RedHanded - The Murder of Rebecca Park - Part Two: The Investigation | #469
Episode Date: September 24, 2026Fetal abduction is incredibly rare, so it’s no surprise that it wasn’t top of the list of possible motives when a heavily pregnant 22-year-old Rebecca Park first went missing. Yet when looking ba...ck over the countless livestreams and interviews given by Rebecca’s biological mother, Cortney Bartholomew, along with Bartholomew’s husband, Bradley, the pieces quickly fall into place — a mother jealous of her own child and willing to kill her for her baby.Join us in the concluding episode of our deep dive into the murder of Rebecca Park and her unborn child, as we comb through hours of bizarre Facebook livestreams and police interviews to try and piece together not just what happened on the day Rebecca and her unborn baby were killed, but also what on earth her killers were trying to achieve and the pathetic tale they tried to tell the authorities.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome back to part two of the murderer Rebecca Park.
We left you last week with the discovery of Rebecca's body behind the home of her biological mother, Courtney Bartholomew.
Before we get into the autopsy, let's listen to a police interview with Kimberly, Rebecca's sister, as she accuses Courtney and Bradley of her murder.
What do you think happened to your sister?
I don't think Courtney is rather responsible.
Why do you think that?
Because it was Courtney's comment that she wanted that baby no matter what.
Okay.
She was well convinced she was taking that baby regardless.
Okay, so Courtney wanted to take Rebecca's baby.
She never said how she was going to.
But what I told Pizcoor the other day, that Courtney in bed were responsible.
I had a feeling she was nearby.
You had a feeling she was nearby?
Like geographically nearby?
Like close to the location you were at?
Close to Courtney and Pratt's.
House?
Okay.
Courtney called me while I was here saying that Becca got in a car with somebody.
Like somebody was saying that my pay, my old man's pay card,
my baby daddy's PayPal card was found out there by my sister.
Courtney's had my wallet this whole time.
Who reported...
You reported to the police that your mom said that she hit your sister over the head.
Did you make that report?
I made the report and that's what they told me that they did.
Who told you that?
Courtney and Brad straight out.
Courtney and Brad told you what? Tell me what they told you straight out.
That they were the ones that hit her.
They were the ones that, from what they said, murdered her.
and they were taking the baby
and now they were just playing this game of
how to get rid of his bait, get rid of her.
When did they tell you that?
The day after she disappeared.
But they threatened me and my daughter
to stay silent.
Okay.
My doctor of mom promised me
that nothing was going to happen to my daughter
so I could tell.
Okay, so you're telling me that Courtney
and Brad
confess to you that they killed Rebecca.
Courtney has been saying for the last couple of months that she was taking this baby no matter what, no matter the measures.
You're lying. I mean, we could start there. Okay? That's not true.
Is going to kill Rebecca so the two of you can be together. Is that correct?
I didn't know he was going to kill her.
What do you think he was going to do to her?
Leave her?
I don't know.
So this is your story.
That's the only involvement you had was lying to the police
and that you and Rich were going to be together
and he told you that he took care of it.
It's your only thing he told me.
Now the autopsy report painted a grim picture
of what had happened to this young mother.
She had sustained six sharp force
wounds to her back, two to her right upper arm, one to her left trapezius area, two to her neck, and two to her face.
One of these had pierced her lung and it had collapsed. There was also a long wound to Rebecca's
abdomen. And hanging out of this wound were her stomach, placenta and the baby's umbilical cord.
Unsurprisingly, this incision had caused a massive hemorrhage
and Rebecca would likely have bled to death in minutes.
But horrifyingly, the medical examiner stated
that Rebecca Park had been alive while these abdominal cuts were made.
In Rebecca's stomach, there was also large quantities of a bluey, green, chalky fluid.
Immediately, people wondered if she'd been poisoned or given.
in something to sedate her.
Possibly.
We haven't had the toxicology report yet,
so we can't say for sure.
But it could also just have been
stomach settling antacid tablets
or something like that.
She was 39 weeks pregnant.
Speaking of which,
where was Rebecca's baby?
He may have been old enough
to survive outside of the womb
at 38 weeks,
but there were no reports
of any newborn babies being brought to hospitals
anywhere in the area.
Was there a chance, however slim, given the brutality of how he had been forced to enter the
world, that this baby was still alive?
And if so, who had taken him?
And why?
After Rebecca's body was discovered, the police spoke to Kimberly first, and she now told them,
I'm sorry I said my mum and Bradley killed Courtney, even though you literally just heard
the interview in which she said.
She very convincingly tells the police that she thinks that it's Courtney and Bradley.
She now says it's not them.
It's actually back to Rich.
It's actually Rich Failure that did this.
She claimed that on the 4th of November the day her sister had vanished, Rich had confessed
to killing Rebecca.
Apparently Rebecca and Richard argued and he'd accidentally killed Rebecca and then cut the baby out
to try and save it.
And then he too, like in her previous.
a story where Courtney and Bradley did it and then confessed to Kimberly. Rich now confessed
to Kimberly that he killed Rebecca and then forced her to lie to protect him. At this point,
both Kimberly and Rich were swiftly arrested. I think the police have had enough of her by this point.
She comes back and she changes her story and they're like, you're fucking under arrest.
Yeah. Kimberly was arrested on charges of tampering with evidence, giving a false report and being an
annoying bitch and lying to a police officer because she had changed her story so many times
that at least some of it had to be a lie.
Yeah, because she keeps saying that people told her this is the thing.
She's not coming forward and saying, I suspect because of X, Y and Z reason.
And then, oh, no, now I actually suspect this person.
She says, Courtney and Bradley confessed to me.
Oh, no, scratch that.
Rich confessed to me.
So she's lying about what she's saying.
at least one of those times.
Rich was arrested for manufacturing and distributing meth
because investigators had no solid evidence against him
in the death of Rebecca Park yet.
But they now searched Rich's father's trailers,
looking for anything linking Rich to Rebecca's death,
and also checking for any human remains or recent burial sites
for the missing baby boy.
But they found nothing.
However, that very night Courtney went back on a YouTube live
and told everyone that Rich and Kimberly were going to be charged with homicide,
even though that wasn't true.
For her, this is just like the biggest boon.
She is getting so much shit online where everyone thinks that she's the killer.
And then Rich and Kimberly get arrested, and they get arrested for lying, like you said, and for meth.
But she's like, yeah, they've been arrested for homicide.
They're going to be charged with homicide.
to everyone who keeps saying I'm the killer,
fuck you.
But again, it's also short-sighted
because it's going to become apparent
that they weren't arrested for fucking homicide.
But Courtney took this opportunity
to double down on her belief
that Kimberly was guilty.
Reminding everyone of her and Bradley's story
that Kimberly had been asking them
about the forest trails around their house
shortly before Rebecca vanished.
And then, of course,
that's exactly where Rebecca's body turned up.
Courtney now said,
that the night the girls had come over for lasagna and the fake-out inheritance envelopes,
Bradley had actually been there.
So when they had said he wasn't there, that was a complete line.
He now claimed that he'd only lied about being at the house that day
because he didn't want Courtney to get into any trouble because of him
because he's a convicted sex offender and he was at the house with her 14-year-old son Bentley.
But like, presumably he lives there anyway and no one cares
because him and Courtney are married
and he doesn't have his own place
other than a tent in the woods,
which is not where he lives.
Anyway, anyway, that's his explanation for why he lied.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't make loads of sense.
Basically, Bradley said that he was there that night
of the lasagna and the fake inheritance money
because that was the night that Kimberly had asked him about the trails.
And apparently, she was very, very curious about them.
And he's going to tell everybody about it now.
The people watching the live stream asked Courtney why she thought 21-year-old Kimberly would hurt her own sister.
Courtney said that she figured that Kimberly was jealous of Rebecca.
And if anyone needed any proof, they just had to ask her dad saying that she'd always been that way.
And considering that these two girls were taken off Courtney when they were babies
and didn't reenter her life until they were 18, it's not really clear.
how Courtney could have possibly known that.
