Murder With My Husband - Dear Daisy, I Followed The Amber Alert Suspect!

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Payton and Garrett read listener submitted stories back to you. Submit a Dear Daisy here: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Payton Marlins. And I'm Garrett Marlins. And he's the husband. Another dear, Daisy episode. Now before we jump in, I just did want to mention that if you send a dear Daisy story in, you should specify if you want your name in it or not and also I'll just make up a title if you don't put a title. So if you want a specific title, also just title it. I just wanted to clarify as I was reading through so that people knew.

And if you want to submit a dear Daisy, there will be a link somewhere where you're listening or watching and you can submit them there. Okay, let's get into it. The first one is the Creepyman van. Peyton and Vans. This one is submitted by Anonymous. Okay. I live in Australia and I am a huge lover of true crime, specifically all of your podcasts.

But up until two months ago, I had never experienced anything remotely creepier scary happen to me. I had only heard about it in the media. So I'd love for everyone, including you guys, to hear this one. Roughly two months ago, my mom and my stepdad were on the East Coast enjoying a weekend away, escaping their stresses and not having to worry about work. This left my older sister 24 and I-19 at home alone with our two cattle dogs for the next four days. I love my own company and I hadn't had a lot planned for the weekend.

They were away so I didn't mind and neither did my sister. We live about an hour from the city in a very small suburb that honestly not many people would know about. We've lived here for almost two years and we've never had any issues, so as far as we expected, the next few days would be free of any troubles. But as we know, there is a reason you are reading this story in every case you cover on the podcast because there is trouble. It had been a long day at work and I'd arrived home at about 7pm.

My sister had just made herself some dinner and was about to put on a show to unwind. I joined her for a few hours and we had a pretty chill evening until I decided at around 10.30pm that I was going to go to bed because I had work at 5am the next morning. Now my bedroom is in the middle of the house and my sister's next to the front door. I slipped into my pajamas and got straight into bed. I put a TV show on my laptop, snuggled up to my cat who was slept with me every night for the past seven years, impressed play, and that is pretty much all I remember until I woke up to my phone ringing at 12.45am. I slowly reached over to my phone a little bit annoyed because I was wondering who would be calling me so late. I barely opened my eyes because I always put my phone in the same place on the edge of my bedside

table, ready for me to grab it in the morning for when my alarm goes off. It was my sister. I answered it, mumbling, what do you want? Still with my eyes closed. The other end of the call was silent. I asked again. What do you want? But still, there was no answer.

And then the call ended. I opened my phone to multiple mistexts and calls from her. A bit confused as to how I didn't wake up when the first came through, they read, Dany. Dany, did you hear that? Someone just tried to open the front door. I'm scared. Dany.

As soon as I read these, I felt my heart and my throat. It was beating so loud, I remember thinking that if someone were next to me right now, even they would be able to hear it. Not only was that the most terrifying thing to hear in the middle of the night from your sister who was sleeping a few rooms down from you, but also the realization of just hit that we were home alone and we were in the middle of nowhere. In a panic, I jumped out of bed

knocking over the glass of water that sat on my nightstand from the night before and my phone tumbled out of my hands and onto the floor. What would you would? Oh, I'd be flinched. Would you just like, if I had texted you all a sudden, I was like, did you hear that? I think there's someone at the front door. Did you hear that? And called me a thousand times. You'd be freaking out. And then when I called you back, you didn't, you were just silent on

the other end as well. Yeah, I'd be freaking out. Would you be screaming? No. I don't want to for sure, right? Yeah. Suddenly, I heard my two dogs who usually sleep in my mom's bedroom, barking at what sounded like the top of their lungs. It made me jump, however I took comfort in the fact that if I was startled by their barking, I'm sure whoever was trying to enter the house would have been too. It was dark and I couldn't see where my phone had fallen, so I just blindly guided myself out of my bedroom through the kitchen and down the hallway to where my sister's bedroom was. The dogs were sat directly in front of both my sister's room and the front door. Their heads turned looking at me as I tipped

out over to them and their eyes were glowing in the dark. I slowly pushed on the handle to my sister's bedroom, fearing the worst. Was she gonna be there? Then someone pulled back on the handle from the other side of the door and swung it open, leaving me breathless by the gush of air that had just blown practically into my lungs. It was my sister. As relief she was okay but also still terrified of whatever had just happened or was about to happen. She just shuddered me into her room with her finger up to her lips and shut the door behind us.

