MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Death Mask (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

In 2017, an aspiring teenage artist was invited to come out to an art college in Florida for a personalized tour of their campus. They told him to bring along some of his best artwork to show the staff, and so the teen decided he would make a special papier-mâché mask just for the occasion. After it was complete, he packed it up, along with his other things, and then he got ready to board a bus bound for Florida. Three weeks later, the police would learn the horrifying truth about what that mask was actually used for.For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's story, the most unlikely person did the most unlikely thing. And even when you get to the end and you hear the details as to how and why they did it, it won't make sense because no sane person would ever do this. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Deliberate in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please cut in front of the five-star review button who has been patiently waiting for their turn in the 10 items or less checkout line at the grocery store, and then proceed to pay for your completely overflowing

cart with a Ziploc bag full of change. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone.

Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favorite artists of all time somebody who's had a huge impact on me who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent the audacity of her message if I was a first year at university the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time.

Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers?

Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil.

George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Okay, let's get into today's story.

It was mid-June 2014 in Highland Springs, a small blue-collar town about four miles outside of Richmond, Virginia. By 3 p.m. that day, it would be hot, 91 degrees Fahrenheit. But right then, at 6.30 in the morning, it was cool. With the sun fully visible in the sky, 16-year-old Martre Coles watched from the living room window of his family's single-story plain white house as his father climbed into his car, turned on his engine, and drove off to work. After he was gone, Martre left the window and walked through the empty house to his bedroom. Once inside, he sat down at his desk, he opened his sketchbook, and he started to draw. Unlike his usual artwork, which consisted of anime-stylized faces and figures full of color, energy, and movement,

the faces that he drew that morning were done in thick black marker and were angry and sad. He drew X's instead of I's, and he put slash marks where the mouths should go. A few minutes later, Martre put down the marker, he put his face in his hands, and he started to cry. Five days earlier, on June 14, 2014, Martre's beloved mother, 42-year-old Karina Coles, had died unexpectedly following complications from what was supposed to be routine hip surgery. Martre was beyond devastated. Over the last few years, he had become very close with his mother as he was the last child of eight siblings to still be living at home with the parents. His father, Maurice, had always been very hard on him, but his mother had always been his number one cheerleader,

always encouraging him to keep a portfolio of the video game characters and intricately illustrated storylines that he loved to create. She told him she was certain his artwork skills would land him a great job someday. And even though Martre didn't always feel as confident in himself as she did, it was nice to hear her say things like that. With his mother's funeral just two days away, the only thing keeping Martre going was the thought that his mom would never want him to just give up or to give in to the crushing depression and sadness he was feeling. And so Martre lifted his face out of his hands, he wiped away his tears, then he ripped the

angry, sad drawings he had just made out of his sketchbook and he balled it up and he threw it in the trash. He wished he could talk to his dad about how terrible he was feeling right now, but he knew his dad wouldn't want to listen. He never did. Martre's father barely spoke to him, and whenever he did, it was almost always to be critical of him. As Martre sat there motionless in his desk seat, he suddenly hoped that his father's friend, a 45-year-old woman named Denise Gay, wouldn't be coming by again that night. Denise worked with Martre's dad at a food packaging company called Smithfield Foods. She had two children of her own, a nine-year-old little girl and a 19-year-old daughter who lived on her own 90 minutes away. Martre had no issue with Denise herself.

She was perfectly nice. But Martre just didn't like that there was this new woman spending time in their house so soon after his mom had died. It just felt inappropriate. so soon after his mom had died. It just felt inappropriate. Martre had also quietly hoped that his mother's death would bring him and his father closer together, but the opposite was happening. Instead of turning to his son in this difficult time, Maurice was turning more and more to Denise. By June 21st, just one week after Martre's mother's death, Denise was coming over their house nearly every night. And in mid-July, just one month after Martre's mother's death, Denise was coming over their house nearly every night. And in mid-July, just one month after Martre's mother's death, Maurice announced to Martre and

his other siblings that Denise, along with her nine-year-old daughter Alana, were going to be moving in with him and with Martre. Despite protests from Martre's older sisters, Michelle and Marquesha, that their father's relationship was progressing way too fast, and that Martre was still very emotionally fragile following his mother's death, Maurice had made up his mind. He didn't care what Martre's feelings about the situation were. A couple days later, when Denise and Alana pulled up outside of Martre's house with their bags in hand, Martre stayed inside. He didn't want to see them, but his father began angrily yelling for him to come outside and meet his new family and help his stepsister with her luggage. Martre sighed and stood up and walked outside. He didn't smile at them, but he waved,