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just search for uncover. But just to keep adding to the Jerry Springer drama, Kimberly and
Rebecca's dad was summoned like the devil and made a surprise appearance on this live.
But it didn't do Courtney any good because he said he hadn't seen any evidence of Kimberly ever being jealous of Rebecca.
It's honestly wild when you watch these live streams.
It's like, Courtney says something and then they're like, well, they're here tonight.
What have you got to say, Fabian?
And Fabian's like, never, never noticed any particular jealousy.
Certainly not homicidal jealousy.
this is honestly Courtney she is something else mom and she keeps going she keeps going telling the
live stream that Kimberly was obsessed with Rich she said that Kimberly had also been sleeping with Rich
you know her sister's baby daddy and fiancee and that that was Kimberly's motive for trying to get
Rebecca out of the way so that she could be with Rich and this
This is hilarious because Bradley also says, oh yeah, now I remember actually at that lasagna
night, Kimberly directly said to me, I want to get Rebecca out of the way and that's a quote.
Bradley says that now on one of these live streams. Naturally those watching and the host question
him on why he never thought to bring that up before. Somebody saying, I want to get Rebecca out
of the way and then a couple of days later she goes missing. Bradley claimed that he, quote, hadn't
put it all together before, but that he had told the police now, so they knew that Kimberly had
said this to him. So when Courtney was asked about her and Rich, because remember, she's there saying
the motive for Kimberly to kill Rebecca is because she wants to be with Rich. People are like,
well, well, hey, weren't you fucking Rich as well? Like, isn't that a pretty good motive for you to have
killed Rebecca? She's like, I haven't seen him in two years. I haven't seen Rich in two years. I haven't seen
or spoken to him in two years.
Sad doesn't really add up with her claims
that the two of them had been having an affair
that ended with him raping her just months before all this happened.
It doesn't make any sense.
It's not just Kimberly.
Courtney goes after anyone
who even so much as hints at her involvement
with Rebecca's death.
Remember Area Clark from last episode?
The woman who allegedly told Courtney
that she'd overheard some people talking about
how the pregnant woman who went missing got what she deserved.
Well, Arraya turned on Courtney publicly.
And this was Courtney and Bradley's reaction.
They have searched my property.
Two, I didn't touch my fucking daughter.
And three, we already know the fucking info that you're fucking telling us,
Araya.
And we got fucking cameras watching the fucking road, you dumb bit.
So you better fucking watch it.
Rusty, you better get your fucking child under control
because she's taking a mother.
pain and turning it into a goddamn circus.
Fuck you, O'Rea.
You don't have fucking kids that actually you take care of.
I do, unfortunately, that you don't have yours because you fucking can't be a mom to yours.
So you know what?
Fuck you, bitch.
You're getting an ass whooping.
You keep it up.
I'm not playing with you anymore.
I already know the goddamn information.
My daughter probably left rich.
You all can't accept it.
Get over it.
If that is what she fucking did,
then I'm happy for.
I just want to know where she's at
and that she's okay.
That's all that counts anymore.
And you know what?
You ever,
ever fucking say,
I laid a hand on my fucking pregnant
daughter.
Arrasso help me,
fucking God.
You will not like me, bitch.
Don't play with me.
That's enough of that
Yeah
Maybe Jerry Springer isn't as staged as I once thought
No
Don't think you need to
Why'd you go to such effort
When you can just get people like
Fucking Courtney Bartholomey on there
Who are these people
She is so vile
She's so vile
And it's because she's just saying
She's just saying shit right
She's like, Array Clark told me this
And Ray Clark's like
What are you fucking on about?
I never told you that
And I'm like
This is what I mean
I'm like why are you lying about
somebody who can just easily be like that conversation never happened.
Like why don't you just make it up about somebody or you say you overheard it?
Say anything.
But when you start saying, Area Clark told me because her dad told her, because some woman told
her dad, those people are just going to be like, well, we never fucking told you that I heard
anybody outside the revival centre saying that the pregnant woman who's gone missing
deserved it.
And then her response to that is just go on these live streams and just say all of those
things about Area Clark because Aera Clark's like, I never said that.
And I think it's Courtney.
I think Courtney did something.
It is absolutely bad shit.
And also, if you listen to that clip, like, the thing she's saying where she's like,
A Rea is basically saying she's a shit mum because she had all of her kids taken away.
I'm sorry, Courtney, all of your children, apart from your youngest, Bentley, have been taken away from you.
So what are you even talking about?
And I also find it hilarious where she goes, you don't have any kids to take care of.
I unfortunately do.
I'm like, unfortunately.
I'm like, oh, it just.
She's bonkers. She's bonkers.
And look, as we've been saying all the way through this,
this is Courtney and Bradley's biggest problem.
They keep running their mouths on these YouTube live streams,
which again, amazing work by Steph's Case Files for getting so much out of them,
that these interviews expose so many of the holes in their stories.
And the clip we're going to play you next is no exception.
It's of Bradley and Courtney, being grilled,
over why Bradley failed his polygraph test.
And look, I know, I know, I know, I know.
Polygraph tests don't really mean anything, all of that, I know that.
But what's more telling here is that Bradley refuses to say
which questions he failed on the polygraph test.
And Courtney, Courtney, seems to have an absolute lack of curiosity about this,
which is odd for a woman whose daughter is missing.
Courtney
you should be thinking
why your husband
failed a lie detector test
about the disappearance of your daughter
Mm-hmm
Why are you even
about that real
fucking hard
Because she was sitting there
She knows what happened to her daughter
And you didn't do anything
And you should be sitting back
And wondering
Why your husband
failed a lie detector test
Because that's wild
If you're not
because if it was me
and I was in that situation
and we come out of a police station
and I found out that my husband
failed a lie detector test
on the disappearance of my missing
22 year old pregnant daughter
he would have probably got fucking got right then and there
amen sister
and I can't believe that you wouldn't have done
the same for your daughter
tell me which ones
she has the right to know Brad
tell me which ones
you don't know
Brad that's a that's a
Brad, that's a lie.
That's a lie because they asked you the questions again afterwards.
Brad, we know this.
No, they didn't.
Brad, that's an absolute lie because when you fail a lie to take your test.
They take you and they re-ask you and they tell you you, you fail this question and they ask you again.
Yep.
So which one did they ask you again?
You guys can whisper all you want.
Courtney, you should be demanding to know what questions your husband failed on his lie detector test
and the disappearance of your pregnant 22-year-old daughter.
You don't know?
Brad, I think you're full of shit.
I think you're dumb bitch.
That's right.
And I will always be one.
Trust and believe that.
There he goes again.
I'm going to yell back to forth with you.
The fucking stupid shit fucking phone.
From people that don't fucking burn.
The guilty party right there.
Hold on guys.
Are you safe, Courtney?
Because now she'll be worried about your safety, Courtney?
I'm fine.
Okay.
Because at this point, you should still be badgering your husband where your daughter's at.
Just fucking tell me then.
I don't fucking know.
They didn't tell me shit.
They had to tell you something.
They didn't tell me anything.
They didn't tell me I failed it.
They didn't tell me anything.
They said, okay, you are done.
I went out, had a cigarette, and the cop that took me over there, fucking come out, and said, okay, let's go.
Are they supposed to tell you?
They told him, Courtney.
I'm just going to tell you that.
So if you want to believe what he's got to say, then you just go ahead and believe,
and I'm not going to sit here and try to make you believe.
But I'm here to tell you that he knows.
I'm going to tell you that he knows.
Okay.
Brad, okay, then if they, hold on a second. Hold on a second. It doesn't matter. Okay, let's just say they didn't. Let's say they didn't tell you anything. Brad, you still failed the fucking lie detector test. So why did you fail the lie detector test? How do you know if I failed or not?
Because you failed. You already know you failed. You just said you failed. You already admitted it now. It doesn't fucking matter how I found out. Why did you fail?