The lights were off still so I went to turn them on but as I did she slapped my hand away from the switch and pulled me over to her bed. Someone's outside, she whispered. She explained that less than 10 minutes ago, she heard a loud bang on the door and a noise as if someone was tugging on the door handle trying to open it without a key. I'd never experienced anything like this before. I listened to Murder Podcast so often, I'm obsessed with true crime, but I never thought anything like this would ever happen to me. Okay, I got to, I got to say something real quick. And it's so hard because everyone reacts differently in situations where it like when it actually happens to you.

But I swear, this sounds like a, I know it's real and it's crazy, I'm glad nothing happened. But it sounds like a movie in the sense that, you know, when people are doing things in a movie and you're like, why are you doing that? Why did you run to the sisters room? Why didn't you run outside? Like, what are you doing?

What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Or like in a horror movie where it's like they're like walking when they should be running? It's like you just get so mad at them. I want to be like, call the police, you know? Yeah. You want to scream at them?

Anonymous. Gura is frustrated. You didn't take his back. Yes. I am frustrated. We sat in silence on the bed for what felt like a lifetime just waiting to hear a noise or another being on the door. After a few minutes we decided we'd sleep together. I mean safety and numbers, right? We lied in bed for hours just whispering to each other

once again waiting for something anything that would confirm our fear that someone was really outside and trying to get it. Oh all right just tons of eyebrows right now. There's no way. There's no way. You need to be nice. I just say there's no way you don't call the cops. Would you, would you call the cops? I don't know. I completely understand hearing a bang and just freezing and going,

there's no way this is actually happening. Let me with you. But if it was you and Marley, say I wasn't there. I'd probably call you. It's true, you probably would call me, okay. Throughout the night, we heard footsteps pacing around outside the main entrance to the house and what we thought sounded like someone rummaging

through a plastic bag. I can't even listen to this. But we explained it away to be bushes rustling in the wind. I think we got about two hours of sleep because I had to be up at 4 a.m. for work. Once 4 a.m. rolled around I silently got out of bed still freaked out from what had happened just a few hours earlier and began getting ready. Just before 5 a.m. my sister insisted she walk me down our driveway to my car as it was fairly long and would take about one and a half minutes to reach the end. Once we got down there I gave my sister hug goodbye and watched her walk back up the driveway and into the house locking the front door behind her. And then I left for work. Now you might think the story ends here, but

I'm afraid it doesn't. This particular day I finished work at 3pm, so once I got home my sister and I decided we should take both the dogs out for a walk. Daisy, the youngest dog out of the two, also I just want to say my dog's name is Daisy. Tend to get very defensive over my other dog's scooby, and so we usually take them out separately to avoid any conflict with other dogs as she can become quite feisty. So my sister took Daisy to a common trail that my mom would walk every day with her about five minutes from her house, and I gave Scooby a run around the park,

which was also about five minutes away. I was only about 10 minutes into my walk with Scoob's, as I call him, and I get a text from my sister with a pin dropped to her location followed by a text that says, just in case. I laughed at her message, and I felt a bit better about the night before reassuring myself that maybe someone had mistaken our house for theirs

or someone had come home drunk and accidentally tried to get in the wrong house. But if I've learned anything from listening to your podcast, it's always trust your gut instincts. And PSA, please call the cops. No matter what's happening, I think that a lot of times- Do you remember what the story was titled? No, I don't remember what was it titled?

Scary man van. You're okay, scary man van. Where's the van? We haven't even got there. I'm just saying in general, like if anyone takes anything away from our podcast, you can never go wrong just call them the cops. Yeah.

Just in case, I think that's something- They might get annoyed, but guess what? Who freaking cares? Who cares because it's better than better to be safe than sorry 100% Another five or so minutes went by and I got another text from my sister that read no joke a white scary van Just pulled up next to me and then another that said it was following me slowly for about a minute And now it's pulled up in front of me and I'm about to walk past it

I immediately facetime her praying that this had nothing to do with last night and once again it was just a misunderstanding. Thankfully she picked up and we agreed that I would stay on FaceTime with her at least until the van was out of sight. I suggested that she take an alternative path in the other direction of the van just so she could avoid walking past it, so she did. I'm sorry if this next part gets confusing, so just stick with me. I'll try explaining it the best I can.

