Small Town Murder - #545 - Google Map My Murder - Cary, North Carolina

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

This week, in Cary, North Carolina, a successful young couple seem to be living a great life, until things become not so great. Affairs & weird controlling behavior cause detectives to suspect the husband, when his wife is found face down & strangled in a construction site, after going for a jog in their affluent neighborhood. The one piece of evidence against him is a simple Google search, but that's not anywhere near the end of this wild story!!Along the way, we find out that apparently dogs aren't to be allowed near gourds, that Google can be the most helpful, or hurtful thing that exists, and that you never know what goes on behind fancy closed doors!!New episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Redacted Declassified Mysteries is a new podcast hosted by me, Luke Lamanna. Each week I dive into the hidden truths behind the world's most powerful institutions. From covert government experiments to bizarre assassination attempts, follow Redacted on the Wond E app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Carrie, North Carolina, when a respected local woman goes for a morning jog and ends up missing. The question is, did she ever even go jogging or is it all just a big setup to

throw the police off the scent? Welcome to small Town Murder. ["Small Town Murder Theme"] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy, yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us on this another crazy wild edition of Small Town Murder. This is a crazy one.

This has... Let's do it again. Oh boy, we have relatives with all sorts of evidence. Oh man, blogs full of police corruption and it's wild stuff. We'll get into all of it, it's crazy. So it's got a lot of, it'll sound a little familiar as we go through it.

This reminds me of a couple other cases. We'll talk all about that. Before we do though, shutupandgivemurder.com. Go there right now for everything, merch, tickets to live shows. If you're listening to this early, Austin, Texas, you are up next. Few tickets left for everything. Merch, tickets to live shows. If you're listening to this early, Austin, Texas, you are up next. Few tickets left for that.

Phoenix sold out. Then we have New York, Terrytown, and Boston, which are pretty close. So if you want those tickets, get them. You better hurry. I advise get them immediately.

So get in there. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports. That's where you get all the bonus material. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Anybody five dollars a month or above you get hundreds of episodes immediately of back stuff. You've never heard bonus things Immediately in your feed for just the price of a cup of coffee. You can't be the send You get new ones every other week. You get one crime in sports one small-town murder and you get all of it We just hand it to you. There you go this week. We're going to talk about for crime and sports

We're gonna talk about Marge Schott, who was the owner of the Cincinnati Reds and one of the most controversial sports owners in the history of the world. Cheap, nasty, mean, horrible. If Leona Helmsley owned a sports team and dressed in jogging suits, it would be Marge Schott, basically. A horrible woman. Then for small town murder, we're going to talk about something very strange actually you know what we're switching this We were gonna talk about remote viewing and we're gonna move that to the next patreon after this and we're gonna talk about the

Saraboon murder trial because I watched the entire thing the suitcase murder I watched the entire trial and it was fucking insane, so I have to talk about this. I don't know right We're changing it up. We're doing that so there you go That is patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all that and you get a shout out at the end of the show Oh, yeah, well, so Also listen to our other two shows crime in sports, which you don't have to like sports You just have to like us making fun of idiots and then you're in and then your stupid opinions Which is people's opinions and then we get to make fun of that. So it's fantastic. Check those out

That said disclaimer time. This is a comedy show. We're comedians, so jokes are gonna happen and people are gonna die in horrible ways. Now, those things, you go, well, how do you make that work? Very easily. What you do is you don't make fun of the victims

or the victims' families. Why, James? Because we're assholes. Yes, but. But we're not scumbags. See how that works? And it keeps everything nice and tasteful and it's crazy stuff here But I'm telling you this is a wild case and they're all wild cases if you think the true crime and comedy should never ever go together

We might not be for you We may not or we might be and you just don't you know, you don't know exactly what we're doing yet But either way no complaining later. That's what we're saying now That said I think it's time everybody to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs here. Let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? We are going to North Carolina today. Oh yeah, down there in a place I'm actually familiar with because my dad lived here for a while. And this is actually technically where the They're going to North Carolina today. Oh yeah, down there in a place I'm actually familiar with because my dad lived here for a while.

And this is actually technically where the Raleigh improv is as well as in Cary, North Carolina. It's a suburb of Raleigh here, East Central, North Carolina, about 15 minutes outside of Raleigh. About three hours to Cherryville, North Carolina, our last North Carolina episode, way back episode 494, that was gossip and brain bashing. And that was, I remember that episode too, it was crazy. This is in Wake County, like Wake Forest University, because that's all the same thing here. Area

code 919. The motto here, live inspired. Do it. Or live inspired, one of the two. We're all dead, but we're inspired by living. We don't know. Could go either way there. A little bit of history of this town here. In the 1750s, John Bradford moved here and opened up an inn. Back then it was also called an ordinary. Is that what they called those an ordinary or an in yeah So they named the town Bradford's ordinary Wow after the one thing in it apparently know that but most of the land around here remained in the hands of two different men So Bradford didn't own anything. He just owned his in these two guys owned all the other land, both of their names were Nathaniel Jones. Two guys having like a land battle, both named Nathaniel Jones. Yeah. Ridiculous. We gotta go by Nate. Yeah.

In 1775, Jones of White Plains Plantation owned 10,461 acres of land, while Jones of Crabtree owned most of what is now Western Cary. So it's ridiculous. So after the Revolutionary War, the community was on the road between the new capital in Raleigh and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. It's kind of in between those two things here.

A lumberman named Allison, Allison Francis Page, a lumberman named Allison. It's got to be a gal, yeah? No, that's a guy. That's a guy. He's a lumberjack for Christ's sake. Imagine the brawny guy and go, hey Allison, can you help me out with something? He goes by Al, right? I would hope so.

He arrived in 1854 and is credited with founding the town, even though the Joneses fought over it and everything else. He purchased 300 acres for $2,000 and planned all that kind of shit. Do you think that's where Keeping Up With the Joneses came from? I think Jones is just a very common last name. That's a great point. As found by two guys who aren't even related, both having the same name and fighting over the same area. Exact same name. Exact same name.

I think there was not a lot of names back then. Probably. Before we got a ton of immigration, there was probably very few last names. It was probably like China. There's like eight last names. Yeah, a bunch of Smith's, Jones. We all shared them.

That's it. So yeah, Allison Francis Page put up a sawmill in a general store and all that and donated a bunch of acreage for the railroad depot So that then the town was known as page page is siding page is station page is tavern and page is turnout I like pages tavern. I like that sounds good, right? We're gonna stop at that town. I think fuck. Yes, we're so I went on in 1856 He added a post office and became the town's first postmaster.

So this is like a little kid playing pretend town, and he's just putting stuff up, naming shit after himself. And Allison's got three names that are also all girls' names too. Yeah, Francis can go either way. But Allison is usually 99.999% a girl's name, usually. It's not like, there's a lot of names that go either way, that's not one of them usually. Even Paige, that's a gal's name. Yeah, that's his last name here.

So, anyway, Paige named the community Carrie because of his admiration for Samuel Fenton Carrie, who was head of the Sons of Temperance in North America. Ugh. The fuck is that? Don't drink is what that is. Oh no. Christians that go around telling you what to do and not to drink.

So 1960, Carrie's population was about 3,300 by 1970. It had grown to about 7,600. But what they did, and this is what I mean, right now there's way more people here than we usually do for a town. Sure, sure. But this absolutely feels like a small town. Absolutely. And the population has really exploded in the last 25 years.

Yeah, but it keeps its charm away from Charlotte and all that stuff over there. They said to preserve the small town feel, Carey formed the Community Appearance Commission in 1972, which focused on regulating the look of things through ordinances and telling you what you can and can't do. Nice. Yeah. And 74 required developers to set aside one acre of green space for every 35 housing units constructed. That's why it still looks like a small town. Okay. Because there's space. There's green. Yeah. It's not just all crammed with fucking if you want to have a sub-development, you have to also put a park in, which is interesting.

Yeah, for the acreage that you got to do it fast. Couple reviews of this town. Most people like it a lot unless they're just saying it's expensive. Five stars, I'll kind of give you this, I'll give you the kind of overview here. Cary, North Carolina offers a charming, vibrant downtown area that beautifully blends moderate amenities with a welcoming community feel. The new downtown park is a centerpiece with spacious green lawn, serene water features and plenty of seating, making it ideal for relaxation family gatherings and casual meetups.

You know, shit you do at a park. What else would you do at a fucking park? Well, we can give each other handies. That's a casual meetup. Get blowjobs, obviously, from Streetwalkers, but that's a different That's at night. I'm talking during the day. What are we doing here casual meetup? Yeah It's a place where both young and old can feel at home whether it's for a stroll enjoying a festival or simply taking in the surroundings Local breweries add to carries appeal featuring unique craft brewers and warm inviting spaces perfect for a laid-back evening

Right. There you go. So three stars Carrie is an affluent suburb That means the crime rate is low will be the judge of that and there are plenty of restaurants and other amenities However, the people here are generally very pretentious and entitled Assholes, I think the triangle area as a whole is great. But if you're a normal person I would tend to avoid Carrie Yeah, my dad moved there in like 96 when it was definitely not what it is now No, no, no, it was that it was half the population at that would you call it yuppies now now? It's yuppies. Yes now it's yuppies now. It's just gotten very expensive Two stars really could use more good Asian places and I mean good

not just expensive. Not just fancy. There's perfectly awesome middle ground between P.F. Chang's and Buffet's people. Well hold. P.F. Chang's is not Chinese food first of all. Are they setting the top bar at P.F. Chang's? Well they said expensive not good. Great point. Yeah that is too much money for what it is. Exactly and drastically lacking That's expensive. They're setting the top bar at PFJ. Well, they said expensive, not good. Great point. Yeah, that is too much money for what it is. Exactly. And drastically lacking acceptable vegetarian restaurants.

Yeah, you're in North Carolina, and even a vegetarian dish comes with pork with barbecue sauce on it. That vinegary good shit that they put on it down there. Even your salad is a barbecue chicken salad. They didn't even have salad at the restaurant. We went to a nice restaurant. They did not have vegetables there. They were like, oh, I don't know.

We got a lot of meat though. Yeah, they gave me a turnip. So weird. And then finally, one star, Havana Grill music way too loud. It bothers neighbors. So turn it down, Havana Grill. Oh, okay. Yeah, Havana Grill's music is, Grill. Some restaurant plays music loud, the

neighbors don't like it. All right. That's a review of the town. People in this town, right now, this is not when the case happened, by the way, but right now there's 171,000 people there. It has blown up. In 2000, there was 94,000 people there Jesus and 95 there was like 70,000 people there It's just exploded more every year. Well, they have the triangle research center where they opened up That's when they were opening up all that shit Which is all these big companies and tech jobs and stuff and people like the Northeast people move down there like crazy I know when my dad moved down there he got transferred with IBM because they were transferring tons of people down there. It's like a, you know, it was a big deal. So, and there was tons of transplants there too. Everybody there is from somewhere else. It was

like there must have been something with the with the government with low corporate taxes or something. That's how that shit works. Yeah. Plus a boom because property is cheap and taxes are low. There's also four good colleges right there, which is a good place to get talent for that kind of thing. You've got Duke, Wake Forest, NC State. So male, there's a few more females than males, it's about average. Median age is 39, usually about 37 so that makes sense. All the young children and the 35 to 54 age groups are high. So people come here here spit out a bunch of kids and they're 37. Have a middle management job and run it. That's it. You know some tech company 62% married well above the national average. Less

people are single with children here. It is a family environment kind of a deal. Race in this town 64 percent white seven point seven percent black sixteen point eight percent Asian as we said tech jobs a lot of them there point four percent Native American eight point one percent Hispanic religion in this town forty three point four percent which is lower than the national average and the highest one is Baptist of course because Baptists are the Catholics of the South as we know and this place actually you can't go anywhere on Sundays. Everything's closed? No no no everything is packed with church people. Oh I see what you're saying. If you want to go to lunch on a Sunday you're going

at about four o'clock because all the other time it's just well-dressed people just coming from church everybody there goes to church is what I found anyway when I was there. Unemployment rates very low. It's 3% here because there's tons of jobs here. If there's nothing else, there's jobs. Median household income in carry $113,782. Is that right? Well above the $69,000 average there, so not bad at all. Cost of living, $100 is regular, here it's a 105.