and then he walked over to Alana to offer to carry her bag inside. But when he reached her, she clutched her bag more tightly to her chest, then she glared at him angrily, and then she very intentionally threw her bag at his feet. Martre was annoyed, and he looked up at her like, what are you doing? But he didn't say anything. He just bent down, grabbed her bag, and then led the way back into the house. Later that day, Martre's older sisters called him to let him know that he was welcome to stay with them anytime he wanted. They knew his new living situation with Denise and Alana was going to be super awkward, and they knew Martre

was just hurting from the death of their mother and he really needed someone around him that actually cared about him. Martre thanked them and said, yep, sure, I'll come by sometime. But secretly, Martre knew he probably wouldn't. He just didn't have the energy to do anything these days. According to Martre's girlfriend, Ash't. He just didn't have the energy to do anything these days. According to Martre's girlfriend, Ashlyn Knight, who was a fellow student at Highland Springs High School, Martre had big plans for his future, plans that his mother had encouraged him to pursue.

Martre wanted to get into the best art school he possibly could, and then with that degree, he could try to land a highly coveted job as a video game artist and animator. And so over the first few months that Denise and Alana were living with him, Martre did his best to completely ignore them and instead spend his time and energy on his artwork. And over those first few months, Martre's art skills got noticeably better. And he started branching out from drawing and painting into the creation of elaborate and beautiful papier-mâché masks. But perhaps the most significant thing about this particular period of time in Martre's life was that after about six months of living with Denise,

his resentment for her had given way to affection. She could never replace his mother, but she was very kind to him and slowly she had become a maternal figure to him. She had become someone he turned to when he was down. However, as much as Martre's relationship with Denise seemed to be evolving in a positive way, his relationship with her daughter Alana was going the other direction. Alana was clearly unhappy living with the Coles and so she took out her frustration by constantly picking fights with Martre. At first it was just small stuff like stealing the TV remote from Martre or being loud and obnoxious to annoy him. But eventually it turned into more elaborate

torment. Specifically Alana realized that Maurice, Martre's father, would always take her side over his sons and so using that information, she began breaking things around the house and telling Maurice that Martre did it. And every time, despite Martre proclaiming his innocence, Maurice would scream and yell at him and punish him in some way. Alana also quickly realized how important Martre's art was to him, and so she would routinely sneak into his room and vandalize his sketches and his masks. Martre had art was to him, and so she would routinely sneak into his room and vandalize his sketches and his masks. Martre had tried turning to Denise for help, but he was finding that she seemed to be in denial about how badly behaved her daughter really was. Martre also

sensed that Denise was desperate to maintain her relationship with his father, and so she probably didn't want to fully acknowledge just how bad it was getting between he and Alana. Because doing that would call their entire living arrangement into question, which would potentially jeopardize their future together as a cohesive family. And so Denise really didn't do anything to stop her daughter. Finally, in the winter of 2016, so two years after Denise and Alana had moved in, the tension in the household boiled over into violence. Early one afternoon, when Maurice and Denise were still at work and Martre was sitting

on the couch in the living room, Alana slipped into the kitchen, she opened the utensil drawer, and she pulled out a pair of utility scissors with long pointed blades. And then the 12-year-old walked back into the living room where Martre was and she snuck up behind him. She pulled out the scissors and then she leapt around the corner and she jumped on top of him and attempted to stab him in the heart. And Martre at the last second reached up and kind of pushed her arm out of the way, but the blades dug into his left shoulder and they went in deep. Martre's girlfriend, Ashlyn, remembers the very angry call she got from Martre that night after Denise had cleaned and bandaged the wound on his shoulder and had apologized on behalf of Alana, but that was it. And so for Martre, this was the breaking point. He was furious that his father

and Denise had just totally let the situation with Alana get completely out of control. And he was just kind of scared of Alana. That was a real attack on him. And so as he talked to Ashlyn that night, he said to her, you know, I really need to start actually focusing on how I'm going to execute my plan and actually get into art school and get out of this insane household and go pursue my dreams. And Ashlyn agreed and she encouraged him and said, yes, go do that. And so in mid-December 2016, Martre worked up the courage to go approach his father and ask him if he would sit down with Martre and try to fill out some financial paperwork that would help him get

funding to go to college. And as he's trying to explain to his dad why he needs this funding and what he's going to do with his degree, Maurice, his dad, just kind of puts his hand up and says, you know what? I didn't go to college. I don't understand any of this stuff. You're on your own, kid. Martre was kind of crushed because he needed his dad to fill in the paperwork to be eligible for financial aid. But luckily, Denise was sitting nearby. She had overheard the conversation. And after Maurice had left the room, she pulled Martre aside and said, you know what, don't worry about it.

