mackenzie Cowell, and according to this officer, Chris showed no emotion whatsoever.

During his first court appearance, when Chris walked into the room wearing orange and bearing handcuffs on his wrist, Mackenzie's dad was seeing him for the first time. He was taken aback by his appearance because to him, Chris didn't look like a murderer. He didn't appear to have been capable of committing such a crime. Chris pled not guilty. According to Chris' mom, he had left school that day and went with her to pick up some cupcakes. She states that he was acting completely normal and happy as usual. Now, after Chris was arrested, police took out a search warrant and combed Chris' apartment

top to bottom. His apartment was just three blocks away from the school. They sprayed lumenol on the floors and detected a stain that looked to have been blood. They cut the piece of carpet and tested it against Mackenzie's own blood, and it was a match. Police believed that she was brought to his apartment, whether they had planned to meet or he had abducted her and she was murdered there. Then later dumped at the spot in Crescent Bar. Oddly enough, on June 26th, 2010, so just four months after Mackenzie's murder,

one of Chris' friend's Tessa took a video of the empty apartment. Here's the empty apartment. Here's the audio clip. It's clean for... for what happening. Clean considering? Yes, clean considering. That is just so freaking weird to me like what she says.

Clean considering, clean for what happened I wasn't sure if Chris was involved until hearing that clip that really kind of flipped it over for me yeah that clip really kind of solidifies a lot for me as well and it seems like she's almost kind of taunting whoever's watching this video saying clean considering what yeah her, her tone of voice, it's almost like mocking or laughing, which kind of makes you believe even more that she is talking about clean considering we murdered McKenzie in here, like that kind of thing. And of course it could be completely different. It could be, oh, clean considering you puked all over the floor last night from getting too wasted or whatever, considering what we know, it's very eerie to watch and listen to that and if you guys want to watch the video

You'll find it on our Instagram at going west podcast. Yeah, I would definitely check out the video after listening to this episode So you can see for yourself and kind of gauge what you think we haven't really considered Tessa as a suspect in any of this yet, but we're gonna get a little bit more into her and why we think she could have potentially been involved as well. If you guys watched the video, you'll notice that Tessa actually zooms in to where the stain was found on the carpet, as she's saying all of this, oh, considering, etc. And Chris was incredibly adamant that the stain came from a party but didn't really specify from what? He thinks that police messed with it once they took it to the lab so they can put Mackenzie in that room. Chris states that they were making sure it was clean so he could get his full security to pause it back. However, there was also a photo found of Tessa laying on the floor next to the stain, which is kind of weird. photo found of Tessa laying on the floor next to the stain, which is kind of weird. Because of all this, Tessa was actually arrested on suspicion of first degree rendering criminal

assistance and obstructing a public officer. She was later released on a $29,000 bail. Chris' lawyers are certain that law enforcement were guilty of corruption. They believe that law enforcement did whatever they could to avoid professional embarrassment when searching his apartment, even if it meant planting evidence. They said that in a small town like Wenatchi, police would do something like that to protect the town and get someone behind bars, even if they were innocent. And here's the reason why there so much speculation regarding the police department in Wenatchi. Apparently in the 1990s, there was something they called the Wenatchee Witch Hunt, where people in the town were charged for child sexual abuse.

It turns out, police completely made up this story and put innocent people in prison, so they were then released, thanks to John Henry Brown, who's actually the lawyer behind Chris Wilson's case. He strongly believes in Chris's innocence. And interestingly enough, John Henry Brown was actually the man who represented Ted Bundy. A main point that John Henry Brown makes is this, if Mackenzie was murdered in that apartment, there would be way more blood found than a little carpet stain. Her jugular was split, which would have caused a great deal of blood spatter.