Problem is the housing is the high one, very high. Median home cost here, and this is much different from where my dad lived there, $574,400. Median, that is wild. And if we've convinced you, that's fucking insane. If we've convinced you, damn it, the only place for you to lay your head and live inspired is Cary, North Carolina. We have for you the Cary, North Carolina real estate report.

Average two bedroom rental here, a little pricey above the national average by a good amount. $1,630 for a two-bedroom rental. At least $400. Yeah, a little over $400 here. Here's a three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,599-square-foot house, which pretty much describes the house my dad had when he lived there, except I think it was a two-bathroom. And it's a nice little house.

It's fine. little house it's fine this house is kind of cool it's two story and clean and white and nice square feet upstairs and down upstairs and down so that's a small house four hundred sixty five thousand dollars for that no acreage it's not on it's on a regular lot of land yeah you got neighbors yeah my dad is kicking himself for selling his house down there 25 25 years too early, I have a feeling. For nothing, yeah, it was cheap down there, it was one of the reasons why you moved down there back in the day.

Here's a six bedroom, six bath, tee ball for each and every bee hole. 6,028 square feet, so not acres, that'd be a lot. 0.41 acres. It's brick, it's all brick, it has big white columns out front. It's got a cool bendy staircase. Oh yeah. One of those. Nice woodwork. But it kind of, it's weird. The weird part is it looks, it looks like it's made to look old and fancy, but they built it in 2006.

You know what I mean? It's one of those type of houses 1,000,000 595 thousand bucks for that yeah, okay Alrighty then then a five-bedroom six-path t-bowl for all your beeholes and a neighbor It's 9,619 square feet huge massive house 7.96 acres the picture of it. It's on a private lake and the picture from the front It looks like it's floating on the lake. That's what it looks like like the lane the way it's fucking

It's ridiculous that close to the water. It looks like a resort. It just looks like some crazy like Mediterranean resort It's it's silly There's a palm tree right by the indoor pool in North Carolina Not a lot of palm trees grow. It snows there. South Carolina has them. It snows in North Carolina, like a lot. That's crazy.

Seven million five hundred thousand bucks for that. Buckle the fuck up. That is expensive. Uh, things to do in this town. Okay. You have the North Carolina Gourd Festival. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.

Which is hilarious because we had a murder, what, a couple months ago where they were all about gourds. They were gourd people. They were out of their gourd jams. We feel like we know a lot about gourds based on this episode. So for the low admission price of $5, there are lots of fun things to do and see

and buy at the festival. Oh boy there is the village of yesteryear building. Sure. Yeah there's a variety of classes for beginners through advanced in the Gorder category. You want to be an advanced Gorder. Register for classes until the 27th or try your luck as a walk-in student at the festival. You might not get in though, the demand for Gordor classes are off the charts. We also offer a quickcraft make and take for a low fee. Enter some of your Gord creations for judging. Are we carving Gord's now? Is this a pumpkin carving contest? Or just grow it and have them judge it? Don't know, you come to the festival and the wonderful gourd craft creations that have been entered into the competition and vote for your favorite for the People's Choice Award.

Imagine sticking around because you need to cast your vote for your favorite gourd. Imagine waiting around to find out if your neighbor's like your gourd. Then people go, man, I got to find out if the one I picked won. I can't go yet. Vendors from near and far sell dried gourds of all shapes and sizes, crafted gourds and tools and supplies so you can craft gourds yourself, god damn it. Sure. They've left out the god damn it part, but marvel at our display of gourds from around

the world. What? Do I need to see? People are mailing them in? International gourds? I think they're traveling in with them as a carry-on, putting them on their lap like a newborn baby probably. I have two seats. Jesus Christ.

Musical instruments, utensils, dolls, bowls, and much more. Okay. All right. Our photo booth has a variety of gourd masks, gourd hats, and other gourd accessories that you can model. You'll look gorgeous. Yeah, you willourd accessories that you can model. You'll look gorgeous. That's what it says. You'll look gorgeous. Then there's also the carry dog days. Get ready to unleash the fun and celebrate our furry friends at the most exciting

event of the year. Carry dog days. Join us for a day filled with tail wagon excitement, possum activities. So gorgeous and possum so far. Apparently the only way to get people to go to a festival in North Carolina is have a lot of bad puns. Yeah. Holy shit. So you're possum and unforgettable memories. The town of Cary is happy to announce the annual dog days and pet expo.

Jesus, look at my pet. Will be held at the Cary Police Department from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. So you can all feel real comfortable. Love that, yeah. Showing up stoned, going out trying to hit your vape pen. Not gonna work. Our very own Cary Animal Services team

is hosting this event and excited to grow the Cary Dog Days and Pet Expo into an annual extravaganza. Wow, you can see agility courses, watch amazing canine athletes tackle obstacles with finesse and skill. A pet vendor village where they sell pet products. Food trucks, of course. Doggy demonstrations where you learn new tricks

and training tips. And how they do it. Don't miss out on this bark-tastic event. Okay that's... Bark-tastic? Is that even a thing? Possum and gorgeous. You just had to add a couple extra letters.

That's fine. This is outside of the realm of okay. Ridiculous. Bark-tastic. You took it too far. I'm sorry. Whether you have a furry friend of your own or simply love animals, who goes there to look at other people's dogs?

I like dogs and everything, but wouldn't you bring your own dog? Carrie dog days promises fun laughter and lots of wagging tails sure we welcome you and your well-behaved Pets to join us don't bring that piece of shit around here I'll bring the one that barks at everybody for a paw some time. And they're going to go back with that. Mark your calendars. OK. He's just bark-tastic. That's why he's so loud. He's a gorgeous little guy.

That's all it is. He's paw-some. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here. And it is low. Property crime is about one third below the national average. Nice. And violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about one third of the national average. Nice. And violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is about one third of the national average. So two thirds below

the national average. So very, very safe area. Incredibly safe. Really. It's just, it's just suburbs and houses and strip malls. I mean, that's really what it is, honestly. That's how you make it safe. That's it. Um, that said, let's talk about some murder here. Here we go. Let's do this. Okay. First guy we got to talk about and we'll get all the laughing out of the way here. Okay. Bradley Cooper. Is that right? Oh yes. Bradley Cooper. Where do you guys hear the express this week too? We have more people with names that they shouldn't have. It's fucking crazy. As soon as he got successful, should have changed this right? Jesus, Bradley Graham

Cooper. This guy is. I don't know what the real guy's middle name is. No, no, but Bradley Cooper is his name though. If you told me Bradley Cooper's middle name was Graham I'd go, that looks about right. He looks like a Graham. Sounds about right. This Brad Cooper's born in 1973. And now he is gonna end up meeting a woman later on, and we'll talk about how they meet and everything, but they seem to be somehow meant to run into each other and meant to be together here. Nancy Lynn Rentz, R-E-N-T-Z, so Pay Your Rentz.

She's also born in 73. They didn't even grow up in the same place. They were born, they're both born in Alberta, Canada, but not in the same place. They're both Canadian. Did they meet in America? No, they met in Edmonton. They met in Canada in Calgary, I believe. She grew up in Edmonton and he grew up in Medicine Hat. Medicine Hat.

Medicine Hat, which is the name of a town, and they even have Medicine Hat College, which is hilarious. I don't know what that sounds like you're learning there, but not anything that you would need to make a living. That's gotta be something with Native Americans, right? Has to be, has to be. I would hope so. If white people name that shit Medicine Hat,

I wanna kick them right in the balls. This is ridiculous So yeah, there's there's seven weeks apart in age these two and now Brad grew up in a middle-class family in medicine hat one of two boys in the family here his dad his parents are Terry and Carol Cooper and Terry was a college chemistry teacher who went on to be vice president of Medicine Hat College. I wear the second biggest hat here. Yeah. Can't get that big hat yet but someday. Wait till they retire. Oh man he also sat on numerous like community boards of things. His dad's involved in a lot of stuff in the community and his mom is a lot of stuff in the community.

And his mom is a homemaker, raised the boys, and big into gardening, which Bradley was into as well. Brad would hang out with his mom and garden a lot. So that's what he was doing. Gardening's wonderful. Yeah, wouldn't like that. Oh, it's such a great stress reliever, Len. Relaxing, relaxing, until the shit doesn't grow and die

and then you're angry, yelling at dirt. It's just all anxiety going, why won't you grow? What the fuck? We grew. I gave you everything. Oh, we had tomatoes, man. These beautiful, growing San Marzano tomatoes. And, you know, all harvested them all.

I cut into one. I was just gonna slice it open and make some slices, a little bit of salt on it, you know, like my grandmother used to do, and do all that. Cut it open, fucking hollow. Nothing happened inside. Nothing, they were dry and hollow.

What happened? They didn't work. You grew Griswold tomatoes. Dude, they didn't, I swear to God, steam came out when I stuck the knife in. They didn't work. I'm like, these tomatoes are broken, I told Sarah the next morning.

She's like, what do you mean? There's the heart. I had like a, I started cutting them all open, they're all hollow. Fuck! We got hollow maters, how do we do this? And the meat part was just dry, it was really bad. I don't know what the hell happened, but didn't work.

We found out that we think that they got too much water. Is that right? They're just liquefying inside to dry out? I don't know, that's what we were told, so who knows, who knows here. Is that right? They're just liquefying inside? They're rained a lot. I don't know. That's what we were told. So who knows? Who knows here? Now Brad says that his childhood and teen years were uneventful.

No problems in the family. Parents get along. A psychologist later noted that Brad gave the impression of quote, some detachment with little emotional warmth when he spoke of his family. Like a serial killer. Well, also like a tech nerd. That's the other thing. Brad is a smart guy and he's into tech shit.

Doesn't give a shit about the family. Well, like his dad's a chemistry professor. I bet this runs in the family. Like a lot of times people who are very, you know, just maybe on the spectrum too a little bit, that sort of thing with the technical shit, they kind of tend to, emotional warmth isn't their number one strength, you know what I mean? I can see it, yeah.

That's the best way I can put it here. But he's athletic, Brad. He's very smart, very high above average IQ. And also everybody says when he wants to achieve something, he does it, period. He's that guy. So not a lot of time for emotional warmth there for Brad. His family is very much into education because his dad's a professor for Christ

and the vice president's second biggest hat at the whole college. So obviously, so he attended Medicine Hat College. Wonder how he got in, that must've been hard. A little bit of nepotism, you think? Maybe. After a year, he enrolled in the University of Calgary to pursue a degree in computer science, graduated in 96, and then by 97, everything he learned was completely irrelevant.

So you know, I'm sure that's a joke. By then, he has outgrown and made your fucking whole degree obsolete. Every year, the whole thing would flip on its head and change back then. So it was like, oh, that's all useless now. Now we're doing this. Oh, fuck. Okay. That was bad.

Congratulations on your MS DOS degree. Yeah, that's great. You started up Oregon Trail very nicely on that Apple II. That's a great job. D colon. Yeah. on that Apple II, that's a great job. D colon. Yeah, DOS fucking run slash whatever the shit crap they do, I didn't know.

So now Nancy Rentz, the young lady he'll end up with here, she was one of a nice set of identical twins. Why have we come up with so many twins lately on the show? In the last year, so many twins involved in this. Bad things touch twins' lives consistently. They either murder or are murdered quite a bit apparently and I don't understand how. It's just a part of their life. It's so weird.