On her left, there was an entrance to some bushland and a trail that went for approximately 100 meters. On the other side of this track was a residential street and a primary school. She was planning to follow the bendy path that surrounded the bushland until she reached the primary school, but instead she took the track which served as a bit of a shortcut, if you will, for kids and families that would walk to and from school. She walked through the track for about five minutes until she came up to the exit and stepped back onto the path.

At this point, she told me that she would begin to walk home and meet me there, but as she did, and just as I was about to put an end to the call, she gasped. The van was back, and this time it was parked right in front of the exit to the bushland. And there was a man standing there staring at her. She explained that he was a tall and stocky man, around 50 to 60 years old wearing a high vice shirt which she says is a neon shirt. His hands were dirty and his clothes were grubby as if he just finished a shift at work. He was leaning up against his van with his arms folded as if he was waiting for someone,

waiting for my sister. Like I've said multiple times throughout this story, I've watched enough true crime podcasts and murder documentaries to know I needed to do something and I needed to do it fast. I sprinted in my car with Scooby chasing after me, eventually beating me to the driver's side door and launching himself into the passenger seat. He knew the deal. Scooby, good old Scooby, man.

I stabbed my key into the ignition and pushed on it until the end of the game began to make a noise. I put my car in the drive and drove out of the parking lot heading to the primary school. It was about 5 p.m. in the evening, no one was around, kids were home from school and it seemed that everyone was inside their homes preparing dinner for their families. I sped down the road, taking about four roundabouts faster than I ever had before, called me dramatic but I was not about to let anything happen to my sister, still on FaceTime I reassured her that I was not about to let anything happen to my sister. Still on FaceTime, I reassured her that I was coming.

I told her to walk as slow as she could so that I could get there in time as she was about to pass the van. I was about 30 seconds away and I could see the high-vise vest this man was wearing in the distance. I can see him. I can see him. I yelled to my sister. But as I said that, she passed the man in his van and he said something.

I couldn't hear it and then once again, the call ended. Not again, I thought. I stepped on the accelerator, powering my way down the street, getting closer and closer. Hold on, time out real quick. This is a real story, correct? Yes.

Okay, okay. All right, keep going. I don't know, I don't know. I guess anything else, keep going. I believe it, I believe it. It's not that I don't believe it but Sometimes like Peyton when she's telling some stories

Don't say that. No, there is one story the straight line and all of a sudden we're going in curves to get to the end point Still I'm saying as you should in good storytelling as you should She said but I still wasn't close enough to see my sister and now that the call had ended I had no idea what was happening. All the events from the night before were going through my mind and the terrified emotions were coming back, tightening in my chest. I felt like I couldn't breathe, but then I saw her. She was past the van, she was fine.

But I couldn't see the man I had seen if used seconds earlier. I pulled up against the corner of the street and parked just far enough out of sight so that he couldn't see my car and opened the door for my sister to get in. Daisy hopped in the back and Scooby joined her leaving space for my sister to get into the front passenger seat. I'm sorry it's just like you have a dog name Scooby. You guys are jumping in all these cars. I just I know it's I think I can laugh because I assume nothing bad happened to them. So like's all fine and dandy, but- But this is scary. It's scary, but I mean, you got a dog name, Scooby.

I feel like I'm watching Scooby-D right now. This is hilarious. She shut the door behind her and I leapt over to give her the biggest hug of the century. I was so glad she was okay. I fell back into my seat and took a huge sigh of relief. As I did, the van turned to the corner and approached the back of my car. We both turned around, watching it creep up towards the driver's side window. Once it did, it stopped. We looked over and the same man we had seen earlier waiting outside the van was staring back at us. But he must have shortly realized that

the same girl he'd been waiting for that whole time was now safe in my car and before we could even process what he looked like from close up, he took off down the street, turned the corner and was out of sight. We took a few corners home to make sure no one was following us and eventually pulled up to the driveway. Once we got inside, I asked my sister, what did he say to you just before the call ended and why did you end the call? Turns out her phone died just as she was passing him. She explained that as she approached the van, he commented on daisy our dog. He said,

what a nice dog. Can I pat her? She didn't respond and kept walking. Her annoyed about the situation, we called the police. I can't. There's no way. There's no way. There's no way after all this that you call the police. I don't believe it. I do not believe it. There's no way. You can't do that. Nope, hang up. You don't get to call the police anymore.