That's not relevant. That's not relevant, Brad. You already said you did. You just did. So it's not relevant.
relevant now how we found out why did you fail brad that's what's relevant now brad why you want to sit
there and yell at somebody brad why did you feel your light detector test brad do you really have to
act like that i'm tired of the fucking badgering i'm tired of them treating me like shit because they
want to be stupid all right brad you failed the lie down test relevant to that can we calm down for a second
No, I'm not listening to you.
Just calm down.
Calm down.
You're worthless.
I'm not worthless.
I'm not the one that's in this position.
Your wife is on the chopping block.
And if she's innocent, I mean, if you understand that, Courtney, you can go away for a very long time.
If you did not do anything, do anything.
Now is the time to be asking these questions.
Courtney had actually managed to get out of taking a lie detector test
by saying she had a heart condition
just in case anyone was wondering how on earth she managed to pass anything.
Let's now have a listen to a police interview with Bradley
after his failed polygraph.
Okay, so tell me about your polygraph.
I failed my polygraph.
What were the questions?
Like he wanted to know what I knew about the disappearance of Rebecca.
And the only thing that I knew at that point in time is that she got into a black car.
Kimberly was asking me about the trails out back.
And then when Rebecca called on this, and I still didn't think about it like that
because, you know, I didn't think her sister would hurt her or do anything, you know,
so I didn't think anything of them trails back there.
And then when he asked me if I knew anything about it,
And it's like, well, maybe and he didn't not, you know, I don't know, I don't think so.
No?
I guess Kimmy come to her mom and said something about her being in the black car.
That picked up her sister.
Well, I'm like, why didn't you say something?
So you're telling me that Kimberly told Courtney that she was in the black car that picked her up?
This was Kimberly's response when the police put this allegation to her.
Were in the car that picked her up?
No.
That's the car that I drive.
Okay.
But you never told her that you were in the car that picked her up from the house?
No, Colonel was trying to say I was.
Why she would tell me that?
Because she wants to frame me.
She wants to frame you?
Back to Bradley, and you can hear him starting to flounder with the police.
No.
a lot more than what you are reporting to me.
You're the guy.
I don't understand.
Because Courtney knows a lot of stuff that she shouldn't know,
details that had been reported, and she's acting in a certain manner.
Okay.
So I need your help.
The thing is, she don't talk to me like that.
Yeah, but I mean, oh, okay, all right, well, why is she going on TikTok live saying that you failed your polygraph?
I have no idea.
Why would she do such a thing?
What do you tell you what do guilty people do?
Yeah, they put the fingers at other people.
Exactly, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yes, I agree with you about certain things that Kimberly supposedly said to Courtney
because even you said it if she even said that.
Right.
So, I mean, if anything you know on the back of your head, like,
it ain't adding up with Courtney here.
I've been with her for eight years.
No, I get.
There's a lot of loyalty there, but there's also some crazy shit that goes on here that I can see.
There is.
I will admit that.
There's some crazy stuff going on.
So you spent more time with her than anyone else that I know.
Yep.
Okay, you'd agree with that?
I do.
So you're going to know more about her than anybody else would know.
Yeah, probably.
Okay.
So what has she told you?
What happened?
She didn't tell me anything that happened.
Okay, did you help her get rid of the body?
No, I did not.
Now you're getting me upset because you don't want to believe me when I sit there and say these things.
The thing is, though, is I actually do believe you about a lot of things.
What I don't believe is that she hasn't shared things with you.
Because Courtney was the last one with her.
We can't verify the black car.
But now conveniently, oh, what do you know?
Camperley was in the black car now.
I mean, that just looks like shit for court.
Like that, nobody's going to believe that now.
Especially after the phone was just found across the road.
Right.
I understand that.
It don't look good for Courtney, and I'll admit that.
I told her that right from the get-go.
So who helped her get rid of the body then?
I don't know if she did anything.
Well, what do you mean?
She was the last person with her and her phones across the road.
Of course she did something.
Kind of, like, distance yourself from her,
and it's just like, I know you guys, it sounds like you guys got a...
up relationship. I'll agree with that.
We do.
But at the same time, you're still here, man, after eight years.
And if it's my wife and she fucked up and did something that she didn't intend to do,
I'm going to help her.
Yeah, but I'm not taking the blame for something she did.
I'm not seeing that you should.
Well, it turns out in the polygraph examiner's opinion, you already knew she was dead
before you took the polygraph exam.
I know, like I said, was that Courtney told me she got in the black car.
And for the people who had been sleuthing away online
and watching all of these live streams,
they just could not let it go.
The police may not have arrested Bradley and Courtney yet,
because remember, the only two people they've arrested are Kimberly and Rich
and not even really to do with Rebecca's murder.
Yes, Kimberly about lying about things.
But they haven't really arrested anybody to do with what's happened to Rebecca yet.
But everyone watching is convinced that it's Bradley and Courtney.
who are responsible.
Everyone knew they were involved.
I think if I was someone watching these live streams,
I would be convinced that at the end
there was going to be some big reveal
that it was just a social experiment
and that none of it had actually happened.
I mean, that might make more sense
than anything that does happen.
It's honestly just mind-boggling.
And like, this clip we're going to play you guys now,
it just, again, it just goes,
a long way to like, not undermining Courtney and Bradley's credibility.
I guess so their credibility in terms of they keep saying how worried they are about Rebecca,
but clips like this show like, no, they're fucking not.
No, they're fucking not.
Like, that's just not what's happening.
And this is basically filmed while the police are at Bradley and Courtney's house doing a search
and they're being filmed on the body cam footage.
So they can't be that stupid that they don't know they're being filmed.
But let's have a listen.
We have these two chickens. I'm killing them when they're big enough.
She's like, okay, we'll name them luncheon day. She wouldn't let me kill.
I didn't do it.
We took the day that we were gonna... off them.
And I couldn't do it. I could not...
She would not let me.
I was like, you can't do it.
A fresh chicken would be so good though.
It's like, no, you can't do it. I'm sorry.
I'm like...
Can I kill Big Bertha then?
I was like, no.
This might be a bitch. I said, but you're not killing them.
She wouldn't let me eat the dog either.
Right?
You made $600 for your dad, no.
My wife would kill me.
Honestly, the hard...
I spent $100, my wife's killing me.
And we're almost at tobacco, so...
Oh, hell no.
Hell yeah.
They better hurry up to stop.
They're just gone because we need cigarettes.
Otherwise, somebody's gonna die.
Probably me.
But somebody's gonna die.
Becca, I'm still not totally there.
I know you want to be in denial.
I know you want to be in denial of it.
That she's still here, that she's just out,
that she took up and she's having a baby in a different state.
I understand.
This could all have been avoided.
Yeah.
Had she come forward.
She would have just asked for help.
No.
if Kimberly would have come forward quicker.
I know that too.
Courtney and Bradley's demeanor during this whole thing is just so strange.
And you can see that in the body cam footage.
They're just laughing, joking around.
And here's some more.
Bitch, I'm not your address.
You best believe I don't have someone come there and drag you down the road.
I swear to you, God, you killed your daughter in your cramp baby,
because you're a jealous, nasty fat pig.
who smells like meth.
Bitch, I'm only 12 hours from your house, actually.
I will have people come to your house,
and they will never find you or your family.
They will never find Rebecca or the baby.
Rebecca is not your daughter,
and that baby is not your grandbaby.
You killed them.
You killed them.
The cops.
I will keep that.
All the time.
You're ready to spend the rest of your life in prison, trifling ass bitch and your petal husband.
I hope you rotten house.
Can't get your drugs in prison and definitely won't be having a baby in your hands.
You sick mother, your life is over.
Moments later, Courtney turns her attention to the search taking place at her home.
Do you got to remember them searching my house like that and using that limel, making sure there isn't blood?
also clears us.
I know.
I know it does.
And that's what I'm happy about.
Yes.
I don't have to worry about anything.
You don't want to worry about anything because there's nothing they're going to find anyway.
But still.
They really do seem much more concerned with running out of tobacco
and with the negative social media comments Courtney had been receiving than where Rebecca is.
And also they seem quite smug.
when they say the police ain't going to find shit.
Yeah, it's just like, you can hear it in their voices in that clip we just played you.