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investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. Congratulations on your twins. It's going to go bad.

Ever someone's going to die motherfucker. Hopefully it won't be you two killing someone else, which is also a possibility. Or them killing you both. Yeah. So Nancy and her identical twin sister, Krista, she described them as like soulmates. Well yeah, they're identical twins. You are. You have the same DNA for Christ's sake.

Yeah. DNA share. You have the same fingerprints for fuck's sake. You're the same person. I just learned that they have separate fingerprints. Oh, they have separate, they have the same DNA though. Separate fingerprints, same DNA. Right.

So wear gloves and spill your blood everywhere. That's it. Frame your brother. Frame your brother, it's happened. We've had that before too. So now the dad is a, also her dad, Gary, is a well-respected social worker who ran his own business administering educational

and social programs for the Canadian government. Oh. So he is, they're both come from educationally strong backgrounds here. Nancy's brother Jeff was an Edmonton police officer. She had a good relationship with her whole family, twin sister, dad, brother, mother and her other sister Jill as well. Nancy is very athletic and very outgoing. She is all energy. She's a ball of energy. She's a very skilled ringette player. What is that? I had to look that up and I will give you the definition from Wikipedia. Ringette is a non-contact winter team sport played on an ice rink using ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag tips, a blue rubber pneumatic ring designed for use on ice surfaces.

While the sport was originally created exclusively for female competitors, it's expanded to now include participants of all genders. Although ringette looks like ice hockey, it is played on ice hockey rinks. The sport has its own lines and markings and its offensive and defenses bear a closer resemblance to lacrosse or basketball. It's like not, it's non-contact hockey is what it is essentially. Chick hockey is what they want, what they designed for, but it turned into something else. Non-contact hockey. Yeah. That was, that's what they designed it for is, you know, oh, the girls can't get checked into the boards.

And then they saw some of these big Canadian farm girls and they're like, I don't know, maybe they can. Take her teeth, who cares? She goes about 230 with a flannel shirt on and she's chewing fucking Redman. I'm gonna go ahead and say, give her some skates. You know what I mean? She looks like a-

She's coming for your whole bottom row, let her have it. She just drank a half a bottle of whiskey, I think she's okay to play. So she was into this type of shit. And she, when she's a kid, she has big, giant, thick glasses. Oh yeah. But grows out of those by like high school. And she's an athlete and she's attractive and she's everybody likes her and she's personality. She's described as the kind of woman who what Jimmy? Lit up a room.

Lit up a room. They always do. They always do. Yeah, so she played all of this. Now her ringette basically, at one point she hoped to play different ice sports at the Olympic level. Now ringette isn't an Olympic sport,

but she was trying to transfer into other things. She wanted to be an Olympic athlete. That was her goal. But her team had a match up against Russia and she had a knee injury and then that was pretty much it for the Olympic dreams. So she liked, she made jewelry also. She liked art and fashion. When she's in Canada, she'll be working at IBM and also running her own clothing store in the evenings. Wow. So very ambitious she is. She's got a lot of irons in the fire, a lot of energy. Her friend said she's hilarious. She makes everyone smile. No one is ever sad around Nancy. Right. Now, Nancy had been involved seriously, like talking about getting engaged and stuff in

the 90s here with a prominent Calgary businessman. Who can resist a Calgary businessman? I got cash. Can't resist that. When she met Brad and she lost interest in her prominent Calgary businessman and was all about Brad after that. Yeah. Spree's milk piss on her and she lost interest in her prominent Calgary businessman and was all about Brad after that, yeah. Spits milk piss on her and she's his. The other thing is Brad, she likes real outgoing guys,

like that sort of thing. Brad is quiet and reserved, so not her normal type. The only thing I can think is we know he's very tall. He's a pretty tall guy, maybe that's what it is. Maybe she just likes tall guys. I'm not sure. So she wanted to have, she wanted to have a family and a steady family life and have kids and all that. And she thought that Brad was the stable kind of cat that could put that all together with

her. She thought he was a good person to, you know, to start a small business with basically at that point. So she wanted to do all of that and she told her sister that Brad felt safer than these other guys she was going out with. They felt like they could fly off at any time. He's fun, sure, but he's- Yeah, Calgary businessman.

Yeah, he could be going, banging a Tim Horton's waitress tomorrow or something from a business trip or you don don't know but Brad feels safe so Nancy's family said they found the relationship odd because you know he just wasn't her normal type but he was a nice guy and fine and you know has a good job and college educated so it's just it's just not the guy they expected Nancy to pick basically so her mom said choose the one you love I guess. That's there yeah I mean sure. It's not your fucking business who she goes out with. Yeah that's that's the deal here. So they're gonna meet in about 98 here it

looks like. They're gonna meet and it's basically a they meet working for IBM in Calgary. They were both 26 years old. They're both in the tech industry. You know, why not? So now her sister Jill, while they're living together, her sister Jill would become close to them. She was a teenager at the time. Jill was younger and she would stay with them

at their apartment nearly every weekend in Calgary. She'd like go to hang out with her big sister, which must have been awesome for her. I mean, that's where you want to hang out. Early 2000, Bradley Cooper gets an offer to transfer with Cisco Systems, the company, to its research triangle park office, which is in Raleigh. Yeah. Yeah.

So Brad buys a big old diamond ring for Nancy. Yeah, and they plan a big wedding But that Brad he then he gets this job working for Cisco So they said well fuck nevermind scrap the big wedding Let's just get married right now So you can move with me to North Carolina because otherwise she can't come because she doesn't she has to have to work on all the Visa issues and all that kind of thing So but if she's his wife then she can come because she's attached to his work visa Yeah, so they had a small ceremony at a restaurant in Calgary on a Friday night in October of 2000

She wore a white sundress not a big giant wedding gown or anything. They kept it simple only Nancy's family Brad's brother and a couple of friends were there. That's it. Very small, very small deal. So he got a work visa and Nancy's visa allows her to live in the United States but not hold a job. Oh, she's not allowed to have a job. She's not allowed to have a job. That's part of it. Now she can apply for a work visa while she's here and do all that, but initially when she gets here. No job. for a work visa while she's here and do all that but initially when she gets here no job she's not does not that's not part of her visa is working so they

marry they move to Carrie and Carrie a little bit about Carrie here this is when it really really boomed like in 1990 there was like 15,000 people in Carrie and then there's 90,000 by 2000 and 175,000 by now. So it's, it's crazy. Yeah. It really blew up. So they moved there right in the cusp of when things were really getting big. Good for them. Yeah. So yeah, not bad at all. National Geographic called it a futuristic pleasantville. They said a town of young, affluent and educated streets lined with sprawling houses, SUVs and sports cars glinting in broad driveways.

Nat Geo's writing about your town. Writing about your town here, which is wild. In 2001, more than 80% of the population of Cary worked white collar jobs. 80%. 80%. That's wild. 90% of the households, almost, were comprised of married couples with children in 2001. That's a lot. That's off the charts and ridiculous. So January 2001, they settle into a 2800 square

foot home in the Lockmere subdivision in Cary, which is a very nice affluent area. He's making over 100 grand a year back then, which is crushing it back then. I mean, that's doing great. She liked it when she got there. I mean, Nancy was into it. She spent hours doing jogging paths all around the neighborhoods and stuff. There's good places to jog. So she couldn't play her ringette anymore, but she can run. She completed several marathons over the years and all that kind of thing here. She would recruit friends to run with her. Come run with me, which is the invitation I'll never take from anyone. Come run with me.

No, no, no. Where are we going? Who are we running from? Why? Unless I'm running for from or towards something, I'm not running or like, you know, to score a goal of some kind in a touchdown or a fucking basket or something. If something behind us is not on fire or there's red and blue lights, I'm not running. Or I have a ball in my hand or chasing someone else with a ball. Those are the only circumstances where running is coming in for me. I'm done. There's been a lot of walking around my neighborhood lately, but I haven't been any running. And

I have to do the walking because I feel like I'm going to die. Love walking around the woods. I'm not running around them though. That's insane. So she would just all sorts of jogging here. Nancy and her friend Jessica Adam, who will come up a lot in this story, were training for a late summer half marathon in Virginia. They're gonna do a havesy, huh? Shit. This is how much energy she has. She's making me tired here, Nancy.

She would strap on fucking roller blades and a backpack to go to the grocery store. Just. And she's gonna bring home the groceries and the backpack? Just getting a few things, no worries. Yeah, but what do you do with those blades when you get to the store? You carry those or you just go around the store?

Yeah, otherwise you'd have to bring shoes with you. Yeah, or walk barefoot, right? Or in socks at least. I think if you're like a rich lady and around here they go, oh, isn't that quirky? You know what I mean? If you were a teenager they'd kick you out of the store, but if it looks like you own a home they go, she's quirky. Look at her squeezing the avocados. That's fun. That's so fun Nancy also and this is her and Brad both as we'll talk about but Nancy has a bit of a wandering eye from time to time

Oh Yes, like some very big controversies here I guess Apparently according to her sister Krista, her twin, she had met a man in Florida while visiting a friend of hers down there during the first year of her marriage. And that man later came to her sister Krista's wedding in Canada in August 2001. And Nancy hooked up with him up there. So much so that she didn't want to return to North Carolina, her sister said. See?

She was planning on leaving Brad after 10 months of being married and hooking up with Florida man here. Okay. So obviously the marriage isn't perfect. From the outside it looks fine, but clearly everybody's not super happy if you can be pulled away that easy. So by Christmas of 2002, things are not going well still for them. It's a little bit tough. Now she's unable to work legally in the United States without a visa, and she's bored, number

one. And this is, you know, there's not, like streaming services. She can't catch up on her show all day long or anything you know what I mean yeah can't just watch law and crime and watch it full trials all the time on YouTube over here so it's a little boring here and she returned to Edmonton for Christmas in 2002 and told her family she didn't want to go back not going back to Canada the next year she told her family she wanted to want to go back. Not going back to Canada. The next year.

Back to Kerry. She told her family she wanted to go back to Kerry. Yeah. But her sister Jill said, you decided to marry him. This is your husband. You should make it work. You can't just run away every time you feel him slightly whatever. Have you talked to him basically?

And so, and this is her younger sister too, who's much younger than her. A little more reckless. Didn't you get married? Yeah. Like this isn't. Didn't you get married? Like this isn't your boyfriend. You got married I thought. You guys own a home together for Christ's sake. So Brad had to come to Edmonton

and convince Nancy to come back with him. What? He had to go from North Carolina to fucking Edmonton, which is in Western Canada by the way, and very far from North Carolina. That's a trip. He's gotta take time off of work to go talk his wife into coming back.

Coming back with her, with him. So things start to get better when they come back, because in 2003 and everything, Nancy starts to, she gets a car first of all, which helps a lot, because then she's, you know, doesn't have to be within roller blade range of everywhere to get there. So she starts to make friends a little bit, and has a car, and then she's, you know, doesn't have to be within a roller blade range of everywhere to get there. So she starts to make friends a little bit and has a car

and then she starts to make some money working as a nanny for some of her friends. So she'll watch a few kids and make a few bucks. Under the table cash, yeah, the immigration services don't need to know about that. She's got a car, she's starting to feel like a person here now. Absolutely. Not having a car, just sitting in a fucking house somewhere with no car,

no way to go anywhere. In a foreign country. In a foreign country, mind you. Your family is thousands of miles away, all your friends, everything you know. Even you can't even get the things you, there's no poutine in North Carolina. None. None. You're not getting that shit. I don't know if they have that in Western Canada. None. None. You're not getting that shit. I don't know if they have that in Western Canada either. There's not even a Leafs game on or whatever the fuck. Nothing. Calgary Flames.

Edmonton Oilers. No one's. No. Can't watch it. Can't watch it. Nothing is the same. You're like, what is this? The Carolina Hurricanes?