Chris had light tan carpet and white walls. If he would have been unable to get a small blood stain out of the carpet, how would he have been able to get the rest out? Where did that blood go? On the flip side, police make a point to state that Chris Wilson liked the show Dexter. I'm sure most of you know it. Heath and I really like that show. Um, and Dexter, when he kills people, he wraps the room in plastic. So the blood doesn't get anywhere. So they're saying, oh, he liked the show Dexter. So he knew that he would have had to

use these plastic sheets so that the blood wouldn't spread. So that's what he did. It's definitely possible that he would have put plastic down on the floor. That just doesn't explain how one small stain got in the middle of his bedroom. That to me still doesn't make sense, and it's not very consistent with tracking, because it would have probably been near the door if he got blood on his shoe or something, but I mean it's possible. It is very possible, but the one thing that we can always come back to is the blood found in his apartment was Mackenzie Cowles. So I don't know what that means. I don't know if it was planted there or if Chris did in fact murder Mackenzie in that room, but we have a hard fact here, and that fact is that it is her blood. Police are fully convinced that McKenzie willingly met Chris because they were friends. However, there is no evidence of them being friends at all, and they ran in two separate

circles. Chris's mom is sure that they didn't know each other. They weren't friends on MySpace or Facebook, and according to Chris's other friends, they had never heard him talk about her, and he never hung out with her. Now I did see something on the internet, and I don't know if this is just a rumor but someone had said that one of Chris's friends mentioned that Chris had told them he thought that Mackenzie was attractive. And I don't know how much weight this rumor holds so I'm not going to speculate too much

about it but it is kind of interesting. Chris's lawyers fully believe that Mackenzie's killers are Sam Kwevas and Immanuel Seros, the two men who Liz Reed believed murdered Mackenzie. At this point, Liz Reed came back with her original story, saying that she did see the snuff film. Since she had previously retracted this, she had pretty much lost all her credibility. But she thoroughly believed that Sam and Immanuel were the killers. During the trial, Chris's lawyers had full intentions of trying to prove that there

was law enforcement corruption involved in the case in order to falsely convict Chris Wilson. Suddenly, Chris received a shocking deal. If he pled guilty to manslaughter, he would only serve six and a half years in prison. Chris told his lawyers that he refused to plead guilty to something he didn't do. Even if it meant just serving a few days in prison, he would never admit to doing something so horrible and be branded for life for something that is completely fabricated. He turned down the DA's offer. At this point, Liz Reed took police to a small bluff at a secluded overlook where she was

sure the snuff film was made. Apparently Immanuel had previously told Liz to go to that spot and find a ring that had been ripped off Mackenzie's finger during the murder. Immanuel had wanted the ring to be found so no one would find out that they murdered her there. Apparently the ring matched when she was wearing in a mirror photo she took on her digital camera prior to her murder. However, when Liz gave the ring to police, they took it to her boyfriend and parents and no one recognized it. Because of this, police concluded that it wasn't Mackenzie's ring. They never showed the ring in court or released it for people to see, which is pretty suspicious.

And I actually read somewhere that when they did show it to Liz again, it was a completely different ring. I'm not sure if that's true, but I thought that was pretty weird. Mackenzie was a girly girl. She loved makeup and clothes and jewelry, so I guarantee she had a lot of different necklaces and rings that she never really wore. That doesn't mean that the pieces don't exist.

I have rings that I wear every day, and then some that I wear like maybe once a year when I remember that I have them. So it could have been this kind of situation, but I just don't think it's fair to completely rule it out as being hers. To be honest, I've seen some rings of Daphne's, and then there are some rings that if you brought them to me and said, hey, is this Daphne's ring, I'd be like, no fucking idea. At this point though, Sam and Emanuel were interviewed and cleared. Apparently the two were working honest jobs at the time Mackenzie disappeared and weren't involved in drugs anymore. Emanuel stated that Liz is a liar and likes to take innocent people down, and that now he can't even go to the grocery store without getting looks.