It's like, they're not like, you guys are wasting your time, you should be out there looking for who really did this, Rebecca, or anything.
They're just like, you ain't going to find shit here.
Like, it's so childish and it's so smug.
And I think for a lot of people watching, because all of this stuff wasn't really released to a bit later, but for a lot of people watching, the thing that was making everybody so convinced that these two were involved,
not just their demeanour on the live streams, but it's that clip that was recorded the night before Rebecca's body was found, that clip that we played you in the last episode.
How? How had Courtney been so confident in telling the citizen group, who had been pursuing her case to come back tomorrow and search the trails behind her house, saying for all to hear, quote, we'll find her there?
if at the time she and Bradley had believed that Kimberly had helped Rebecca get away to Tennessee to escape Rich,
why then would she tell everybody to search behind her house?
And then, when you consider the fact that they did actually find Rebecca's body out there the very next day,
that's just a bit too much of a coincidence.
And what's more odd is that the area had previously been searched by law enforcement and nothing had been found.
So you have to ask, had Rebecca's body been moved out there to be found and if so, by who?
Yeah, because the why feels very clear. It's so that they could say, Kimberly put it there.
Yeah.
Now the police were made aware of this particular Facebook live stream
where you can hear Courtney basically predicting where Rebecca's body is going to be found.
And on the 30th of November, a search warrant was subsequently issued for Courtney's house.
And both Courtney and Bradley were arrested.
The police came down hard now.
This was a murder investigation.
No more lies, no more fucking around.
And Bradley, upon hearing this, pretty much threw Courtney under the bus straight away.
He said that on the night Rebecca vanished
he saw Courtney leave in the white truck
and come back about 15 minutes later.
He said he was sitting inside.
So he sent Courtney a text asking
do you need me to come outside and help you?
And she had replied, yes.
When he got outside, it was just Courtney in the truck
and she told him that she'd been in the car with Rich Fela,
who also remember she's been saying on live stream
she hasn't seen in two years, so which is it?
says that she's in the car with Rich Fela
and that they had an argument
and that it had turned violent
and there was blood on the dashboard
of the white truck that Courtney asked Bradley
to clean up for her, which he did.
But he said he never saw Rich or Rebecca.
Also, can you imagine just like,
you come home and you're just like,
hey honey, I'm home, there's blood on the truck
because I got in a fight with my ex-boyfriend.
Do you mind just cleaning that up for me, please?
Thanks. Love you.
A week later, Courtney,
apparently removed the seat covers saying that there was white paint on them from people vandalising the truck.
But she also confessed to Bradley that she and Rich had done something horrible together.
He said at the time that he didn't know what she meant.
But didn't also ask. Didn't also ask.
Wasn't like, what do you mean you did something terrible with your ex-boyfriend?
What did you do?
He's just like, okay, great, I'll wash these seat covers for you.
No further questions.
Please take my free labour.
But later on, when he did start to suspect, he still didn't say anything because he was too scared.
He now also denied that Kimberly ever told him that she wanted to get Rebecca out of the picture.
He claimed he actually heard that from someone else.
The police interviewed that someone else and they said they had absolutely no idea what Bradley was talking about.
It is staggering.
It's staggering.
It's like the minute they want to point the finger at somebody,
they just say everything they need to to make it like in their minds a solid case against that person.
And then when they want to shift to somebody else,
because he's like, yeah, we're done for now.
They know it's me and Courtney or me or Courtney and I'm not going down with her.
So I'm going to throw rich under the bus and say it's all Courtney and rich.
And now I need to take the heat off Kimberly.
So they're not thinking it's also her.
So let me just say, and I made that whole thing up.
Oh, no, I didn't make it up.
I heard it from somebody else who told me that Kimberly told me that Kimberly told
them that she wanted to get Rebecca out of the way.
What the actual fuck.
It's so stupid.
I've run out of like adjectives for stupid.
What else can I say at this point?
So yeah.
After saying all that, Bradley still wasn't dumb.
He told investigators that Courtney was obsessed with having another child.
He stated that he believed that his wife was also, and this is a quote,
more than capable of slicing open her own flesh and blood to take her baby.
He literally tells the police that.
And he says that rich would have been exactly the person to help her.
Bradley also told police that they should look into the white truck
and the disposable scalples that Courtney kept in her bedside table
that she used for her cellulitis.
which I don't understand how you use what the cellulitis
and I don't understand how a scalpel helps.
You don't want to know.
Oh.
Because I looked it up and it just looks like red patches.
Like what to do with a scalpel?
So it can become quite pussy.
So I can imagine that you would use a scalpel to pierce it and release some pressure.
Do you know what?
Actually, she did say that they said that she used it to lance her cellulitis.
Save to say, the police weren't buying what Bradley was selling, thank God, and he knew it.
The jig was up.
So he did the only thing he knows how to do, and he changed his story again.
This time admitting that he had been in the truck with Rebecca and Courtney,
but that he was shocked when Courtney had suddenly started stabbing her daughter with a hunting knife out of nowhere.
My God, shut up.
It's just, it's mind-blowing.
He's basically now like, yeah, Courtney and Rebecca came to the house.
I got in the car, we went for a drive.
I had no idea.
I had no idea why I was going for a drive.
I didn't think to ask anybody why I was going on this drive.
And then out of nowhere, she just pulled, Courtney just pulls out a hunting knife and
start stabbing Rebecca.
And I'm just like, oh my God.
Like, what?
What?
And like the upstanding man, he is, he jumped out of the car.
And Courtney forced Rebecca into the woods to cut up.
the baby out. Yeah, he says he jumped out because he didn't want to see the stabbing.
Not stop, he didn't want to try to stop it. He jumped out so he didn't have to see it.
What a man. When Courtney was all finished, she slit Rebecca's throat and made Bradley help her
cover the body up and do CPR on the baby. But the baby died. Bradley said he never heard it cry
or saw it move. So they got rid of the body. He even took the police to the scenes of the
crimes and took them to two dumpsters where he said that they had ditched the murder weapon.
And we're going to have a listen to how casual he is about this whole thing.
Frustrated at Rebecca?
Or about something to say that in general?
Did she have killed her?
Not at that point, no.
Because they, she feels like the girls don't appreciate her as a mom.
They didn't want to know what was going on for sure.
She was on one of these hills.
Okay.
Did what she did.
So it was on a hill just on the side?
Yes.
You said she covered her up in leaves?
Leaves.
Because she came, Rebecca jumped up on the curb, her up on the,
bankment because she thought her mom was going to hit her with a geeksky.
Okay.
It really is something.
I think that's the thing that is quite staggering about this case.
It's not only that these people could allegedly do this to, you know, Courtney to her own daughter, but Bradley also should just, you know, his stepdaughter.
But then they can just like go on being so casual because even in Bradley's version right now, he didn't do anything.
He was just an innocent bystander to this stabbing.
but like he's trying to make jokes with the police.
He's being so casual with them while they're riding around looking for the hunting knife that was used to slice a baby out of a woman's body that you subsequently kill both of them.
Like there is something not quite right.
And I've seen a lot of people being like, it's the meth, it's the meth.
I just don't know if that's enough of an explanation for me.
I think there's something just so, so, so fundamentally wrong with these people.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. Like I think, you know, that's going to be magnified by something like meth. And meth is particularly good at magnifying this, like, specific breed of person. But you just, yes, there has to be something quite fundamentally loose in your brain for even the most amount of meth in the whole world to push you to do something like this.
To do it and then also to not be severely traumatized in the aftermath. I think that's the thing. Because I
like we'll talk about kind of fetal abduction cases and stuff.
And obviously you could have somebody who is like fucking deranged enough to do it to get the baby.
And that's like the end goal.
My question mark is really around Bradley.
Because I can believe that Courtney is just deranged enough that she wanted that baby and she was going to get it at any means possible.
He was involved.
He was involved either in the least possible way in his version where he is just an innocent like victim in all of this,
dragged along and forced to witness his crime.
But then I'm like, how are you not?
not more traumatized by what you witnessed.
How are you so fucking normal afterwards?