Is this even a real hockey team? Come on, man. They just showed the outside view and there is trees and green. There's trees and green. There's not a fucking drop of snow on the ground. This is crazy. So February 2004 they have a daughter. Yeah. The couple here. Nancy gives birth to a daughter named Bella in 2004, which is a very common name in 2004. Sure is. That was like one of the very common name in 2004. Sure is. That was like one of the most common names in 2004.

I think it was the most. Yeah, so much so. The Twilight Lady was like, obviously I'm naming this girl Bella. So in 2006 they have another daughter. This is Katie now that's born. So they got Bella and Katie here 2004 2006. Now December 2007 comes around and Brad he's got an admission that he makes to his wife here. He had an affair and he tells her about it. Not only did he have an affair. Yeah. He had an affair with more than

one woman first of all. Not at the same time, but he wasn't having foursomes or anything, but. Didn't run off to Dubai or something for a couple of nights. No harems or anything like that, but he is banging several different women at the same time, including a close friend of hers. Of course.

Of the family, of both of them, that they hang out with. He's friends with the husband, she's friends with her, they're both friends together. Nancy wanted to leave at first, but with the husband. She's friends with her. They're all friends together Nancy wanted to leave at first, but she didn't she decided that she couldn't she went to a lawyer and a lawyer told her If she left the house, she could lose everything possibly even custody of her daughter Yeah, she doesn't get half of anything because she doesn't even belong here She just runs it Yeah

so the lawyer told her to stick around and you know do everything by the proper channels if you're gonna do anything or work it out do Whatever you want to do, but if you want to leave you got to do it with proper channels if you're gonna do anything, or work it out, do whatever you wanna do, but if you wanna leave, you gotta do it with paperwork or else you're fucked here. So I guess the couple that he ends up, the wife that he ends up having sex with here, they had all met at the Triangle Academy Preschool for overachieving toddlers basically. These are rich, highly educated people Okay. For overachieving toddlers, basically.

These are rich, highly educated people that think the kids need a real comprehensive education by two and a half or else they're falling behind. A triangle. I mean, I realize that's what the area is called. Yeah. It sounds- This is like a love hexagon. This is so busy.

It's a lot man. So now that's when they or they also met the Jessica Adam lady there that Nancy is friends with and they both showed up the day before preschool was set to start and they were talking about it. They said they bonded very quickly became very close. That's what her husband Jessica's husband Brent or Brett said so even the kids loved her too they said she'd lead gaggles of kids through the neighborhood on a hunt for frogs shit like come on kids yeah like she's a fine frogs she's got energy and it needs to come out somewhere so she seemed to love motherhood everybody said sounds. Sounds like it. But she couldn't wait to, because the kids were like, you know, toddlers at this point. She was waiting for them to get off to regular school so she could maybe

get back to work, is what she was talking about. Try to, you know, start doing something here. In Canada, she'd run a clothing boutique and also worked for IBM. And now she's taking kids to look for frogs. She's a little bored. She's a smart lady. Entirely different day. Totally. So she spent her days hanging out with the kids

and they said she always made everything look glamorous no matter what. So even if she had a baseball cap on, she looked glamorous in it. Her friends said everything just came naturally to her. She made it look easy. Now by February, 2008, things are really coming to a head between Brad and Nancy here. Brad cancels Nancy's access to bank and credit card accounts. Not allowed to have money.

Not allowed to have money. And he would dole out an allowance every Friday he'd give her. Oh, Christ. And unbeknownst to her, he would monitor her email correspondence with lawyers and friends and all this type of shit. This started in April of 2008. He's the one that cheated? Yes.

Well, she cheated too. They both cheated. Yeah, but he's doing lots of it? Yeah, she's also doing lots of it, as we'll talk about later. They're both cheating like crazy. There's no bad guy in the cheating aspect. They're both, neither of them are faithful at all. That's number one. I'm just saying he's cheating like crazy and he's monitoring shit and allowancing.

You're going to hear something later where you're going to go, Jesus Christ, he should have started that shit three years ago. Okay. Because yeah, it's, it's a, it's a doozy. It's a doozy. Uh, but this is not, you you can't be you can't fucking spy on people. That's crazy if you're spying on someone. It's over already It's already done. It's been done for so long if you're reading any Correspondence they're having it's done. You just you're just looking for a reason for it to end just end it something and also like this allowance business This is this is our this is bizarre, weird Ricky Ricardo shit here. You know what I mean? Control shit, yeah.

So, 2008, she decides that she doesn't want to reconcile things with Brad. Nancy doesn't. She's tired of this shit. They agree to pursue a separation. They talk about it and they agree, okay, we'll get a separation. So she hires a lawyer to draft a custody agreement to get this ball rolling. This is Alice Stubbs.

She's a Raleigh lawyer. And she outlined a proposed separation agreement. And Brad Cooper seized this agreement in 2008. The proposal described by this lawyer, Stubbs, was the proposal was described as aggressive and a first draft that she expected to change would have required Brad because it's just the first draft. This is your first negotiating jumping off point.

Yeah, here's what I would love. But if you want to obviously, I'm not going to get this right. If I want a grand amount of perfect world, if I want a grand amount, I'm asking for 1500 is what this works like. And hopefully we'll settle on a grand. You know what I mean? That's what I feel like it. So Brad was required to pay $2,100 a month in child support.

In what year? In that year, 2008. Wow. Which is a lot. That's steep. He'd also be responsible for paying all costs for the Cooper girls to get a private education from kindergarten through high school, private school. Yeah, that is the bummer of putting them in private right out of the gate.

And include Nancy Cooper as the beneficiary on his life insurance as long as she was alive. So not only that, now she's also going to get his life insurance. That's what this is part of. Nancy, according to Stubbs, the lawyer was upset about an extra marital affair that her husband confessed in 2008 because it's with one of her friends. That's why she was really mad. Yeah, that's the one she's mad at. That's the one you're going to be mad at.

Yeah. Fuck the other ones. I don't care. This one's the one that sucks. No, the Hooters waitress fine. Whatever. Yeah. My friend who comes over and has dinner parties with us.

Now that's a problem. That's stabbing me right in the chest not even in the back That's stabbing me straight up She also complained to the lawyer that the that Brad had not been involved with their family life or really helped at all with their children for years Doesn't do anything with the kids. That's what she's saying. I mean that's part of the You know, that's everything she's saying. I mean, that's part of the, you know, that's everything. Brad would get to see in this draft the girls two weeks each summer, although they could not be consecutive.

It's all summary to get them for one and one. I'm sorry, if I'm paying for the private education all the time, I'm seeing the girls whenever I goddamn well please. You know how expensive that is? If I'm footing not just that bill, but every other bill in their life, I can see them when I want. That's the thing. And unless, and this is what I don't understand, when people go through a divorce they're trying to hurt the other person.

And this is totally normal. Men do this, women do this, everybody does this. This isn't specific to anybody. But to, unless the guy, unless the guy, the woman, anybody is abusive to the children or they're danger to the children or something like that, there should be no reason to not let the other parents see the children whenever you want. It's really frustrating when people do that and fight back and forth via the kids because

they're just doing it. They're dangling them from a string like they're bait and it's not cool. They think they're hurting the other person but they're just hurting children and it's not cool. And they think they're hurting the other person, but they're just hurting children. And that's fucking crazy. But that's also, in a divorce, people don't see straight. It's amazing. They don't see straight, man. A lot of people, because everybody does this.

So blurry. He would pay for their travel costs to and from Canada as well, because she's gonna move to Canada with them. So now he's gotta pay to ship them back and forth. He's gonna move to Canada with them, so now he's gotta pay to ship them back and forth. Brad's Cooper's salary in 2007 was 135,000 bucks a year. Paying fucking $2800 a year, three grand a year,

in child support, 30 grand. Yeah, his salary is 135 grand, so that's a good chunk. And then the travel costs and everything like that. And also the lawyer said that Nancy had to borrow money from her sister and parents to pay for the separation agreement to be put together. It was 7,500 bucks for this lady to do this. So the lawyer said that Nancy hoped

the split would be amicable, but she realized that wouldn't be the case after Brad said this separation proposal ain't gonna fucking work. We're not doing this shit So also under that draft Nancy would have gotten all the proceeds from the sale of the house after the mortgage sales Expenses and other debts accrued had been paid This is what happens when you fuck your wife's best friend. You can't fuck your wife's friends This is you're good. They're gonna get a little bit bitter at you and come for everything. Her attorney also proposed that Nancy would get whatever was left in her husband's 401K plan after a loan taken out on the fund had been satisfied.

Brad Cooper would have, Brad would have gotten his stock options from work though, but she gets the 401K and she gets to be on his life insurance and all that. After this though, everybody said family neighbors said the tension escalated in the Cooper family because they're still living in the same house. But with this document over them, they said Nancy complained to her friends that Brad had become mentally abusive and cruel and made demeaning comments to her in front of the children as well. So the lawyer said it was not going to be amicable after that. She was willing to do whatever was necessary to get an agreement so she could get out of

this bad marriage and go to Canada. Now she had this, wow, this is fucking crazy. She scheduled the sad, what she called the saddest party ever. Oh? She had talked to a lawyer, and even scheduled on April 19th a get together with friends dubbed

the saddest going away party ever, she called it. But before the get together though, a few days before, Nancy hired a lawyer, another lawyer, and that's when the separate or that subs lady, that's when the separation agreement ended up happening. He objects to the separation plans and now the party wasn't a goodbye anymore. Because he wasn't, he's not signing it now. Yeah, no, of course not. He said no. So her friend said now Nancy wasn't free to leave anymore because unless they

came to an agreement. Right. Yeah. So spring of 2008, the adventures of Brad here, all right. He has a blog called the adventures of Brad. What a douche. Chronicling his quote accomplishments. These are all the things I can do.

He had a section his quote, accomplishments. These are all the things I can do. He had a section. Long form resume. He had a section entitled goals completed. Oh Christ. Shit to brag about is what he should have called it for public consumption. Let me put this out on the internet. This is what diaries are for. This is what journals are for.

Write it and stuff it under a pillow. This is what your fucking memory is for. In the spring of 2008, this included multiple Ironman competitions, which that's what he was obsessed with, training for Ironman competitions all the time. His master's degree and a technical work certification. He was 34 years old, strong and training for a triathlon at Lake Placid that was upcoming. Now back to inside the house and the problems here. Nancy and Brad are sleeping in separate bedrooms.

Obviously. So Nancy wants to move to Canada and Brad obviously has changed her mind. Now apparently to make sure she doesn't leave, he has taken the girl's passports from her. From the glove compartment of her car. And now he says, well I have as much right to hold their passports as she does, we're both their parents, but she says, you know why you're holding that, so I can't go. So, you know, it's all a big pissing contest at this point. Unbelievable.

It's a control move, obviously. Not wonderful, not a great fucking sign of good character there. Nancy's family said they understood that things were going bad. They knew that Brad had taken one of their daughter's passports and was listening to her phone calls,

listening to Nancy's phone calls as well. Still, they said they always liked Brad. He's always been a nice, steady guy as far as they're concerned. He's a provider and you know what I mean? They have a house and he doesn't beat her up or anything like that. So by traditional standards, you know what I mean? Like my grandmother, Italian grandma would say, what the hell do you want? She would yell at Nancy. My, you have a nice house. My, you buy things you want.

My, why you complain? And then she said this, as I've heard her say this, my, what man doesn't cheat, she'd say. Who cares? That's what she'd say. What the hell do you care? Who cares? Whose house is it in the end?

Your house. What do you care what he does outside? Huh? That was like an old school mentality though. It was crazy. So who knows? She's out of her mind, man. So yeah, this is all going.