They very well could not have been involved in this at all. It just seems very specific that Liz would mention them, and it's absolutely possible that her story is completely fake. But just because the suspects say they had nothing to do with it doesn't mean that's true. I mean, of course they don't want to go down for a murder if they were involved, but it goes both ways. The members of the jury were selected. When the jury questionnaires came in, about 85% of jurors were certain that Chris Wilson

was guilty. Since the trial took place in Wenatchi, there was no way Chris was going to get a fair trial. A plea bargain was again set in place. In exchange for a letter by Chris stating that he did kill Mackenzie by strangulation and stabbing, he would receive 14 years in prison. Alternatively, he could be looking at life in prison by stating he was not guilty. The chance of this was so high because they knew most of the jurors believed he was guilty

before the trial even began. And since Chris's lawyers couldn't conclusively determine how police corroborated, they weren't confident the trial would work in Chris's favor. When the judge read the letter out loud, he asked Chris if this was true, where these the things you did. Chris took a long pause and sighed before almost hesitantly stating, yes, he states later how badly he wanted to say no because it was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there.

He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. He stayed in the house, and he was sitting there. to go away for life for something he didn't do.

Police were incredibly frustrated that he took the deal. They were glad he confessed, but they wish he would have done more time than 14 years. A year after pleading guilty to the murder of Mackenzie Cowell, Chris filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. He says his plea was not voluntary and when he pled, he wasn't aware of the full consequences. His motion to withdraw was denied because the judge said there was no evidence proving Chris misunderstood the plea deal. The earliest Chris Wilson will be paroled is in August 2023 when he's 42 years old. So how can we put Chris Wilson at the scene? Why was Mackenzie's car so far from where her body was? Why was she going to Petricanian?

Was she planning to meet someone there, and that's where she was murdered? I do think it's strange that Chris happened to leave school just about a minute after Mackenzie did that day. I also think the video at his apartment was very strange, and the things that his friend was saying was really unsettling to me. She was acting like she knew something, but she didn't want to say what it was. I think Mackenzie had to have been murdered by two people, or one person did it and someone helped them move her body. If Chris did it, I suspect that Tessa

was involved too. Yeah, and that's kind of my suspicion as well because you have to think about it this way. If Mackenzie was murdered at Chris' apartment and then they went to go get rid of her car in her body, there would have had to be another car following Mackenzie's car or vice versa so that the person driving Mackenzie's car had a ride out of Pitcher Canyon, correct? Right, and also, Chris wouldn't have been able to move her body alone, and he lives in an apartment building, so if Mackenzie was brutally murdered in the apartment, first of all, how would no one have heard it? And also, when she was found, there was still a knife in her shoulder, so how would he have gotten her fully intact body out of his apartment and into his car without a single person

seeing him. That just seems really risky. I know I guess he could have done it in the middle of the night, but again he would have needed help. In my personal opinion, I think that it is possible for him to move a body by himself. I know he was kind of a skinny kid, but there's a lot of ways that it could have been done, whether she was put in a large duffle bag and he picked her up and tossed her over her shoulder and then put her in the trunk. I mean, it's hard to say because this was during the day, so I don't know how many people were around and if anybody could have possibly seen him do this. I just don't know how her car would have gotten to Pitcher Canyon.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out because if she had driven her car out to Pitcher Canyon herself and then was murdered and then taken 40 miles away and her body was dumped, I mean that kind of makes sense but if she was not killed at Pitcher Canyon, there had to have been two cars. Well also, Pitcher Canyon was about a 15 minute drive from Chris' apartment, right? If he had picked her up from Pitcher Canyon by chance, it would have taken him another 15 minutes to get back home. And the coroner said that she died between 330 and 345. So it just seems like a very small time gap for him to get her from Pitcher Canyon, take

her to the apartment, kill her at the apartment, and then so forth. You know, it's just a very small window of time here. Yeah, I agree. It is a small window of time for sure. And that's why I think it might be more possible that there was a second person involved. I'm not saying that Tessa was involved in the murder. I'm not even saying that she was involved in helping. I'm just saying that it's very possible that there was a second person involved.