But anyway, at the same time that Bradley was spilling his very considerable beans,
the police were also interviewing Courtney.
And she asked them,
is he, meaning Bradley, listening to this?
Because I need immunity and witness protection.
Of course.
Investigators told Courtney that only.
the prosecution could decide on immunity, and that they would need a lot of solid information
from her to even consider something like that. So Courtney now claimed that Bradley was the killer,
and that she could show authorities where the murder weapon and the baby were, because he had
forced her to help him cover it all up. When asked if the baby was still alive, Courtney just shook her head.
no he wasn't
by this point the police were convinced that both Bradley and Courtney were involved
and it's a real prisoner's dilemma situation here
do they each basically deny all knowledge and all involvement
and try to both get away with it
we've definitely seen that before take for example the case of Robert one
it was so obvious that it was one of them but because none of them would break
they all end up getting away with it
or do Courtney and Bradley throw the other one under the bus to perhaps save themselves?
But of course if you do this, you could possibly also end up incriminating yourself by exposing too much information.
Courtney and Bradley both stick with the plan of throwing the other under the bus and Courtney now told the police a whole new version of events.
Courtney said that she went to pick up Rebecca for ice cream, as planned on the 4th of November at 6.30pm.
and then they went back to her place.
According to Courtney, she texts Bradley on their way over
and when she pulled up he was already outside waiting for them.
He came up to their car,
pulled Courtney out and told her,
take your house inside, don't worry about it.
With that, he got in the truck and drove off
with pregnant Rebecca inside.
Courtney claimed that Bradley came back at around 10.30.
saying that he dropped Rebecca home.
But Courtney said that when she'd called Rich, he told her that Rebecca wasn't there.
Bradley allegedly told Courtney after hearing this, okay, so I didn't take her home.
I took her to someone else's house, but she doesn't want you to know where she is.
And at this point, Courtney also finally confessed to making up the entire story about the
mysterious black car that had picked Rebecca up, saying that Bradley had made her lie.
Courtney also claimed that one of her disposable scalples
that she kept in her bedside table was missing
and she said she knew that because she counted
how many disposable scalples she had because of her son Bentley
who's not a toddler need I remind you he's 14 years old
do you need to count how many scalples you've got to keep away from your 14 year old
I mean it depends what he's doing
Lansing his cellulitis.
So apparently when Courtney realized that one of her scalples was missing, she'd confronted Bradley.
So clearly she doesn't think it's Bentley who's taken it.
She thinks it's Bradley who's taken it.
She confronts him and he vaguely told her,
soon enough, you'll find out where your daughter is.
And then when Rebecca's body was found, Bradley apparently confessed to Courtney saying,
I did it.
I did it because of Rich.
Apparently, the year before, Rich had reported Bradley to the police for a parole violation
and that had resulted in Bradley doing a bit of time in prison so this was his payback
to murder Rich's pregnant fiancé and baby.
After telling her little tale, Courtney asked the police if she could leave.
She's literally like, can I go now?
I'm done.
And the police asked her what she thought Bradley might have been saying in the room next door.
She shrugged, probably that it was the two of us.
He was not.
He was saying that it was absolutely all Courtney.
But investigators did something that you're not allowed to do in the United Kingdom.
They told Courtney that Bradley was saying it was both of them and that they were going to believe him.
Investigators brought up the baby that Courtney had text her sister Candice about.
Clearly, she hadn't just given birth to a premature baby that was in a NICU in Grand Rapids,
so what was she on about?
Courtney told them that she'd actually been trying to adopt a premature baby because the mother was a friend of hers who couldn't cope.
But then, the woman had turned around and changed her mind, so she just thought it was easier to tell her sister that her baby was dead?
kid? Sure.
And also like all but one of your kids have ended up in the system.
Like, who is going to be like, yes, please, you, I pick you, I choose you.
And you're married to a sex offender.
Who hates you so much, he chooses to basically live in a tent in the woods.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The police hear this out, hear the story out about the, you know, the mother who changed her mind.
But they were never able to identify a friend or any woman who had supposedly been in contact with
Courtney about her adopting any premature babies.
So that was very much a dead end.
And again, how Courtney was planning on adopting this baby is not entirely clear,
given that she's married to a sex offender.
That's probably because none of it matters because it's not true.
And when the police asked why her cell phone was with Bradley's phone all night,
the whole time, she said he was out.
and didn't come home until 10.30 p.m.
This is what I mean.
They're so stupid.
They're so stupid.
She's like, oh, well, as soon as I got home,
he kicks me out the truck,
and then he drives off with Rebecca,
and I don't see him again.
They're like, but your phone is also moving with his
the entire time until he comes back.
So how does that make any sense?
How does that make sense that you were at home on your own?
It's staggering.
And perhaps seeing no other lies she could possibly tell.
Courtney Bartholomey started crying
and said that Bradley had taken her phone with him
so that she couldn't call the police and report what he was doing.
Even though she didn't know what he was doing,
she had no idea what he was doing.
So what's she going to report?
Yet, neither of their phones left the property until 8.30pm.
But Rebecca and Courtney arrived at the house at around 7pm,
so that's a whole hour and a half
missing?
Yeah.
Because Courtney's story
was that Bradley had jumped in the truck
and drove off with her pregnant daughter
the minute she got home.
Oh, sigh, sigh, sigh.
After telling the police all of this,
Courtney cries more.
And in an attempt to probably try and derail them,
she now tells the detectives that Bradley
when he had come home at 10.30pm that night
had actually come home.
with the baby. And she said that he had demanded that she try and save him. But she says she couldn't.
She tried CPR, she tried everything, but the baby died. So Bradley stuffed the baby's body into a cooler
back and then threw him in a public bin the next day, which is why the police have never found
his remains. An absolutely horrific revelation from Courtney. But the police couldn't stop there. She was
finally cracking. So they confronted her with the fact that both hers and Bradley's cell phones
were together and being used the entire night Rebecca vanished so it didn't make sense that
Bradley just took hers and left her at home. Exactly because it's being fucking used. It's being
fucking used again just like the same stupid lie that Bradley told. They're so dumb. So Courtney was
faced with yet another situation that she was failing to lie her way out of. So she admitted that yes,
Okay, fine. She did go with Bradley and Rebecca that evening, but it wasn't by choice.
It's like children.
Honestly.
Honestly.
It's really, really, really tiring.
So Courtney now said that when she and Rebecca showed up at the house that evening at 7pm,
Bradley was waiting outside and he forced them both to get out of her truck and into his white truck.
and started driving.
Again, even in her new story,
after she's been given the information
that the police know
that their phones didn't leave
the Bartholome property until 8.30,
an hour and a half after she said she arrived,
she doesn't even factor that in.
She can't figure that into the story,
so she just sticks with whatever the fuck she's going to say.
She says, so yeah, they're now in the white truck,
and they take off Bradley's driving,
Rebecca's in the truck, and she's in the truck,
not by choice.
Courtney claimed that she didn't put up a fight
because she didn't want to set Bradley off
and that she had absolutely no idea
what he was about to do.
Apparently, Bradley eventually pulled over,
dragged Rebecca out of the car,
and before Courtney could move,
he had started stabbing her pregnant daughter
with a hunting knife.
Then, according to Courtney,
he cut the baby out and handed it to her.
This was when the police told Courtney
that Bradley was actually saying she was the aggressor.
And it was she who was the one who had started
to stab Rebecca in the truck.
And that is why the truck seats had really been removed
because they were stained with blood.
At first, Courtney said that the blood was from the baby's umbilical cord
from when Bradley had given it to her.
But pretty swiftly, the story changes again.
And Courtney admitted, okay, fine.
Bradley didn't actually cut the baby out.
She did.
Bradley was still in a blind rage, stabbing Rebecca.
Courtney hadn't been able to stop him.
She knew her daughter was going to die,
so she needed to save her grandson, obviously, the clear choice.
So Courtney said that she had a quick feel around in her bag
and found one of her disposable scalples.
And she jumped out of the truck and cut the baby out with it.