And so they said basically, Brad's always been good. They just kind of figured this behavior was what happens in the tension of a divorce. Like neither party seems to be acting in their, you know, their best basically. Yeah. Their interests are certainly skewed both sides of the equation. Yeah. And the dad asked her, are you afraid for your life? Is it that? Are you afraid for your physical safety? And she said, no, not at all. And he was like, okay, well then, you know, this is, this is what happens in life yeah it's gonna take a while it's gonna be unpleasant and that's divorce gonna sell it's a lot of he said she said here

now Brad if you ask Brad he'll say Nancy's a shopaholic who spent all their money with an obsession for fashion art and. That's what he says. It was 1983. Power suits and perms were all the rage. Nightclubs pulsed with energy. And from bedrooms to boardrooms, cocaine was the drug of choice. One woman was raking in cash to keep that supply chain moving.

Her name was Laney Jacobs. But Laney had her sights set higher. She dreamed of becoming a Hollywood movie producer. That's how it starts. Before it ends, someone will be shot dead. From Wondery and the team behind the hit series Hollywood and Crime comes a gripping tale of ambition, betrayal, and the dark side of moviemaking. Follow Hollywood and Crime comes a gripping tale of ambition, betrayal, and the dark side of moviemaking. Follow Hollywood and Crime, the Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen everywhere on December 2nd, or you can binge all episodes early and ad free on Wondery Plus starting November 11th. From the award-winning masters of audio horror. I see a face right up against the window. Bleach white, no hair, black eyes, a round hole for a mouth. It's flat, Taylor, it's completely flat.

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Lizzie, it's okay. I'm here now. Josh, get in your car! Oh! Oh! Oh! In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling

documents containing names, photos, addresses and specific instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. And it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C Truecrime shows like Morbid early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondry app for all your Truecrime listening. He said that he and his wife were buried in debt. Their credit card bills were over $45,000, he said, and he blamed that on her love, Nancy's love of quote $8,000 paintings, designer clothing, Tiffany jewelry.

$8,000 paintings. $8,000 paintings. Who the fuck? Not me is the answer to that question. I'll go to a museum. If you're an art person I guess but I don't know shit about art so I am not spending $8,000 on a fucking painting. I like art.

It's great. I don't know enough about it. You could show me something that's 30 bucks and I wouldn't know the difference is the point I'm making. So I don't need to spend 8 grand on shit. I go that looks really nice. You got any Bob Rosses? Those were really cool.

I want like some snow and some mountains and a cabin if that's possible. I bet a Bob Ross is eight grand now. Maybe, but he painted thousands of those fucking things. So many. Because there was like 400 episodes. We've been watching it lately. There's like 400, as you know, we were watching it.

We were watching it together. There's like 400, as you know, we were watching it. We were watching it together. There's like 400 episodes and he would paint every painting three times for each episode. Is that right? He'd paint one beforehand just to get what he was going to paint. Idea of what to do. And then he'd know what he was going to paint. So then he'd paint on the show and then he'd paint another one afterwards as like a give away to somebody or something or whatever the fuck. So there's a lot of Bob Ross is floating around out there but they got

to be worth something I would hope you know the man's dead and when they die is when they go up in price right but there can't be normally like you know there's not fucking 20,000 Picasso pieces floating around out there that's why they're expensive yeah he didn't do He didn't do three every week on PBS. The artwork is for sale and they're looking at 65 grand. 65 for Bob Ross? Get the, for a, for a Bob Ross, is that right? You can blame Target for that, for selling his t-shirt and making kids know who the fuck he was,

because 10 years ago you probably could've got it for nothing. So that's his story anyway, is the jewelry and the paintings, $8,000 paintings. It's nuts. Buying Bob Ross originals and shit as we've... Forty-five grand. Jesus. Her friends though say that Brad was a neglectful husband who trapped and basically starved

her out of everything. Affection, money, attention, all that kind of shit. Her friends say that Brad had several extramarital affairs, including one who actually, because this was the friend of theirs, she called Nancy to fucking blow up the spot on it. Oh no. Yeah, he didn't tell her, she did. Her name is Heather Meitor, M-E-T-O-R-O-U-R. Meitor. That's the mistress there. And he admitted this during a counseling session that he had an affair. This was after she had called her to tell her. So it wasn't like it was a surprise.

Yeah, sure. He knew. But they were in counseling and he admitted. He acknowledged that he had sex with Heather Mitor. They were all friends, like I said. This happened in the master bedroom closet of Brad and Nancy's house. What? Yes. While his older daughter and Mitor's children were in the house playing. They snuck up to a closet to fuck, which is about as trashy as it gets. That's pretty gross. That's trashy. He also admitted kissing Heather on several occasions in the car and acknowledged having oral sex with her on another occasion in his home.

Okay. Yeah. So, wow. Nancy talked constantly after that. That's all she would talk about with her friends and everything is can you believe he fucked Heather basically? I can't, I have to get out of here so many times. She's, he's going down on her in her house for Christ's sake. This is insane. He's making it loving and shit.

So he said she just wants to move to Canada with the daughters and Brad said that Nancy though, she also strayed. He said quote, Nancy insisted that she did nothing wrong, that her relationship with the other man only happened once. It wasn't sexual and that nobody knew his name. That was she said. I just banged some guy, but it's fine.

It's not sexual. Don't worry about who it was. We'll find out. We know who it is. And we'll find out all about it. Oh, we do? Oh, we know who it is and we know that there might be, there's an issue too.

Oh boy. Now she also found out that Brad never applied for her work visa. The whole time she wants a work visa and he said he applied for it and it's just not going through, he never applied for it, intentionally making her unable to do anything. So in the year before her death, he would financially control her a lot, to the point where she was selling her clothes and selling clothes online and painting friends' houses just so she could buy groceries,

because Brad's allowance wasn't covering shit. This is now, it's not even just her, like you no more jewelry and paintings for you. You can't buy groceries for the house, it's not even just her, like you no more jewelry and paintings for you. You can't buy groceries for the house, it's crazy. And you turned her into a handyman. Yeah, that's yeah, she's got to go around fucking changing people's light fucking bulbs and switching out ceiling fans to make a living. Nuts.

So Brad would fill her car up with a limited amount of gas to ensure she couldn't get farther away than he wanted her to be basically. What? Yeah, that's a different level of control. Truly, give her a quarter tank. Wow, and hacking her emails too, obviously, and we knew about that. I guess, by the way, an ex-girlfriend of Brad's at this point, because the divorce stuff was going on, an ex-girlfriend of Brad's from Calgary came forward and filed an affidavit

Describing him as emotionally abusive and mentally cruel. This is to support Nancy The affidavit read I have never before and have never again been in a relationship with someone who treated me so poorly He's the worst. She said that at the end of their relationship. She feared for her safety friends and Carrie She said that at the end of their relationship she feared for her safety. Friends in Carrie always said, her one friend said, quote, this is about Nancy. She would sleep in the girls, with the girls in her room, with the car keys in her pants pocket and the bedroom door locked from Brad. Just in case. Ready to make her fucking run for it. Which sounds, that's familiar. I've been there as a child. I used to keep, I had a little go bag packed like Dexter. I had that when I was eight,

cause things were unstable and we'd be fucking taken off sometimes at two in the morning. So I wanted to have the shit I needed. Like I gotta have at least the outfit I want, like my best wrestling figures in there, stuff like that. Like that's, yeah. so that's a shit feeling is what I'm getting at. Brad admits that their relationship had soured

toward the end here, and he said he tried to help out more at home. He said, tried to. She complained a lot, and he said he tried to take it to heart. He said, I loved Nancy very much and I want to stay married to her. That's what he told people. I just love her. So early July 2008, Nancy's family, the Renses, take Nancy and the two children on a family vacation

to South Carolina, to Hilton Head. Yeah, yeah. They come down to visit. And yes, early July 2008, late June into early July, they said that Nancy had faded into an unrecognizable person. She wasn't her outgoing self, she was just a different person. Her parents said that something had changed,

they could tell. They got a lawyer for Nancy, they hired one for her at that point, and were making plans to try to figure out how to get her out of the house, or buy out Brad's share or whatever. They're like, we're gonna help you get the fuck out of this relationship, because it's completely just diminishing you to nothing here,

as far as your personality goes and everything. So the mom said she was gonna go to Carrie and help her out. When they said goodbye to her at the airport, Nancy was sobbing, saying, mom, I just wanna go home. So yeah, that's what she did, and she ends up going home to her Carrie home here. They said on the vacation, she talked about separating

from Brad pretty much the whole time. Yeah, because this is the most horrific, toxic horse shit. It's just a mess. Yeah, and it's eating her from the inside and it's now manifesting on the outside. She said, Dad, I'm through. I need to get out of this situation. It's not great for the kids. It's certainly not great for me.

No, it's bad for your... Yeah, this is a now-protect-your-kids situation here. So Nancy returned to Carrie, though. She called her father and left a message about what a shit hole the home was when she got back. She was gone for like a week and change and came back and the house was fucking trashed. Like frat parties, like a frat lived there basically. The part of the message said, I've been furious all last night all night last night and today I'm so furious how disgusting the house was when I got home There was food and ants in the kitchen. He didn't just left food out on the counter didn't clean anything

He just lived like a complete slob for a week and a half Wow, so Friday, July 11th, 2008 Nancy gets up by 5 a.m., which is what she normally does. She has plans to go running with her friend, Carrie Clark. The two of them were training together for the half marathon, but Nancy didn't feel like running that morning. So she called her friend and canceled, and she said, you know, I'll talk to you soon. We'll schedule something else, but today I can't do it. So later that morning she took Katie and Bella to a community pool at her friend's neighborhood,

her friend Hannah. She stopped by a deli on the way to grab lunch for everyone. Isn't that nice? Pick up sandwiches for the crew here. The girl swam and played while Nancy and Hannah had a chat there. She was complaining about Brad, of course. The shit part is her friends kind

of have to get tired of hearing about it after a while. Even though you want to help your friend and everything after a while, you're like, oh, here we go again. This is all we're going to talk about. Okay. Yeah. At some point you go, it's enough. Just one night. Don't talk about it. Yeah. Let's just try to forget how he forgot to leave her cash as part of their agreed upon budget that day. He was supposed to leave cash. She called Brad at work a few times to remind him that he'd forgotten and he offered to leave work and bring her some cash but Nancy told him, don't bother, nevermind.

Well stop calling me and reminding me. Well then why'd you call me then? I'll come bring you some. No, nevermind. Why are we on the phone? Why'd you call? Again. So, that's, whenever, this is the the thing what leads to a divorce can be

someone's fault but what happens during all this shit everyone's at fault everyone turns into an asshole that's the thing so she takes the girls mid afternoon takes the girls heads home to get ready for a neighborhood party that they're going to that night there's a big barbecue across the street at Craig and Diana Duncan's house. Oh, oh boy. Um, she, Nancy had offered to cook ribs for the party. That's her gig here. So she stopped at the grocery store on her way home to buy ribs. So she's bought lunch and ribs so far. She had some cash on her.

So she made the ribs at home. And as she did, she spoke with her twin sister, Christa, on the phone. And, you know, they're chit-chatting here. And Nancy spoke on the phone also to Hannah, and she continued preparing for the party. She told Hannah that she'll talk to her the next day about maybe going to the pool again, see what's going on. She finished cooking, she gets dressed.

She has a sundress, which is teal with black flowered print and flip-flops, and she and the girls head across the street at about six o'clock to the cookout. Now, she's one of the first to arrive at the party, because she lives across the street. And she also has ribs, so you wanna get those in there. So everybody, it's a potluck, so everybody's bringing dishes here.