I will get the information you need. I'll help you fill it out. We'll get you into college. You'll be fine. And so over the next few months, with Denise's help and encouragement, Martre not only filled out the financial aid paperwork, but he also sent out applications and letters of inquiry to various art colleges. And then, in March of

2017, roughly three years since his mother had died, Martre received the best news he had ever gotten. On March 4th, at 4.17 in the afternoon, while Martre worked at his computer, he heard the ping of an incoming email. One click later, and he was reading an invitation from Full Sail University, an art school in Florida, asking him if he would like to come take a personalized tour of their campus. The administrator who had sent the email, Sheila Crenshaw, told Martre that she and her staff had been very impressed with the pictures of his artwork that he had sent along, and so they would love to get to know him and see if the school was a good fit. Sheila told Martre that if he wanted to come and do this tour,

to be sure to bring along at least one of his papier-mâché masks, as well as his portfolio of drawings. Martre was so excited, he leapt from his chair and he ran into the room next door where Denise was, and after telling her the good news, she jumped up too, and pair laughed and hugged and talked about how it was really happening. Martre was really going to go to art school and pursue his dreams. After they calmed down, Denise booked Martre a seat on a bus that would take him from Richmond, Virginia to Florida on Sunday, March 12th. The tour was scheduled for the following Monday. After his travel was booked, Martre realized he only had

eight days until he would be leaving, so right away he got to work making a special papier-mâché mask that he would bring along. He wanted to make sure he really impressed the Full Sail staff. On March 11th, the night before Martre was scheduled to ride out to Florida, Martre stayed with his older sister Michelle at her house. They spent the evening excitedly talking about his potential future at Full Sail and how happy this invitation would have made their mother, whose birthday was coming up later that month. The next morning, Michelle and Martre hopped in Michelle's car and she began driving toward Martre's house. Their dad had agreed to give Martre a ride to the bus station later that day. When they arrived, Michelle gave

her brother a big hug, she wished him good luck, and told him to text her as soon as he got to Florida, and he said he would. After Michelle got back in her car and she began to drive to work, she felt a profound sense of relief wash over her. She knew her little brother still missed their mother terribly, and even talked about his own death and how, at least when that happened, he would be with their mom. But finally, this invitation to Full Sail seemed like the break he so desperately needed. When Martre walked into his house that morning, Denise and her older daughter, Latoya, were both in the kitchen chatting and drinking coffee. When Denise saw Martre, she told him that his dad had apparently got called into work that

day, so he couldn't give him a ride to the bus stop. However, she and her daughter didn't mind. He thanked them, and then he sat down with them, and for a few minutes, the trio drank their coffee and chatted about Full Sail and other things. And then eventually, Martre told them that he still needed to pack, so he got up and he headed to his bedroom. As he got his clothes and his paper mache mask and other artwork together, he smiled. In less than an hour, he'd be on a bus headed to Florida and he'd be officially pursuing his dreams. Since Martre's girlfriend, Ashlyn, had known she would not see Martre in person before he left for Florida, and they both knew that Martre might not be able to charge his phone during the 18-hour-long bus ride, they had arranged for Martre to text her as soon as he got on the bus so she could say goodbye.

But at the time Martre should have been on the bus texting her, he didn't. He didn't text, he didn't call, it was just silent. And over the course of the morning, despite Ashlyn calling and texting him repeatedly, Martre never responded. Around noon, Ashlyn called Martre's sisters, Michelle and Marquesha, asking if they had heard from their brother, and they said no. By late afternoon, when still there was silence from Martre, Ashlyn, Michelle, and Marquesha were becoming frantic. They all knew that even three years after his mother's death, Martres still suffered occasional deep bouts of depression when he started thinking about his mom. And so the three young women started worrying that he might have harmed himself. That's

why they're not hearing from him. So at 4 p.m. that afternoon, Martres' sisters rushed to their father's house to see what their father and Denise knew. And when they got there, they met up with Denise and Latoya, who were out in the front yard. And after listening to Martre's sisters, Denise was stunned. She had been with Martre that morning. She had seen him leave. What could have happened? How could anything be wrong? But when Maurice, who at some point had come outside to see what was going on, heard the news, he was completely unconcerned that his son seemed to have just vanished right off the face of the earth. He told his daughters that Martre hadn't even been gone long enough to have reached Florida.