You hang up. They don't get to help you. We explained the situation that had just happened in combination with what happened the night before. The lady on the other end of the phone reassured us. She would dispatch some officers to check out the area. And pay a visit so they could make a record of the situation. A few weeks past thankfully nothing else like this happened my mom and stepdad came home and we

were back to normal after what felt like a few days of a horror movie. I was sitting in my room one night when my mom came in with their hand out and her phone in her palm. She passed her phone to me and it was a news article that had just been reposted to a local Facebook page for the area I live in it said Perth that arrested on suspicion of attempted kidnapping and assault charges I read the article wondering why she showed this to me and then I realized it was the same man Dang who my sister and I had seen a few weeks earlier same description same man and the attempted kidnapping had occurred

Just a few blocks away from the bus from the trail my sister had been walking on that day that's actually pretty scary he'd been caught trying to kidnap a young girl on her way home from school thankfully she had kicked and screamed so hard that one of the residents from a neighboring house had come outside on the porch to see what all the commotion was and that's when the man let go of the girl got into his van to drive away the neighbor got in his license plate and given it to the police, which later resulted in him being arrested. But I can't hope I think that if it wasn't for me going to get my sister from the bus track that day, something way worse would have happened to her. I'm sorry this was a long story, but I

really hope at the very least someone takes a lesson or two out of this to always trust your gut instinct and never walk alone. By the way, I love you guys. I always look forward to MWMH Mondays. Well, Tuesdays in Australia because of the time difference. That's funny. They make the day go just a little bit better. You know what? Anonymous. I'm glad you guys are okay. I am too. That's actually. That's a good story. That's pretty crazy at the end that he actually ended up being like he could have killed her. Yeah. It's not part of it's pretty crazy. I'm sure some people weren't expecting my reaction, but man, that just, that the first 99% of that story did not seem real.

I think there was just ups and downs and like she, so much that went wrong. Call the police. Like first thing. She didn't have a phone. No, not her. I'm just saying, like when you hear something at your house or something's going on, just, first thing. She didn't have a phone. No, not her. Anyone in general I'm just saying. Like, when you hear something at your house or something's going on, just call the police.

It's hard though because Peyton and I actually talk about this. I, Peyton, you're kind of a freezer. Would you, would you agree with that? Yes. So we've been in situations and I wouldn't say I'm a freezer. I would say I'm a fighter. Yes. To whatever. So I would say I'm a freezer. I would say I'm a fighter. Yes.

To whatever. So I would say I'm a fighter, I would say paintings of freezer. And I would say, I would dare to say that most people are probably freezers, cause that's scary. Oh, it's terrifying. Like I think you just, you go into a state of shock and you don't know what to do.

So I don't know, that's crazy. That's crazy that he ended up, he could have killed her and gotten away with it because, oh yeah. I mean, he got caught luckily when it, and he was trying to do it again, but that's pretty nuts. He was definitely,

I hate to say this anonymous, but he was definitely there to kidnap your sister. Oh, 100%. 100%. Like, yeah, that's true. I don't know about the house thing before. Was it the same person? I don't know about any of that.

It could have been a raccoon. Wait, where are they? Australia. They're Australia. It could have been a spider. So I'm not sure, but I'm not sure. A monkey spider. It could have been a kangaroo.

It could have been a kangaroo. We'll just go with that one. It could have been a kangaroo. Next one is called the Amber Alert, also by Anonymous. In 2011, I just moved to Windsor, Ontario. Okay, by the way, this one has a lot of hard words and by words, I mean names of places. So just bear with me. Okay. I just moved to Ontario from Salt, Stay, Mary, Ontario. I lived in Windsor alone with my two-year-old son at the time,

and since I was going to be working late every night of the upcoming week, I had taken the weekend to bring my son home to Salt's Stay Mary, the place. Good. Home to my mom to watch him. The weekend was the American Thanksgiving, which was a holiday for them, but not for us Canadians. The following weekend, I would return home to pick up my son and bring him back to Windsor and then celebrate my 27th birthday.