Another strange thing that we haven't mentioned yet is that Chris called Tessa shortly after he left school. It's unclear what time, but this could mean something. It could also mean a guy as calling his best friend, which is also normal. And by the way, I don't know if this changes anybody's minds or not, but I figured it was worth noting. Chris and Tessa actually did date at one point, but when McKenzie disappeared, Tessa was actually dating a different guy, Chris and Tessa still continue to hang out all the time. When Tessa was released on bail after being arrested for possibly being involved in the murder, she stated that she had no recollection of the event surrounding

Mackenzie's disappearance and murder in February, and no information regarding Chris's involvement. Regarding the photo of her laying on Chris's floor, she later told her boyfriend that Chris made her pose in his apartment for that photo, and she didn't know why she was lying on the area where the carpet was stained with blood. I think that response is pretty unusual and kind of fishy. I also think it's interesting because after this whole thing happened, she changed her name and moved away. That is very interesting. And another point that you made that's interesting to me is that Chris made her lay down where

the blood stain was on the carpet and he takes a photo of her. Strange. It is weird but who knows if he actually told her to do that or if she was just laying down on the floor and he took a photo of her like who knows what that could have meant. Right, I totally get that. It could have either been Chris asking her to lay on the floor or it could have been she was involved and she was just laying on the floor where the blood stain was. Unfortunately I couldn't find the photo. I read somewhere that she was posing like she was dead, but a lot of articles are really dramatic in that way, so I don't know how she was posing, but I would like to see the photo I just couldn't find it.

Yeah, I'd like to know the situation as well. To make things even stranger, Tess's boyfriend at the time said that the night of the murder between 9 and 10 p.m. Tessa called him and said something bad had happened and to please pray for her. When she hung out with him on either the 9th or 10th, he said she was acting very strange. Also, apparently Chris had borrowed a friend's car on the day of the murder between 4 and 5 p.m. He wanted to keep it for longer, but his friend said no. This is very suspicious to me as well, because again he could have just needed a car that

day, but the fact that he asked to borrow a car that day is very strange. Initially, I thought it was pretty weird that he needed to borrow a car from his friend. I don't know what that was about. And I also think that it's really strange that Tessa's boyfriend comes forward and says that she was acting weird. Because obviously he's with her. He's gonna try and protect her. I would assume. But if she was, in fact, acting strange, he came right out and said it. So yeah, and the fact that she said that something bad happened the day that her best friend supposedly murdered somebody

I mean bad things happen all the time But the events just line up so well. It's just odd They do but one thing I do want to say is the fact that she changed her name and she moved away We can't chalk that up to her having any involvement in the murder. That could have just been maybe there was just so much surrounding her in this case, and maybe she was involved and she just didn't want to be involved and she didn't want it to follow her the rest of her life. Oh yeah, I mean, imagine if she was not involved and she's being arrested for something she

didn't do, and then she's living in a town where people think she was involved in a murder, like I would do the same thing. Yeah, exactly. You don't want that kind of hanging over your head for the rest of your life and people looking at you differently. I think the only way Chris would have killed her is if he killed her somewhere else

and someone helped him move her body. And then somehow he tracked that bit of blood into his apartment, even though the blood was in the middle of the room and like we said, is not consistent with tracking, I guess it's still possible? It seems unlikely that Mackenzie would walk into the building and then be taken out later murdered without a single person seeing. So that's something we didn't mention is she also had to have gotten inside the building, so if she willingly walked in, or even not willingly, in broad daylight, how would nobody have seen that? And I know we said the thing about him putting plastic down, but I just don't see that happening if there was blood in the room, there would have been more blood.

Yeah, definitely. And also, I wonder if he did, in fact, put plastic down on the floor. I wonder if police would have been able to track that to like a local hardware store or something of that sort. Because there's so much speculation surrounding this case, I really have to look at the facts here.

And the facts are telling me that Mackenzie's blood was found in Chris's apartment. So that right there is the reason why I believe Chris had involvement in Mackenzie's murder. So what do you guys think? Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yeah, thanks so much everybody, and next week we'll an all-new case for you guys to dive into. Please let us know what you think about this one, whether you go on to our website

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