It was an 18-hour trip. He probably was just asleep on the bus. And if he didn't show up at school tomorrow for the tour, well, Martre was 19 years old. He was an adult, so whatever he wanted to do, that was on him. Completely unsettled by their father's utter indifference about this, Martre's sisters left the house and met up with Ashlyn, who was now hysterical. After they calmed her down, the three women eventually decided that their best bet right now was just to search the neighborhood for Martre. Denise said she had dropped him off at the bus stop, but she didn't actually see him get on the bus and literally drive away. So the three young women are thinking, okay, well, maybe Martre never got on the bus. Maybe he's still in town somewhere.

So the trio spread out all across Highland Springs. They went to local stores, to the high school, to the basketball court. They called and texted all of Martre's friends, but no one had seen or heard from Martre. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it.

He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free and one month early on Amazon Music with your Prime membership? That's right. All your favorite Mr. Ballin episodes can be heard on Amazon Music ad-free, and you'll always be the first one to catch our new episodes. But that's not all. You get access to other amazing shows like Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Morbid, 48 Hours, and 2020, all ad-free too. And you know what that means, uninterrupted listening,

so no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music is your home for all things true crime and offers the most ad-free top podcasts, so we definitely have something for you. And it's already included in your Prime membership. To listen now, all you need to do is go to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash ballin or download the free Amazon Music app. It's just that easy. The next morning, Monday, March 13th, they called Full Sail University to see if Martre had arrived for his tour and the answer was no. Immediately, Michelle and Marquesha jumped in their car and they headed for the local

police station where they filed a missing persons report on their brother. They gave the police a picture and description of Martre, but police told them that because Martre was an adult and there was no sign of foul play, there really wasn't much they could do. Meanwhile, Martre's girlfriend, Ashlyn, who knew Martre's email password, decided to take a closer look at Martre's invitation from Full Sail University. When he had shown it to her 10 days earlier, she had noticed something slightly off about it, but she had forgotten all about it once they had read the good news and were celebrating. But now, when she logged into his email account and opened up the invitation again, she immediately saw why she thought the email was

concerning. The email had not been sent from an official Full Sail University account. Instead, it had come from someone's personal Gmail account, a woman named Sheila Crenshaw. Ashlyn pulled out her cell phone and she called Full Sail again. And a few minutes later, Ashlyn's worst fears were confirmed. No one by that name worked at the university. But shockingly, when Martre's father, Maurice, was told about this new wrinkle about the email address and how this meant Martre was almost certainly tricked or scammed before he went missing,

Maurice still appeared unconcerned and he refused to reach out to the police himself. Eight days later, Martre's mother's birthday came and went, and still there was no trace of Martre. Since their mother's death, all of the siblings started getting together on her birthdays to celebrate her life and spend time together, and Martre cherished these get-togethers. So for him not to at least text or call his family on her birthday was very significant. It was starting to feel almost likely that he had taken his own life. But just a week later, everything would change. On April 2nd, 2017, three weeks after Martre was reported missing, a man named Larry Anderson was walking

in a wooded area near where the Coles lived when he spotted a strange green plastic bin tucked away inside of a thick bush. He walked off of the trail to get a better look at it, but when he got close enough to actually see what was inside of this bin, he stopped where he was, he pulled out his phone and he dialed 911. When the police arrived, they found Larry, who was visibly very shaken up, and he was pacing along the trail a couple hundred feet away, and then the police moved from Larry to the actual bin under the bush, and when they got up close, they saw what Larry saw. There was clearly a foot with a sneaker on it

poking out of the bin. When they removed the cover of the bin completely and actually got a full view inside, they saw the dead body of a young man folded up like an accordion crammed inside. He was wearing blue jeans and he had a dark sweatshirt on, his knees were jackknifed up against his chest at an impossible angle, and his hands were bound behind his back with purple duct tape. There were no obvious wounds on his body. However, an autopsy would later reveal that the cause of his death was suffocation. The medical examiner also told police that present in the blood were high levels of two drugs, the sleep agent trazodone and the drug Gamma-butyrolactone, which makes users feel relaxed and euphoric. Even though there was no wallet or ID on this body,

when detectives ran a general description of the young man's appearance through their database, right away they found a match to a missing person report that had been filed three weeks earlier on March 13th. The deceased young man inside of the storage bin was Martre Coles. Before the police told Martre's family the horrible news, they received a surprising phone call from another police sergeant. He had heard about the murder and he had just connected Martre's name and his address to a false burglar alarm that two of his officers had responded to on March 31st, which was two days before Martre's body was discovered. After following up on this very bizarre connection the sergeant had made, and using evidence they had found at the scene where