On that night here, she's upset about her husband still and she's talking about that as soon as she gets over to the Duncan's house. And you know, they're waiting for Brad to get here. Brad gets here at approximately 6.30 p.m. because he's working that day. It's a Friday. So he gets there. Over the course of the of the night she mentions that Brad is on kid duty this weekend and I'm not dealing with the kids here at this party

So she's hanging out and doing shit and he is like pushing them on the swings and taking them and feeding them You know a lot of sometimes sometimes couples do that like you're on kid duty and I'm not tonight or whatever, which is, that's tough, but they do. When they're out in public together? Yeah. Yeah, that sucks. That's tough. So, but I mean, however you parse out the fucking, the duties, I guess, I don't know. So this is how this is all going.

One of the hosts, Diana, the neighbor, she said that she was surprised that Nancy basically was in a dispute with Brad in public. She said they never fought in public, but they were fighting there all night. They were fighting here. She said that, you know, this Duncan lady said that she had moved here too. She wasn't a native of Cary either. She said that during this whole barbecue, she said Nancy was telling her that she was having an I hate Brad day. Told her, she told her neighbor that she wanted a divorce

and she wants to move back to Canada with her daughters. This was even before Brad Cooper arrived at the party. She recalls Nancy saying, I hate you, Brad Cooper. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Then Duncan said, she clenched her fists and spat the words out like, really hates him. She really hates him.

She's mad. When Brad arrived at the party, the host recalled seeing the couple huddled off to the side in what looked to be a heated confrontation during this. Now during the party as well, Brad makes plans to play tennis the following morning with a guy named Mike Hiller. They hadn't had the opportunity to play in a while. Brad had canceled on Mike in the past due to Nancy not being home to watch the children and them fighting basically. So Mike even took the added measure of asking Nancy,

is Brad available tomorrow to play tennis? Just to make sure. So she said fine, so Brad and Mike agreed on a time of nine o'clock the next morning. They also made plans with that couple, Mike Hiller and his wife Laura, to get together the following evening to play sequence. So they're gonna play tennis that morning

and then they're gonna have them over for dinner. They've been friends with them for years here. So Brad leaves with the two daughters about 8 p.m. from the barbecue. So he's only there about an hour and a half. He's probably tired from chasing fucking toddlers around. Nancy stays late to mainly complain about Brad. Any of the neighbors that stay behind,

it's just a circle with her talking about Brad, and she's loosening up a lot as the party goes on, talking a lot more shit. Her friend said Nancy ate ribs, pita chips, and dipped that night, and had four or five glasses of wine and some beer. That's a lot. She's not a big woman. She's not a big woman. So she's this is her party night. She's getting down here. She said that Nancy

stayed till after midnight at the house over there. They said you know they said goodbye and she left to walk across the street and the barbecue host said that all the lights were off at the Cooper house when she was going across the street. Yeah. Everybody's asleep over there. So when she got home, she looked in on Brad and the girls. He fell asleep in their room and I guess they would take turns sleeping with the girls there. So Brad, I guess, had told someone that he saw her silhouette look in the room and then

he fell back asleep. He said he was awakened by Katie crying at 4 a.m. so he took her downstairs so she wouldn't wake the older daughter. That's how that goes. This is the 12th. Now, he says that Nancy left about 7 a.m. to go jogging. Wearing a white t-shirt with a sports bra underneath it. Okay She was scheduled Nancy was supposed to paint a dining room for her friend Jessica Adam Later that morning, but she never showed up. This is a bit like she was gonna jog and then like eight o'clock

She was gonna go over and paint Now she tried this Jessica Adam tried to call Nancy on her cell phone and then at her home, too Now Brad answered the house phone and told Jessica that she went running with a friend that morning. I don't know where the hell she is. So Jessica calls 911, which seems a bit preemptive, I would say. That's a, it's a leap, sure.

It's a little bit of a leap here. She calls and they said too in the recording, she's like breathless in a panic on the phone not just like you know, this is weird I don't know just maybe keep an eye out for she's like, oh my god. Oh my god. She's freaking out She said Nancy was supposed to be at her house at 8 a.m. And hadn't shown up and they're like Okay, okay So your friend didn't show up to paint your dining room What about when she when when you asked her to help you move was she I'm just gonna say

God forbid if she doesn't show up to help you move. You're really Wow. They must be fucking dead somewhere Yeah, so, you know that's and she said well, it's not like Nancy to miss plans So she called the house at 930 is when she had called the house and talked to Brad and Brad said she wasn't home. Hannah called a short time later and Brad told her the same, not home. Don't know. She went out jogging. She doesn't tell me everything she does.

I have no idea what she's doing. So when she is Jessica's on the phone with 911, the operator requested details about Nancy and this is what she says rather than give all the details that she's asked. She says quote, she was expected here no later than nine o'clock to help me with a project and then she also has another appointment with a friend. Her name is Hannah who just called me on the other line hysterical because she's also now having the same thought that I am about her husband. If he's done something and I don't know, I mean, God forbid, but then she says, I don't

know what I should do. Her husband and her are living together, but they're in the middle of divorce and he is, and then she just keeps humming and doesn't know what to do. So the operator, 911 operator tells Jessica to give it some time. We're talking about an adult. This was a four year old. We're talking about an adult. If this was a four-year-old, we'd get right on it. But this is an adult woman who's 45 minutes late to your house. Let's fucking take a chill pill there, Jess. Who just happens to be going through a divorce.

Yes, and just might need a drive or just, you know, whatever, clear her head. So she said, call back in an hour if, you know, nothing happens here. But as soon as that call ended, Jessica immediately calls her friend Mary Anderson to drive her to the Cooper home If you know nothing happens here Yeah But as soon as that call ended Jessica media call immediately calls her friend Mary Anderson to drive her to the Cooper home because she was too distraught to drive She can't even drive. She's so distraught We have no idea. She's literally a 45 minutes late, and she can't even drive. She's so distraught. She's never Planned a dinner party or anything? That's what I mean. Oh, they're late.

Oh, God, Jesus. Call the cops. Every fucking time she has a party, every cop's are called 17 times. What are they, with the Donner party? Oh, no. Oh, my God. Somebody's eating all of them. Oh, no, the Johnsons aren't here.

Oh, Jesus, help us. So they didn't go on the routes where Nancy would typically run to look for her. They went to the house here. Now yeah, Carrie police officer arrives. She tells him that Nancy was expected at her house to paint. And now the neighbors and friends start gathering around the house too because they see cops out there.

Jessica now is in the middle of their front yard with cops in half the neighborhood around out of breath losing her mind, begins screaming quote, I know Brad did this. Made her 45 minutes late. Yes. So, I mean, Jesus, this is a lot, man. They call her parents who were at a funeral in Edmonton. Oh my god. And the father ignored the calls because they're at a funeral and the calls kept coming so

incessantly that he had to pick it up and it was their daughter Krista telling them that she got a call from Jessica saying that Nancy's missing. As they left the church, Gary said to his wife, Donna, the story's not going to have a happy ending. No shit. So Jessica's on the war path. Okay. She now gets into huge arguments with the Cooper's friends over this because they're

all going, Hey, calm down a minute. And she's like, no, you don't understand. I can't calm down till I see your face. So she had gotten an argument with Mike Morwick when she instructed him on how to handle children during a crisis. Mike's wife, Clea, was caring for the Cooper children while Brad deals with the cops and talks to them and tries to figure out where his wife is.

So she is then telling this woman how to deal with the kids. Well, you can watch them then if you want to. So Mike, the husband in the situation, was annoyed with her and told her to shut the fuck up basically. Said stop trying to take control of the kids. We're watching the kids, don't worry about it.

Worry about yourself. So Jessica had another heated discussion now with Mike Hiller, the guy who was supposed to play tennis with Brad. So by that time she told everyone that she could possibly think of that she had contacts for in her goddamn phone that Nancy was expected at her house that morning to paint. But Mike told Jessica that didn't make any sense because I had plans to play tennis with Brad and I talked to Nancy last fucking night and said Brad's going to be available at 9am right and she said yes no problem.

So I don't think you I think you mixed your plans with Nancy up basically had to yes so he even said he even said she confirmed to my face that she'd be watching the children tomorrow while he played tennis she never mentioned she had faint painting plans or anything like that so Jessica burst out and said I know he fucking did it start screaming about it in this guy's face She then told Mike not to talk to the police and that she would be the port the point person on this whole thing since She was the one who called the cops. So I'll just you stay out of this You don't go tell the cops that Brad didn't kill her her. I'll tell Brad that she's dead I'll tell the cops Brad killed her and she's dead. Thank you

Huh, so he's now she's accusing Brad of killing her and harming her hiding her or something She also made more statements during another nine one one call She referenced that Nancy would run with Carrie, but then it sounded like she said used to run with her on the recording She used to run with her, meaning she's not around anymore, which is very weird. Very bizarre, yeah. She mentioned that it was odd that Brad would call and ask for Carrie's number as well. I don't know why that would be odd. Yeah.

She said, do you have this? He said, do you have this person's number who my wife is supposed to be running with? Which makes all this, That's what anybody would do, I would think. So Jessica also said that it was odd that Nancy didn't tell her about any plans to run, but that didn't make sense because they hadn't, they don't really run together a lot. Those two it's Nancy runs on her own. She runs on her own. So it's like, you know, and the cops go, yeah, none of this is a red flag for us. Basically all the shit you're telling us just sounds like an adult woman is doing something for two hours So and you're out of your fucking mind basically like calm down Jessica Karen's do Karen things you're being a real Jessica right now. Yeah, you're doing way too much Jessica shit right now. This is

Down you're having a full Jess out at the moment You need to calm the fuck down. You're really just in it. You're just it out hard right now So Brad tells police You know, she left shortly after seven and go jogging and that's what happened And he said okay now this immediately gets into the press She's 34 years old, blonde, attractive, affluent, and missing. And a mom.

Fucking, as you know, that'll blow right up in the sky, especially in Cary, North Carolina. That is tabloid fodder right there, that's fantastic. Shit, so the town tries to calm everybody down. There's a statement, the general public is not concerned about whether a drug dealer kills another drug dealer. People are concerned about the things that happen in their neighborhood or to people who are in the same station in life or the same socioeconomic position. This is the assistant district attorney said this. We don't give

a shit about people who aren't just like us is what he just said. That's what gets their attention. He said there's a lot of people that jog and carry and all over the country, and you know everybody who goes out jogging is thinking, what happened to this woman? This man says she went out for a run. Then the chief here, Chief Basemore, publicly states that this is an isolated incident,

and that joggers are safe, and don't worry about it. Don't worry about a thing. All good, basically. Then there is a rumor here, during one of the press conferences with this chief, Bayesmore, a reporter asks if she could confirm a rumor that Brad had purchased bleach at four o'clock

in the morning the day Nancy disappeared. Whose rumor is that? That, I wonder. This has Jessica's fucking fingerprints all over it. No, I have no idea, I'm just kidding. Chief responded that she couldn't confirm or deny the report, even though she, even though that it wasn't true, she said, I can't confirm or deny anything. Okay.

So, now she already knew that that wasn't true. He did purchase some kind of, as we'll talk about, he purchased Tide laundry detergent that morning, but not bleach. So, and it wasn't at 4 a.m., it was between six and seven. All right. So a lot of people will always believe that Brad purchased bleach because that was what was out first.

What was said, yeah. And people never forget that shit. Now they talked to Duncans, the Duncans, the barbecue hosts here, and the Diana Duncan said that she first heard Nancy was missing by a crowd gathering outside their house after this woman had gone. She went to get her eyebrows waxed, nails done, and a trip to the farmer's market. Holy shit, how suburban fucking lady are you? Oh my God.

With a wide brim hat and a vanilla latte. Just pulling on up with a big bag of fucking asparagus just ready to go. This is fresh. Brad, Duncan, the woman here, she pulls in and now she can really see because her eyebrows have been waxed. She's got nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. nothing in her way here. She said that Brad was acting odd. She said his reactions looked false. They looked acted. At some point during the day Brad asked Duncan the neighbor across the street to come over to the Cooper house and look for the dress that Nancy had on in the cookout the day before. Now Duncan said she and Brad searched the house for a black dress and police officers wanted to let

the search dogs sniff the dress before they started the hunt for Nancy. But before Nancy, Nancy had, the problem is she didn't wear a black dress, remember she wore a green dress with black pattern on it. So it's different. And she had a sports bra under a white shirt. Yeah. Before right that morning when she went out running. Right.