If you look at a map, you will see that from Salt's Stay Mary Ontario to Windsor, Ontario, it is a straight shot down the I-75 through Michigan, which takes about five hours. If not, then you have to go all the way around Lake Huron, and it would take nine and half hours. I tell you this so you understand why I was on the I-75 so long, and the fact that I was doing the drive alone as I just left my child to go back to Windsor to work for the week. It was Sunday, November 20, 2011 in the late afternoon early evening. As it began driving through Michigan on Sunday afternoon, I noted the electronic billboard on the side of the road,

flashed amber alert, four-year-old boy, dark green Ford Explorer, BUC 0574. That was the only information I had, so I just made a little note of it in my head of the vehicle info Since it was around supper time. I just assumed it was apparent to hunt return their child after a court ordered visit and transition so Before you keep going I've always because I think in order this is going whenever there's an amber alert I look at it in a look at the license plates and I always think to myself how crazy would that be if I saw the car. Right. I'd be like, holy crap. I'm a hero. We got to follow this car. Like we got to figure out what's going on. Yeah. No. Daisy. No. No. No. Did you see that? She says, I saw this sign on

electronic billboards, no less than three times during my drive. As I got between Saginaw and Flint, I saw the vehicle. I got in behind the vehicle and called 911, asking if it was still an active ambulance. It's so insane. They took my information and asked if I was comfortable following the vehicle while giving them updates as I went along.

I agreed and provided them with every mile marker and my speed while we transferred counties, they transferred me from dispatcher to dispatcher. I'm obviously not a trained agent, so it was very apparent I was following the vehicle. I changed lanes when the vehicle did, sped up when he did, slowed down when he did, and they were asking me if I could see the child in the vehicle. It was dusk and the windows were tinted so I was unable to see inside. You're like one thing at a time. I'm trying to follow this car, please. You're making me work. Yeah.

After about 10 minutes of following the vehicle, it pulled into a side rest stop. I followed the vehicle and parked across the parking lot from the vehicle while giving the dispatcher updates. It was a busy rest stop, as you can imagine, with people driving home from their things giving weekend with family. My own mother upon hearing this and especially

knowing what the driver did yelled at me for following anyone into a rest stop. The driver never got out of the vehicle while I was there and within about two or three minutes a cruiser pulled up in and blocked his vehicle. At this point, the dispatcher told her I could leave in head home. The next day, I checked the news and found the following information. The child's name was Brody Fish. He was four years old at the time and the suspect of the kidnapping was his father Jason fish usually amber alerts

I feel like our some family member. She says I was correct in the fact that the child was with a parent But incorrect in my assessment of the situation and the potential danger apparently on Friday evening Jason had shot his wife Oh my Stephanie fish 34 then proceeded to bury her body in a crawl space beneath the house. What the freak man Jason quickly admitted to the murder and in 2012 was sentenced to 45 years. His son had witnessed what had happened to his mother and was able to relay the information to the officers. The whole situation was extremely sad and that boy lost both of his parents in one weekend. The part that made me extra upset was that in all the news outlets in the next day, they

stated that an officer did a routine stop or that an officer had pulled him over. That's kind of weird. They never once mentioned that they located him so quickly due to someone responding to the amber alert. That interstate was full and not one other person had dialed 911. And we passed one of the electronic billboards with the information during our drive. It upset me because it is important for others to know that amber alerts do work and they are a valuable tool

and should not be ignored. Please let others know that amber alerts work and it takes two seconds to make a mental note and then to remain vigilant, it could save someone else's life. That's crazy because I've always wondered if they do work and obviously they do work or they wouldn't do them. Right. Um, is my thought process. Also big props to anonymous because I, there's a lot of people that wouldn't do that. I mean, no one else

did. I think the hard thing is being attentive to license plates, right? Because I could see an amber alert on my phone and then also when I start driving and I start thinking of food and I just forget about the license plate. Right. I do think true crime lovers are a little bit more attentive. Yeah, like we're, we see an amber alert and we take it a little seriously. Yeah, you just, you just like call in the police. Yeah.

Yeah. We just think we're always making it up. Yeah, exactly. When you get scared as often as we do. That's a good point. If I called the police every time I was scared. You being prison, you being a psychiatric ward. That's true.

Alright you guys, because that first one was a little longer, that's it for our dear daisies this month and we will see you next time. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye. you