Martre's body was discovered, police were able to slowly, bit by bit, piece together the story of who killed Martre and why. Back on Friday, March 31st, so two days before Martre was found, that sergeant's two police officers responded to a burglar alarm at Martre's home. When they arrived at Martre's home, Alana came to the door. Standing next to her was her older sister, Latoya. Now, neither of these two responding officers had any idea that there was a missing person report out on another member of their family. Latoya told the officers that she was really sorry that the burglar alarm they were responding to was actually a false alarm. to was actually a false alarm. She told them, while glaring down at her sister Alana, that her younger sister had deliberately set the alarm off and she was about to be punished for it. The police asked a few more questions and then feeling satisfied that this really was just a false alarm

because this kid pulled it, they turned around to leave. But before they did, Alana suddenly blurted out, can I talk to you guys please alone? And then Alana promptly stepped forward away from her sister out of the house into the evening darkness and she and one of the officers walked over to the police car they had come in on while the other police officer stayed put at the door with Latoya, keeping her from going out there. Once Alana was far enough away that she didn't think Latoya or any of her other family members in the house could hear her, she turned to the officer and told him a story that was so outrageous and so unexpected that it just did not seem true. And so after Alana was done telling this story and had gone back inside with Latoya and the door had shut and the two responding officers said bye and they were leaving, they discussed it in the car, those two officers, and they decided there's no way that could be true. And so when they got back to the station, they filed their report as usual, describing that this was a false alarm. And then

they also wrote down in this report what Alana told them, her crazy story. But they didn't alert anyone to this story. They just basically made a note of it and then they filed their report with their sergeant and thought nothing of it. Three days later, when their sergeant learned that the murder victim found in the storage bin was Alana's stepbrother, the sergeant suddenly remembered the report and realized the story Alana had told his officers might actually be true. Based on a combination of Alana's story, along with other pieces of evidence that the police collected, the following is a reconstruction of what actually happened to Martre. Back on the morning of Sunday, March 12th, so the day Martre was scheduled to take the bus to Florida, his older sister Michelle dropped him back off in front of his house and

gave him a hug before she left for work. When Martre walked through the front doors into his house, Denise and her daughter Latoya were sitting in the kitchen. Martre sat down, and as the trio chatted, Martre didn't realize the cup of coffee he was drinking was almost certainly laced with the two drugs that the medical examiner would later find in his system, trazodone and gamma-butyrolactone. By the time Martre got up from the table and headed to his bedroom to pack for his trip to the college, the drugs would have likely begun taking effect. As he stepped into his bedroom, he likely would have started to wonder why he was feeling so crushingly tired and lethargic. He also was probably wondering why Denise and Latoya had followed him into his room and pushed his door most of the way closed without saying a

word. Across the hall, Alana was in her room when she heard a loud shout. The voice was weak, but the words were clear. Get off of me! She recognized the voice as Martre's. She stepped out of her bedroom and pushed the door of Martre's room She stepped out of her bedroom and pushed the door of Martre's room open a little to see what was going on, and what she saw was Martre on his back on the ground, and her mother, Denise, standing over his head while kind of bent forward. She was pressing her hands directly down onto his chest, basically putting all of her weight onto his chest, crushing him. Alana's sister, Latoya, was sitting on Martre's legs trying to hold them down because Martre was kicking her and trying to get up. As Martre continued to yell out for them to get off of him, his voice became

weaker and weaker as he wasn't able to fully expand his chest to get a full breath because Denise was crushing his chest. Suddenly, Denise looked up and she saw Alana standing in the doorway. Without releasing the pressure on Martre's chest, she simply said to Alana in an unnaturally calm voice, "'Nothing is happening. "'Go back to your room.'" Alana, who had learned over the years

that it was a bad idea to cross her mother, did what she was told and she kind of backed out into the hallway and then a few steps more and she was behind her closed bedroom door, her heart pounding wildly. Back inside of Martre's room, Denise was starting to panic. She wished Alana hadn't seen, but now if she didn't finish Martre off, his yells for help, as weak as they were, might alert others. So while keeping the pressure firmly applied to his chest, Denise looked around and saw the papier-mâché mask Martre had so carefully made for his trip to the college laying on the ground near them. She took