So this Duncan lady said she thought Brad was intentionally misleading her about the dress. She said she couldn't recall what Nancy was wearing that night. Even seeing later on seeing the dress she had on the teal green dress, she said she still wasn't certain what she had on that night. Now, now there's Bella, okay? Remember Cleo Morwick? She is the, one of the targets of Jessica's rage as not tending to the children properly

during the situation. She was watching the two children on the afternoon of July 12th while this was going on, and at some point, Bella, who's four and a half at the time, she's the older one, told Clea that she saw her mother that morning and she was wearing black shorts and a white t-shirt. Okay.

She said, I saw Mommy this morning, that's what she had on. Police didn't interview Bella, though, at that time. They just figured she's four and a half. She's a little dummy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she doesn't know shit. She doesn't interview Bella though at that time. They just figured she's four and a half. She's a little dummy. Oh yeah. Yeah. She doesn't know shit. She doesn't know shit. So yeah, nothing. And you know, kids gonna lose their memory pretty quick of shit. So she said this was around, she said it around five o'clock PM she told

the lady and then the lady went and got a cop and was like, she just told me this just so you know. So that was Detective Dismukes wrote that down. Clea, she said, quote, Clea told me around 5 p.m. today she spoke with the oldest daughter Bella and asked her if she saw her mommy today. Clea told me she asked Bella what her mommy was wearing when she saw her today. Clea reported Bella told her mommy told her that mommy was wearing black shorts and a white t-shirt. That's from the actual incident report of the police report. Her husband and elder child saw her leaving for her run Saturday morning. Also on there.

Now the cops never spoke directly to Bella or if they did it's not in any of the reports anywhere. Which is very strange I would say here. But anyway, NBC News now, now this is getting national now. They don't even know where she is. They say now, this is a quote from NBC News, quote, in fact, police have yet to confirm that she actually left her home that morning at 7 a.m.

as her husband stated. So NBC- Oh, we don't even know if she did. NBC News is saying they think Brad might have killed her, basically. We don't even know if she left the house. They're throwing some shit out there, Willie Nellie. Oh, yeah.

Said, where are the witnesses, independent of her husband, who saw her leave or enter another car or simply walk down the street that Saturday morning? Now, they said, and then NBC News continued, now unconfirmed reports are circulating that Brad may have purchased bleach as early as 4 a.m. the day Nancy was reported missing. Lester Holt, take it easy.

Fucking calm down. Now here's another little discrepancy that comes around. I'm gonna show you a picture of a bed. See that bed? Yeah. Okay. Does that look, what, slept in I would say? Both sides, yeah. Both sides, okay.

Just check him because- The whole bed. Detective Daniels wrote in his report that the bed did not appear to have been slept in. What the fuck kind of shit hole does he live in? I don't understand, what are you sleeping on top of? Newspapers or something? The covers, and I'll put it on social media, but the covers are all like pulled back, like

people just threw the covers off and then got out. The pillows are like askew and mashed in and the sheets are ruffled, like it looks real like some- That was brand new and fresh made, Detective? Weird. Detective Daniels wrote this on this day, referring to to the bed that the bed did not look slept in When asked he testified later that it looked as if someone had sat in it And when they asked the detective who first got there wrote the note about it. He said he sat on the bed

Why would you sit on the bed you fucking idiot? Why would you touch? Anything and didn't document that he sat in it didn't come out to later. Then he took a photo of the bed And the bedding would later be sent to the and the Bureau of Investigation for bodily fluid and fiber analysis And this guy didn't bother to tell anybody that he contaminated it by sitting on it So and it's the marital bed, so there's gonna be some... There's gonna be some stains. Yeah. There's gonna be some kind of stains. So now, she doesn't come home the rest of the 12th.

Gone. Not there. For days, the friends search for the couple days, they go through the woods and lakes and all the routes that they might have jogged on and everything else. I mean, between her and her friend's subdivision, which is six miles away. Basically, they cover everything in between there. They put flyers up as well here.

Missing flyers, as we'll talk about. Lot of those, and we're gonna talk about also what Brad's story is, and we'll get to that. Because I know I purposely haven't said that yet. He has a detailed blow by blow of what happened that morning. So we'll talk about that. Now, missing flyers go up. They're posted throughout the town,

handed out during coordinated search efforts on Sunday and Monday, July 13th and 14th. Police began receiving calls from people immediately who believed they saw Nancy. So that's interesting. 16 people reported seeing a jogger resembling Nancy Cooper. Some were 150% positive it was Nancy, they said, because they knew Nancy, so they knew who the fuck she was.

150% positive. 150%. Some of the people said, I don't know if it was Nancy, it was a woman in a white t-shirt. It's a gal, yeah. But, and the other people said, I was jogging, I've seen Nancy jog. I know Nancy. Some people say they waved to Nancy and she waved back.

Oh! Hi Nancy, hi so and so. That's Nancy. That seems like Nancy. Details from witnesses including clothing descriptions, build, hair colors, specific locations, times, and even exchanged greetings. Four people also provided information about a white and maroon van

that was going around the area. This starting to sound familiar, jogging vans, missing women. Did she happen to have a golden retriever with her? I was going to say, she had a golden retriever and if she's nine months pregnant this is, we're looking for Scott Peterson here. Or there's a serial killer who does the same thing every day. Same shit. It's like, oh, good idea. This is right around, you know, that happened 10 years before this. So Rosemary Zednik lived in the same neighborhood as the Coopers. She didn't know Nancy, but she was certain she saw her that morning.

She described how she was walking her dog and came face to face with Nancy as she jogged by. Rosemary said hello to Nancy and Nancy said hi and continued jogging. When Rosemary saw the flyers, she became very concerned. In fact, she was so positive she saw Nancy, she called police several times and no one ever followed up with her. She had to keep calling and calling. Another similarity. Now Rosemary contacted later on attorneys here to give them the information because

the cops didn't talk to her. They met with her and discussed the details. This is, there's a lot of people like this. Okay, here is a Ms. White advised that she was running on Cary Parkway around 0800 hours when she saw a slight woman wearing a white hat, light blue top and gray shorts behind her and gaining. Ms. White advised that she turned onto Lockmere and was heading home. She did not see the other runner behind her and assumed she went straight toward Holly Springs Road.

That doesn't exactly jive with the description of what she was wearing. The another person, Mike Pashby, said that he saw a female runner with the same build of Ms Cooper running south on the northbound lanes of Kildare Farm Road bridge. She was just south of the bridge when he saw her. This is around 915 to 930 could not provide clothing description. Now there's a lot of joggers by the way. That's the other thing. thing. Another one, Diane Costello. She said around 935 she was traveling north on Kildare Farm Road when she saw a jogger she thought to be Ms. Cooper jogging against traffic on Kildare Farm Road at the bridge under construction. She said the jogger was wearing a white t-shirt.

Valerie Wenzel called and stated she was jogging at approximately 810 southbound on Kildare near the Wendy's. She said, I made contact with Ms. This is Miss Wenzel. She advised that she saw Miss Cooper that morning around 810 to 820 described her as a tall thin female with a ponytail wearing shorts and a shirt. She saw her running southbound on the northbound side of Kildare Farm Road. Another one Eddie Wong said that he was walking, she was walking her dog, Edie Wong, was walking her dog on the trail in Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve

when she saw someone that looked like Ms. Cooper. She thinks the subject was wearing a white t-shirt with pink trim and that her hair was pulled back. Keith Roberts, walking his dog, saw someone matching Ms. Cooper's description, called called and left a message called back again and told dispatch He thinks he saw the missing person on the bar road east from Kildare farm road She told him she that he had a cute dog and she passed so Nancy said hey cute dog She also he also stated that he did not want anyone else to call him back. Don't leave me alone by the way I gave you all my that's That's all I've got. Don't call back. Jesus Christ. Another woman here said, or guy, Mr. Thompson stated that he and his friend were fishing at Lake Lockmere on Saturday when they were loading

their fishing boat onto the trailer at the boat ramp when they saw a female jogger on Lockmere Drive. The female was about the same height as the missing Nancy Cooper. The female was wearing a white baseball cap and white tank top. The female was running on Lockmere Drive toward Cary Parkway and she was running alone. A Sylvia Hink said between 7 and 8 o'clock she was sitting on her front porch reading her newspaper when she noticed two white female joggers. She stated they were not jogging together. The jogger in front was wearing light blue shorts But she couldn't remember what the second jogger was wearing except something light So there's that Curtis Hodges said he called the cops to report that he may have seen a missing person Which is Nancy he stated he saw a female running on Kildare Farm Road some woman was running on For sure under percenters a joggerading outbound and was near the golf course, he stated he saw a picture of the woman posted

and is positive it was her. He stated that she was wearing a white tank top and black shorts. Another person said that they were driving through Regency Parkway, 7.55am and stated while traveling there, observed a white female with dirty blonde hair wearing a baseball cap with her ponytail coming out the back, wearing white shorts with maybe a tight sleeveless shirt. She advised that after seeing Nancy's twin sister

on television, she remembered seeing the female jogger, because she said, holy shit, that lady looks. It's just like that. Yeah, did she look like this lady? That's better than a photograph if you have a twin. The best. Yeah. If they're gonna like door to That's better than a photograph if you have a twin. The best. Yeah. If they're gonna like door to door with a picture,

just send the twin with them. Have you seen another one of these? Just exact replica of this. Put her in the same clothes and have her jog by and be like, did it look like that? That's the greatest shit, yes. I would do that with twins on everything if it was possible here.

Another, Beth Fenton was certain she saw Nancy on the morning of July 12th, but the time the detective finally spoke with her was months later. And yeah, she said that a white female wearing a white t-shirt with black stripes going down the side. She stated the female was wearing black shorts,

a white sun visor, and light colored tennis shoes. She said that she was about five, seven, 120 pounds. Interesting. Now, one of the police officers here that was one of the first to arrive at the home the day Nancy disappeared was Daniel Hayes. He reported he saw a woman who looked like Nancy. Oh, even the police see it.

Jogging in the bike lane at 7 AM while he was on his patrol. This was the same location where Rosemary, the one woman, reported seeing Nancy as well. Officer Hayes wrote about this in a report after seeing a photo of Nancy in the Cooper home. That's when he saw a photo. He's like, oh, that's that lady I saw this morning. I saw her.

Oh, shit. So that's very interesting. Although two and a half years later, when it comes up. So, that's very interesting. Although, two and a half years later when it comes up in court, he never mentions that. No? He said, finally I also remembered, this is from his report, that when I first started my shift, I was traveling east on Lockmere Drive at about 7am. I had just passed the first lake off Lockmere when I noticed a white female runner was heading

west toward Lockmere Drive running in the bicycle lane Wearing a light blue tank top matching shorts light brown hair ponytail at the time I thought nothing of it except wondering why is she running in the bike lane and not on the sidewalk? Right, so there's a lot of people who said they saw her Now let's start with much like Lacey Peterson. Let's start with the van sightings lots of van sightings, okay by the evening of July 11th, which is the the night before there were already independent reports This is before she went missing while they were at the barbecue people are calling the cops

Saying there was different forward independent reports about suspicious vans in the area there was different for independent reports about suspicious vans in the area. Really? The night before the descriptions weren't exact. Some described described a white work truck. Others described a white and maroon van. But everybody said that there was suspicious activities going on with these vans. Okay. Here. Brad actually informed Detective Daniels that Nancy had mentioned an attempted abduction of a jogger from a van as well He stated about two months ago Nancy had told him someone in a van tried to kidnap a jogger and he stated that she had not been involved in this and it Only heard about it secondhand, which I mean Christ almighty. She could have read that on fucking Facebook

You know what I mean? Nancy also mentioned something about a red van to Diana Duncan and some other friends. This is right out of Nancy's mouth. Um, so it was interesting. There were email warnings between them to be careful when jogging alone. So, um, they asked Nancy, did she ever tell you she heard someone in a red van tried to abduct a female jogger? And she said, yeah, it rings a bell when you say it, but I didn't remember it before you asked. Um, following are the witness descriptions here.