Courtney admitted that Rebecca was alive and conscious
and even talking to her, her mum,
asking if her son was okay.
and telling her mother to save him.
The police asked Courtney how she knew what to do.
You know, how to get the baby out using a fucking disposable scalpel.
Well, according to Courtney, Bradley, who had now calmed down
after his rage-fuelled stabbing spree,
was now on hand providing Courtney with instructions on how to perform a C-section.
Because he'd looked up how to do it months before.
Courtney said she'd actually caught Bradley reading up on the topic,
and she'd asked him why,
to which he'd apparently replied,
quote,
I'm going to cut Rebecca's baby out of her and make Rich watch.
Apparently, Courtney said that she just brushed off this batshit crazy comment
and thought he was joking.
Somebody else me.
If that's what she thinks is a joke, I'd hate to see her type five.
It's just makes sense.
no sense. I'm also like, if that's what he wanted to do, if he wanted to cut the baby out
and run of Rich to pay Rich back for reporting him for a parole violation, not like, you know,
raping and murdering his mother or something, like a parole violation. Why is he cutting the
baby out without Rich there? That kind of like undermines the whole plot you had going on. And why is
he so angry at Rebecca? Rebecca wasn't the real target. Rebecca was just like collateral damage to
hurt Rich. Like, none of it makes
any fucking sense. And then if you did this to hurt
Rich, why didn't you ever tell Rich you did it?
Because you can only hurt somebody if you're
like, hey man, fuck you.
I did it. But you're just like,
Rebecca went missing. Like, that's it.
Like, it's all so
stupid. It's unbelievable.
It's not finished. Courtney said
after it was all done
that she used dental floss, which
she just so happened to have with her,
to tie off the umbilical cord.
which I don't believe because this woman has so few teeth.
I don't know what she's flossing.
Bradley then cut Rebecca's throat with his knife,
and he used a rope from his truck to move her body into the woods
and covered her with leaves.
Then he set about trying to frame Kimberly
by leaving one of the bank cards she used by the body.
Courtney claimed that she was just another victim of Bradley's,
calling him a monster,
and crying that she couldn't report what had happened
because she was too scared of him and couldn't get away.
And to top it all off, she accused Bradley, her husband and Rebecca, her daughter, of having had an affair behind her back and said that Bradley may also have done this because he was possibly worried that the baby was his.
And the police actually say to Courtney when she says this, I thought you said that Rebecca and Bradley didn't like each other.
And she's like, well, they do. They were actually having an affair.
Because I say so.
Yeah. Which again, we have absolutely.
no evidence that that is true.
The police had heard enough, though.
They were convinced that Bradley and Courtney had acted together
in the killing of Rebecca and her baby boy.
Rich was also charged with several drug offences,
including manufacturing and distributing,
for which he could actually face life behind bars
because of all of his priors.
In May 2026, all of the charges against Kimberly Park
were dropped,
probably so that they can use her as a cooperative witness
when this trial goes forward, which, all right.
Sometimes in cases like this, like the sextons, when everybody's lying,
sometimes you do have to give someone a plea deal to get the truth like Pixie.
Yeah.
And we know that Kimberly has definitely lied and lied and lied and confused all of the investigation,
which is a crime. That is a crime.
Yeah.
And, you know, God knows what else, but I wouldn't be surprised if they gave her a plea.
No, not at all. They've basically dropped it in a way that said that we can recharge you with any of these at any point. So she's kind of like there with a with a sword over her neck. Like it could come back at any point. And I think it's not just the fact that she lies because the lies are obviously very problematic because as we said, she knows their lies because she's saying that people confess to her when there's no way that Rich confessed to her because Rich didn't do it. And there's no way that Courtney and Bradley confessed to her.
because what she said they told her
doesn't make any sense with what actually happened
and also why would they confess to her?
That doesn't make any sense.
So she's obviously lying.
And if she's not involved,
why is she trying to cover for them?
Exactly.
And I think there is also stuff beyond the lying
where Kimberly says things
that seems to indicate
that she has more knowledge of the situation
than she's letting on.
For example, she tells the police
that Rebecca's body was stored somewhere.
She says that stored somewhere.
before it was found. And that does actually make sense because like we said,
law enforcement and these volunteer search groups had combed large sections of the like
Manistee National Forest around Courtney and Bradley's house. But they hadn't found anything.
But then right after Courtney says, oh, we're going to find her behind my house tomorrow,
they find her three miles behind their house. It does seem like Courtney's body was stored
somewhere and then moved. So how does Kimberly know that? Is she more involved in the like
murder and the planning. I really don't know. I really don't know. I think the reason she lies
so much is because I really think she's not, she's just not that smart. She's just not that smart.
I think there may also be, if you listen to things that Kimberly says in the police interview,
like the one that we played you at the start of this episode, I think it's, it wouldn't be unfair
to say there's possibly also some sort of intellectual or developmental issue there with Kimberly
that could possibly make her more susceptible to manipulation by those around her,
particularly by people like Courtney.
And I think she also comes across as very desperate for love and attention from Courtney in particular.
It makes sense, like as her birth mother, although she has a close relationship with Stephanie Park,
her adopted mother, there is that power dynamic that's going to exist between like the mother that gave you up for adoption
and especially if you're desperate to get that attention back from her.
So I think it's absolutely plausible that Kimberly could have lied just to try and please Courtney.
As for the trials of Bradley and Courtney Bartholomew, we don't know when we can expect them to take place.
They're currently being assessed to see if they are competent to stand trial.
If we get there, which I hope we do, they face a slew of charges,
including first-degree murder, torture, assault on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage or stillbirth,
unlawful imprisonment and removal of a dead body.
And of course, because I can't escape them wherever I go.
Investigators also discovered a bunch of CSAM on the computer in the house
and obviously a whole bunch of drugs as well.
And as faru said earlier, there are people online who chalked this whole thing up to the work of a couple of crazy men
methods and I just, I don't think so. I don't think that cuts it. No, I don't think it cuts it at all.
I think this case is far more interesting than them just being a couple of crazy methods. And we're
going to talk about like the psychology of fetal abduction in a second. Let's just talk about
the competency assessment firstly because I was a bit confused by this. I was like, why,
why do they need to be assessed for competency? It seems like, and this is a guess that it may be
to do either with whether this was some sort of drug-induced psychosis that these two took part in
and that's why they killed Rebecca and cut the baby out, or possibly to do with IQ.
Because there have been numerous decisions in the US by the US Supreme Court that an IQ of 70
is the threshold for competence. In a lot of stays, including Michigan, they don't really have a
hard and fast rule like that, but they would be aware that on appeal if it went to the Supreme
court if the defendants are found to have an IQ of less than 70 that it could be, it could be
shown that they were incompetent to stand trial in the first place. So basically anyone scoring
below 70 on a standardized psychometric test, it could be argued that they're like permanently
incompetent. So if you find somebody incompetent for like mental health reasons, you could say that
that person could then be treated and then once they're ready, they could stand trial. But obviously
you can't like make somebody more competent mentally to understand what's going on in a trial.
So it could render them permanently in competent to stand trial.
It could also be, and this is probably more likely if it is to do with IQ or competency in that regard,
that they don't think that they can understand the proceedings of a trial.
So they can't like assist in their own defense, basically.
Like they can't understand what's going on, who's who or what they need to say.
But I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know.
I can see what, I think they're competent to stand trial.
I think, you know, to use the Sexton example again,
Willie Sexton was found not competent, right?
He was a child in a man's body.
That's what to me not competent means.
Yeah.
And that was so, I can't remember what his IQ was,
but it was below 60 even, I think.
So that is vastly different to someone like Courtney Booth.
Otholome, who is actively and provably manipulating everyone around her.
Willie Sexton was only being manipulated, and that was demonstrable from every angle.
So that is, if you need a comparative example of a instance where someone was found not competent
to stand trial, that is the perfect example.
There is no way Willie Sexton was able to understand what was happening to him because
He rang his uncle and he said, will you be able to come and take me home?
He had no idea what was happening.
And that's not these two.
No.
The fuck all.
Absolutely not.