one hand off of his chest, so she's still pressing with the other, and she reached and she picked the mask up and then she placed it over Martre's face, completely blocking his nose and mouth, and then began pressing down on his face as well. Then she leaned forward and put her knee into the center of his chest, right on his sternum, and put all of her weight onto her knee. And then she shifted the hand that had been on his chest up to his throat. And she began pressing as hard as she could on his throat. And so she maintained all three points of pressure, his chest, his neck, and his face,

until Martre stopped moving. A few minutes later, across the hall in her bedroom, Alana heard the sound of something plastic being dragged over the floor. Although terrified, she opened her bedroom door just enough to look into the hallway, and this time she saw her sister Latoya pulling a large heavy green storage bin across the floor. A few minutes later, Alana looked out her bedroom window and she saw her mother and sister hoist this green tub into the back of Denise's car and then the two of them drove away. After they were gone, Alana quietly closed the door to her bedroom and then she sat

on her bed and she's thinking to herself, this has to be a dream. This can't be real. But then later that day, when Martre's sisters came over to their house in a total panic, saying that Martre wasn't responding to any texts or calls and we think he's missing, that's when Alana knew this had not been a dream. What she had just seen had really happened. Over the next few days, Alana kept hoping that Martre would just show up, that he'd walk through the door and that everything would go back to normal. But that didn't happen. And 19 days later, on March 31st, Alana was unable to carry this secret any longer. And so she waited until dark, and then she intentionally set off the family burglar alarm,

knowing it would trigger police to come to her house, and then she could tell them her secret. When Alana stepped outside of the house to talk privately to one of the responding police officers, their conversation was captured on body camera. She turned her face up towards the officer, and whispered seven words that would blow this murder case wide open. I saw my mom kill my stepbrother. It would turn out Denise had decided a long time ago that the only way to really secure her relationship with Maurice and to create the family she wanted was to get rid of any reminders of Maurice's dead wife. And Martre, with his mother's wide smile and many of her mannerisms, had done everything he could to keep his mother's memory alive. Even his depression

over her loss only reminded everyone how much she had meant to her family. Denise was also worried that Maurice might begin to see her own daughter, Alana, as a liability because of the constant bickering between her and Martre. So when Denise overheard Martre talking to his father about trying to secure financial aid so he could go off to art college, she saw an opportunity to make him disappear from her life altogether. That email Martre received inviting him to Full Sail University had not been sent by the college. It had been sent by Denise, who was sitting right in the next room on her laptop. And before sending that email, Denise had actually called and texted her older daughter Latoya and explained her plan for killing Martre, and she asked Latoya to help her, and she agreed. On April 3rd, one day after Martre's body was found, the detectives working

on the murder case were getting ready to inform Martre's family that he was dead. But when the sergeant, whose officers had spoken to Alana, called to tell those investigators what Alana had said about her mother's involvement in Martre's murder, the detectives decided to hold off, telling Martre's family that he was dead. If, in fact, Martre's murderer was someone inside of his own family, in his own house, police did not want to tip them off by telling them that they had discovered Martre's body. Instead, investigators dug into Denise's background and they found a long history of felonies, from passing worthless checks to charges of computer fraud that had landed her in jail more than once. Then, under the guise of following up on Martre's missing person report, police returned

to the Coles' house to interview Maurice, Denise, and Latoya again. This time, police pressured LaToya and her mom for any information they might have about Martre's whereabouts, hoping that maybe the murderer would get spooked and do something suspicious or incriminating. At the same time, police put the green storage container that had held Martre's body back where it was first discovered in the park. Then they set up video cameras to record any activity around it. And within days, both Latoya and her mother Denise were spotted returning to the wooded area where they had left Martre's body and, much to their shock, finding the bin now empty. Police also discovered that shortly before Martre's disappearance, Denise had purchased

a shovel, purple duct tape, and a substance called lime that can be used to prevent decomposition of human flesh. But most damning of all, cell phone and computer records confirmed that both Denise and Latoya had been to the Wooded Park on March 12th, the day Martre went missing, and these records confirmed that Denise was definitely the author of the email from Full Sail University. It was that invitation, the most promising and exciting event in Martre's life, that his mother would have been so proud of him for, that lured him to his death. On July 11th, 2018, 49-year-old Denise Gay was sentenced to life in prison. Her daughter, 23-year-old Latoya Gay, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Despite being a less-than-stellar parent, Maurice Coles had nothing to do with his son's death.

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