Thank you for that example because I think that really helps.
You understand what we're actually talking about when we're talking about incompetency due to like an intellectual defect.
It's down to the point of like you literally cannot assist in your defence.
You do not know what's going on at trial.
You don't understand the stakes of what you're facing.
You don't understand anything.
Bullshit is that Courtney.
Bartholomew and Bradley Bartholomew, they are not the fucking sharpest tools in the box by any measure,
but they are not incompetent to the point that they cannot stand trial. And I will be so disgusted
if like this trial is called off because of that. And look, I have also not seen any evidence that
they carried out this murder or these two murders in some sort of drug-fuelled psychosis.
There is so much premeditation that feels obvious. Like texting Candice saying that she's had a
mature baby that she's going to be bringing it home in a week. And the whole like the the checks,
the checks that I told everybody to remember like from last week sending Rebecca that picture of the
check is to lure her in to get her because because Courtney knew this baby is coming. Because like we said,
Rebecca actually ended up in hospital thinking she was going to give birth. And I think she thought,
once the baby's here, it's going to be much harder for me to like nab it. I need to act now. I need to
get this fucking baby out now. Like I just don't buy any of it. And look, we don't know what's actually
going on. I tried to find out what was happening, but the competency reports that have been put
together are private. So obviously I can't see them. So we're just going to have to wait and see
what happens. And this I found hilarious. The defense for Courtney and Bradley have actually tried to have
the entire case dismissed for a lack of evidence. But I'm like, how's that? Courtney confessed to
cutting the baby out of Rebecca. May I direct you to Facebook, good sir? I know. I really don't get it because
both Courtney and Bradley aren't saying I wasn't there or aren't saying it didn't happen or aren't
saying it was somebody else. They're pointing the finger at each other and saying that they were just
like dragged along on it. They're both saying the other one is responsible for attacking Rebecca.
One is claiming it was for a revenge and one is claiming it was for the baby. Like,
neither of them are even saying it wasn't like them. It's just so bizarre to me that the defence
are trying to do that. But that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen.
We tend to agree with the prosecution's theory, the one that seems so blindingly fucking obvious, to be honest, that Bradley and Courtney planned all of it.
They lured Rebecca to their house, they drove her to the woods, and they attacked her, and then they cut her baby out of her.
As for the why, it's an odd one.
Fetal abductions are rare, but they aren't unheard of.
Netflix's Maternal Instinct documentary that came out earlier this year,
shone a miserable light on the grim phenomenon.
But this story in particular is very unusual,
even when it comes to fetal abduction and how rare it is.
It isn't, if we can even say it, the classic fetal abduction case.
No, because those typically, like the one in the documentary maternal instinct,
typically revolve around a woman who has lied about a pregnancy to a partner,
in order to maintain a relationship.
That is like the kind of bog standard cookie cutter reason why fetal deductions happen.
It's typically a woman who lies desperate to try and make a man who perhaps is like a bit
ambivalent to water.
Maybe she can feel the relationship is coming to an end and she needs to like do something
huge in order to keep him.
So she lies about a pregnancy and as time passes the pressure builds.
There's a need like building for the pregnancy story to come to a.
an end right and either you end it with a miscarriage or you end it with a baby. Like those are your
only real two options. And if you go with the miscarriage one, you're hoping that there'll be some
sympathy, some affection, some rekindling of some love between the two of you, or you have a baby
and you're like, here, aren't I great, I've given you, I've given you a child. And that's really
what's going on here. In the case of many fetal abduction cases, like the story and maternal instinct
with Taylor Parker and her victim, Reagan Simmons-Hankot,
the miscarriage wouldn't have served her end goal.
Taylor was upping the ante constantly.
So she needed the baby as the ultimate prize.
It was the one and only way to cement the relationship that she wanted.
And that's why she goes through with it.
Obviously, because she's crazy as well,
but that's why it's like she carries on, it carries on, it carries on.
And she can't say it's a miscarriage because that guy was so, like,
not even like so ambivalent towards her that I think she's like, the miscarriage isn't going to be enough to make him feel sympathy for him for me to like, you know, for us to to capture some moment there of like shared grief. I need a baby and I'm going to kill Reagan to get the baby. Like it had to be that. But in this case, in this case, with Courtney Bartholomew, it's harder to understand what's going on here psychologically and why this all happened. Because Courtney didn't need.
to present a baby to her partner or anyone else for that matter. So was she really that
desperate to just have another baby? And look, we do know, as we talked about when we spoke about
the Maternal Instinct documentary over and Under the Duveh when it first came out, we do know
that when men abduct children or, you know, babies, they're going after like a sexual age
preference that they have. When women do it, it's typically so that they can raise them. So they
typically want to get a baby as young as possible. Like if a baby is abducted, often it could be
thought that the abductor could be a woman. And so you can't get much younger than a fetal
abduction. So I'm not saying that her wanting to raise a baby and doing the fetal abduction is the
weird part. I question why. And if she really was that desperate to have another baby, all but one of
her children had already been taken into care. So maybe you could say this new baby was intended as some
sort of do-over, like a new fresh start, even if it meant, you know, she had to murder her own
daughter to achieve it. And of course, she also does talk, Courtney does talk about all of like
the IVF stuff she wants to do on these live streams. But like, I don't know if I really
believe her. I don't. No way. It's so expensive. So expensive. And it's such a commitment.
And when people on there are asking her, how can you afford, how can you afford? How can you afford?
IVF. Like you're saying you can't afford like this, that and the other. Like, how can you afford IVF?
And she, she says something like $30 a month on fertility pills is no big deal.
Excuse me? That's not how that works.
Who's spending $30 a month on fertility pills for IVF? Like, unless she's calling IVF something,
unless she's calling something else, IVF, like, I don't really know what she's talking about here.
She confused it with the contraceptive pill because she's got that the wrong way around.
I really, really don't know what she's talking about.
But like, it's very expensive.
There's no guarantee that it will even work.
And, yeah, I don't believe her that she's doing it.
But I guess this made people believe that she was really desperate to have a baby.
And also, look, she's never going to be allowed to adopt.
If she saw that as her only option, that was obviously never going to happen.
Like we said, she's married to a fucking sex offender.
And the majority of her children ended up in care.
But when we're talking about the premeditation and her, like, plans to seal this baby and run away,
Something else Courtney does talk about on these live streams, which you guys would have heard from a clip last week of Steph's case files host questioning Courtney about this, is that Courtney had mentioned that she wanted to move to Texas.
And if you put this together with the mysterious NICU baby that was never identified, the move to Texas, it kind of makes it look like her and Bradley were going to steal this baby and run off to Texas to start a new life.
Screams of premeditation.
My question is, why?
Why does Bradley want this?
Why does she want it?
She's in her 40s.
I'm not saying women in their 40s kind of babies before everyone screams at me.
Of course I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying she's had four kids by this point.
It's not worked out great.
I really am baffled by the intentionality here.
Is it so important to her to have a new baby that she's willing to kill Rebecca,
even though there's no payoff with Bradley either?
Like he doesn't think it's his baby.
So what's going on?
It's very, very strange.
And we also know, now, from interviews with Stephanie Park, Rebecca and Kimberly's adoptive mother who raised them,
that Courtney had been trying to find Rebecca and Kimberly for years while the girls were still minors.
Stephanie had actually had to put in place restraining orders to stop Courtney from doing this.
But when the girls turned 18, there was nothing she could do if they wanted to reunite.
And when Kimberly had a baby, the one Stephanie adopted,
Courtney had apparently tried to get her hands on that baby.
They even had to go through the courts to get her to back off.
So yeah, I guess it does prove in many, like, ways that Courtney did want another baby.
Even Bradley says this.
She was obsessed with having another baby.
But like, I don't really get it.
She comes across as a very selfish person.
Like she comes across as like, you know, she's on, she's taking her drug, she's living her life.
She's like smoking her cigarettes.
she's living with Bradley doing whatever she wants.
Does she really want a fucking newborn again?
Like, it's very, very weird.
And again, Bradley...
I think it's the newborn she wants.
She doesn't like it when they're not newborns anymore.
Maybe, maybe.
Because, you know, my friends who her parents have spoken to me about,
like, the first few months of, like, having a newborn,
you have this, like, very primal, like, almost cave dwelling feeling
of, like, yes, delicious.
And I'll just stay in here in my little room and raise this little bug by myself.
And then when they get a bit bigger and they don't stay in the same place and they're not just like blobs anymore, you're just like, oh God.
And then they just keep getting bigger.
You can't keep them that way.
So I would say it is the newborn she wants.
It's the rest of it.
She can't be fucked with.
That does make sense.
That does make sense because, yeah, she actually manages to get her hands on Kimberly's baby for a few weeks before Stephanie manages to get the courts to intervene and they get the baby back.
and she has the baby from like three weeks to like nine weeks or something.
Like this woman does seem to be obsessed with like newborns, with babies.
But like the thing I don't understand is in fetal abduction cases,
usually it's a solo, a solo thing.
It's the woman doing it because she wants this baby
and she's going to lie to everybody and pretend it's her baby.
And she's been wearing a bump for ages and pretending she's pregnant and all of this.
What is going on with Bradley?
I don't believe that that man wants a newborn in his life.
life. What's going on there? Like, I really don't understand the psychology of this paired up,
we're going to steal a baby together and why he goes along with it, why he lies for her again and
again and again and covers up and covers up. They're under enormous amount of scrutiny from the
police and the public, but he continues to lie for her. Is it just like he really loves her?
They were going to have this baby together. I really, really don't know. Now, there are other
horrific theories. For example, like we told you, when the police did go through the computer at
the Bartholomew House, they did find considerable amounts of CSAM, which is obviously child
sexual abuse material on there. Was this, was Bradley going along with this because it would
bring a very young child into his orbit? I don't know. But killing Rebecca in order to steal
her baby feels like a very big risk to take to do that.
Another theory is that Bradley and Courtney were going to sell this baby, which, you know,
stranger things have happened. Anything you can imagine has happened in the world somewhere.
But the question remains, why would they take a baby like this?
It was very, very unlikely that a baby would survive being cut out of its mother's belly in the
fucking woods. So why did they not just abduct Rebecca and keep her hostage somewhere until
the baby came, deliver it and then kill her? Why do it the way they did? Was there a sadism
element to it, perhaps? Maybe Courtney was fuelled not just by jealousy about the baby, but over
jealousy of Rebecca's relationship with Rich, who she did used to shag. I don't know. Like,
I don't think so.
I don't.
I don't think, I don't know if I'm convinced that like
Courtney Bartholomey cares about anyone enough to be jealous of them.
Yeah.
It's just so strange.
It's so strange.
It's like why go to this extra horrific like level of like cutting the baby out of Rebecca?
I'm not saying any of this wouldn't have been horrific.
But like, it's so.
sadistic, like driving her into the woods, luring her there as her mother,
luring her into the woods while she's still alive and conscious,
and you admit she's talking to you, cutting the baby out.
Like, that's why I don't even think the bluey chalky material in her stomach is a sedative,
because I don't think Courtney Bartholomew even cared enough to sedate her.
No, I agree. I agree. I think it's Rennie's.
So, yeah, I don't know.
This whole case is beyond anything I think we've covered for a very, very long time.
I think often in cases like this, I feel like I understand.
the motivations of people why they do the things they do, at least as much as it's possible,
we can offer an explanation. I don't understand why Kimberly lies as much as she does, because I genuinely
don't think she really had anything to do with it. The only explanation I have is that she's
kind of easily manipulated, which doesn't feel like satisfying enough, but it's really the only
thing I can think of. I can get close enough, and I buy your theory that Courtney Bartholome, you just
loves that newborn phase and was obsessed with, like, having a baby, but doesn't really give a shit
about them after that. She repeatedly calls Bentley her baby, but Bentley's a 14-year-old boy,
so maybe she does want to have another baby in her life. But I do not understand why she does it
the way that she does. I don't know why she chooses Rebecca. And then I do not understand
Bradley Bartholomew's motivations in any of this. I really really don't. He's the trickiest for me,
because I don't think he's a Willie Sexton. I think even Kimberly, I would buy more that she was
sort of a Willie Sexton type figure in this if she grew up with Courtney, but she didn't.
No.
But I can buy that, you know, she was still easily manipulated and, you know, unlike Willie Sexton,
she wasn't manipulated into killing a baby.
No.
I don't think she was even there or had anything to do with it.
Bradley, I'm not sure because I, I suppose I could buy that he was afraid of her a bit,
but like, that much?
That much.
didn't mention this because I don't really, I mean, maybe it's relevant. But Courtney Bartholomew is an
amputee. One of her legs has been amputated, right? So she's always on crutches when you see her.
Oh. I'm like, that's why she obviously needs Bradley to help her in the fetal abduction. That explains
to me why she needs Bradley there to help do this. And that's why I also believe his story that she
started stabbing Rebecca in the car or in the truck because it's like, it's easier for her
because everybody's on the same ground because she's got one missing leg.
But what I don't understand is why Bradley went along with it.
And I don't buy his thing that he's scared of her.
You're scared of your amputee wife?
She's missing a fucking leg.
Like, what are you so scared of?
Everyone in this just says they're scared of the person
that they can't explain why they didn't turn them in
or why they went along with whatever that shit crazy thing that they did.
So no, I don't really believe him that he's scared of her.
He doesn't give me that vibe.
he just, they're so depraved.
I think that's the thing about this story is the reason this story is so disturbing is that the idea that a mother would murder her own daughter.
And yes, of course she didn't raise her, but like she made every effort to get back in touch with her.
Again, probably for nefarious reasons.
But you would murder your own daughter in the most brutal and depraved way to steal a baby from her body just so you could enjoy maybe a year or two of like the cute newborn face.
And then when that didn't even work, when that didn't even work because of your stupid plan leading to the death of that baby, you just toss that dead baby in the rubbish and then set about trying to frame your other daughter, Kimberly, for the murders.
Like that's how quickly she moves on.
She's like, I want this baby.
Oh, the baby's dead.
Chuck it in the bin.
Oh, I'm getting a lot of scrutiny on me.
Quick.
Let's throw Kimberly under the bus.
I've already murdered my other daughter.
If anything, Kimberly, you're getting off remarkably lightly.
And all this, she does all of this while acting completely normally, normally for her, obviously,
not normally for like a person, but normally for her.
Like in all those clips we play you of like her smoking and drinking and laughing and having a great
fucking time, like acting as if she hasn't just committed this like unbelievable act of
violence. And like I said, even if Bradley wasn't a willing participant and just sort of got
dragged along, how he acts so normally and without any trauma from what he's just been
forced, quote unquote, to witness. It doesn't really make sense. It doesn't feel like any of this
affected Courtney or Bradley at all. It feels like they just shrugged it off as a bit of a fail and then just
got on with things. That's the thing I find so like mind-boggling. Because obviously people who do
fetal abductions like in the maternal instinct case, she's fucking nuts. She's got an end goal to
service. Fuck everything else. With this, it feels so like frivolous. It's like let's just let's try
get this baby. Oh, it didn't work. Oh, well. Chuck the baby in the bin. Let's get on with it.
Oh, we'll just say a bunch of stuff about Kimberly and how we can frame her and then let's get on
with our lives. Like, it feels truly demonic. That's the thing. It feels demonic.
Because it's not just the act itself, which in and of itself is just like unspeakable,
unspeakable. But it's the stone cold cover up and the scapegoating and how nobody is safe at all
from Courtney and Bradley Bartholome. It's genuinely.
terrifying. Ugh. I feel sick and exhausted after that. But that's it, guys, that's all we got.
Well, I mean, fingers crossed, they see their day in courts. I mean...
Truly, truly. And maybe it will have happened. We've recorded this a little bit ahead of time.
So if there is an update, then we'll just record a topper and put it at the start.
So you guys will probably already heard that if something's happened. If it hasn't, stay tuned
and we'll bring you an update as and when something happens. But that's it now.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