Jan Boyer, 845 PM, Friday night, the 11th, barbecue night. While walking her dog, she saw what she described as a white truck heading toward the cul-de-sac where later on, toward a cul-de-sac, the van had no headlights. She noticed and thought that was odd because there was nothing back where the van was driving and it was dark and the headlights were off So that seemed odd Nothing good going on they'll they're on Dale cool Brits Said just past midnight on that night Friday night the 11th so into the morning of the 12th Dale awoke to the sound of his doorbell

Which would ring when his outer storm door was open? So he had like one of those he went to see who was there and saw a white van behind some bushes, then noticed someone speeding away in the van down the street at a high speed with the lights off. Who just opened my fucking storm door? Tried to just see if the door was open apparently. Oh boy. He called police and requested patrols of the neighborhood. The police were called at 12 17 a.m.

So this is three and a half hours after the last sighting. Curtis Hodges at 710 a.m. the morning Nancy went missing. 10 minutes after Brad said she left. He noticed a woman jogger near Lockmere Golf Course, then saw a van driving toward him. As it got close to the woman, it did a U-turn. When he checked his rear view mirror, there was no sign of the van,

so it continued in that direction. It did not appear to be traveling in his same direction which would have been expected in a u-turn. Later he saw the missing flyer of Nancy Cooper and was positive she was the woman that he saw. By the time the detectives talked to him a couple months later though he said he was 90% sure. He described the van as an older model, reddish and white, maroon and white, with two Hispanic men in the van. And then Sylvia Hink said about 9 a.m. the next day, day after Nancy went missing, the 13th, she was walking in her neighborhood when she noticed a maroon van parked at the intersection of Belmont Forest and Fielding Drive. Two

Hispanic men were leaning against it. She found it odd because it was a Sunday and there was no work going on. And obviously, she said, obviously these two Mexicans in a van don't live in my neighborhood, so I didn't see anything to paint for them. Yeah, they should be in church today. Yeah, I said, Trabajo, and she said,

they gave me a fucking shoulder shrug, and I said, Trabajo, and they said, they gave me a fucking shoulder shrug. And I said, okay. So psychic here comes in, all right, the morning of the 13th. This is about 24 hours after it said she walked out of the house, there's already a psychic involved. That's how big this thing blew up. The psychics don't come in until after the news has blown it up so they can make a name for themselves. Or until after the crime scene investigators are already thoroughly exhausted.

Yeah, one of those, but she's in there immediately. Detective Daniels sent three officers to the Lockmere Golf Course on a tip they received from the psychic. Did you know that after World War II, the US government quietly brought former Nazi scientists to America in a covert operation to advance military technology? Or that in the 1950s, the US Army conducted a secret experiment by releasing bacteria over San Francisco to test how a biological attack might spread without alerting the public? These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not. They're well-documented government operations that have been hidden away in classified files for decades.

I'm Luke Lamanna, a Marine Corps recon vet, and I've always had a thing for digging into the unknown. It's what led me to start my new podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries. In it, I explore hidden truths and reveal some eye-opening events, like covert experiments and secret operations that those in power tried to keep buried. Follow redacted, declassified mysteries with me, Luke Lamanna, on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen ad-free, join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

Did you know that after World War II, the U.S. government quietly brought former Nazi scientists to America in a covert operation to advance military technology? Did you know that after World War II, the US government quietly brought former Nazi scientists to America in a covert operation to advance military technology? Or that in the 1950s, the US Army conducted a secret experiment by releasing bacteria over San Francisco to test how a biological attack might spread without alerting the public? These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not. They're well-documented government operations that have been hidden away in classified files for decades.

I'm Luke Lamanna, a Marine Corps recon vent, and I've always had a thing for digging into the unknown. It's what led me to start my new podcast, Redacted, Declassified Mysteries. In it, I explore hidden truths and reveal some eye-opening events, like covert experiments and secret operations that those in power tried to keep buried. Follow redacted, declassified mysteries with me, Luke Lamanna, on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen ad-free, join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. One of Nancy's friends, Desiree, gave the detectives the contact information for the psychic Brenda Shoulders and this prompted a police search for the body at for a body or Nancy or something at the Lockmeyer golf course in the culverts. It occurred at a time when they had already received calls from multiple people talking about they saw her jogging. So they were following the tip from a psychic though. Now July 14th, William Boyer's walking his dog on Fielding Drive at approximately seven o'clock

in the evening as he approached the cul-de-sac of an undeveloped area. It's a new construction area, so there's really just nothing there, construction sites basically. He heard squawking and saw buzzards in the trees and vultures swarming around. So he assumed there was a deer carcass nearby, as I would do in my woods.

So he continued walking and noticed what he thought was a deer, but then he came closer and realized it was a human body. Visible from the street, he ran away to find his phone to call 911, and first responders arrive at the scene, and this is the same location, by the way, where this guy's wife, Jan Boyer,

reported seeing the suspicious white work truck heading into this cul-de-sac with its lights off the night before Nancy disappeared. Right. Same exact cul-de-sac that it was going to. Oh boy. Now, so he calls 911, and the 911 operator said, do you think she's beyond any help?

And the guy said, I think she's dead. I mean, there's fucking vultures around. It turns out that it is Nancy that they find. Oh no. Her body is face down with the upper body in a drainage pond. Really? Body had no clothing except for her sports bra that had been rolled up kind of under so it came up under her armpits like she'd been dragged and it rolled. Detective Dismukes and Daniels went to the Cooper home to tell Brad

that a body had been discovered and they think it's Nancy. Now, like we said, searches were coordinated all over the place before that. There was already a website set up by Brett Adam and Diana Duncan to communicate with the volunteers. Like this was a coordinated effort. They didn't just go out willy-nilly. Brett was Jessica, Jessica Adam, the one who called 911.

Brett Adam is Jessica's husband. The last phone call received by Nancy the night before her disappearance was from Brett Adam's phone, cell phone, at 12.35 p.m. On July four, or that was then. Now at 12.35 p.m. on July 14th, Brett posted on the website, so this is before the body's found, I just got finished

updating the search map we're maintaining on Google. It shows the area that has been covered by volunteers reporting into both the Java Jive and Lifetime Fitness search coordination points. If you've independently searched any area, please let us know via the contact forms below so we can keep focus on new areas that have zero coverage. Okay, now that's interesting. Now, so think about that. Now, Bret's post also said, of course, the police will tell you searching twice or more

is standard practice, so it's certainly not a waste of effort to look again, especially relevant given the heavily wooded areas and many small gullies involved in much of the search area, which is exactly where they found her. Now, gully. Perform an autopsy. She's been strangled. Nancy, that's the cause of death. So hard the bone in her neck broke, the hyoid bone broke.

She only wore the tangled sports bra and one diamond earring. No signs of sexual assault. Oh. Okay. Now, Dr. John Butts performs the autopsy, which of course he does. You know which part of the body he goes for first. First, yeah. He described the death as a homicide caused by asphyxiation from strangulation. He said there's a faint linear mark across the central neck in the area of the thyroid

prominence approximately 1.3 inches in the area of the thyroid prominence, approximately 1.3 inches in length, and the trachea contains a small amount of fluid and debris. This indicates that she was strangled by an object such as a thin rope causing a linear mark, though he said that there's no ligature mark, it's just a linear mark. Now the debris found in the trachea can indicate that she was face down while gasping for air and breathed in dirt or water. That's possible. Another section of the report describes dirt caked on her knees and parts of her legs. Later, an SBI chemist examined the fingernail scrapings and also found debris under the nails. But wait till we tell you about the chemist. Holy shit. Oh no, that's a different thing. Never mind. All of these

things pointed to her having been killed outside, either at the location where found or any location where dirt was present. A lot of dirt on her. Outdoors. But if she was dragged, it would make the bra go up and put dirt all over her also. Yeah. Also, the house that was left in disarray is a fucking pigsty, too. There could be dirt in there.

There could be dirt anywhere. Exactly. So they're thinking about all of that. They said they didn't analyze and collect the debris found in the trachea for some reason. I don't know why. But there were a lot of things going on here. Now the Wake County Raleigh City County Bureau of Identification began investigating the crime scene.

They diagrammed the location and position of the body and also drew the freshest tracks that led up to the body, marked the position of other items found near the body. Two were electrical wires and a cigarette butt. Okay. They also measured the wheelbase of tire tracks found near there by obviously checking that out. Now none of the wheelbases match either Brad or Nancy's vehicles. Okay. And all the footprints found around her are all too small to be... Brad wears a 13.

That's a big shoe. That's what I wear. You notice that footprint. So they're all smaller, all the tracks around her that they can find. They never take casts of any of the tire tracks or the footprints around her, by the way. Why? Don't understand that. Never plaster cast at all. Also no detailed close-up photos were taken.

Okay. And that's interesting. So they also scoured the whole construction site where she was found hunting for anything. Maybe she was taken into a, you know, behind a bunch of debris and attacked and then thrown here. Who knows? So the police say they have no suspects. They also say that her death was not random and that Carrie's residents have nothing to fear. We don't know who did it, but we're sure it was someone that really was pissed off at her. So keep on jogging. Incredibly targeted.

So don't worry to maintain your half marathon training. Keep doing it. Chief Pat Basemore said, I'm extremely confident that we'll bring this case to justice. OK, interesting. And the family is all there with the chief and everything like that. Jeff, who is Nancy's brother, said, we cannot possibly relay our thanks to volunteers who were tireless and tenacious in their efforts.

Now, Brad wasn't doing the searches because he has the kids. So he wasn't doing the searches, but he also didn't come to the news conference either, the press conference. You can't bring the kids around that shit. The police chief expected that he would be there. I think she could probably drop him off of the neighbor for an hour.

Probably get a sitter or something. Yeah. I got to do the press conference for my murdered wife if you could just. That happens to be your mother. You know. Yeah. You know if you could just watch them for a minute. So police spent the day with Brad at home and Brad gave them their permission to search

the family's home and cars. Later on, reporters questioned the police chief about Brad Cooper, asking her whether Nancy Cooper had asked him to move out and whether the couple had separated their finances and whether he bought bleach, all this shit. Can you give us the crime file and we can read all that and we'd like to read everything now to everybody. Tell you what, can we just have a trial like literally in the media? Can we do it right now just at this press conference? There are people at home that want to know everything. So Bayes-Mor said, we know that they were having marital difficulties and that remains

part of our investigation. And yeah, one of the friends here, Morwick, the one who watched the kids, said, at this point we do not want to jeopardize the investigation in any way, nor do we want the hurtful images and stories to be propagated in a way that exacerbates an already incredibly difficult situation for those of us who are close to Nancy.

Police say that Bradley was devastated when he learned his wife was dead, and friends said they wrestled with how to tell their own children that Nancy's gone, because they all loved her, all the friends. You could just tell her she moved back to Canada, and nobody would, you know how she said A all the time at the end of everything she said?

That means she's Canadian, and she went back there. Loves Wayne Gretzky, you don't know who that is either? No, shit. So Brad is certainly a suspect yeah they told him on July 14th after his wife was found about this and they told him a body was found he was sitting in his dining room table he rubbed his forehead with his right hand and held his head with his left hand and he told detectives that Nancy usually wore a red and black sports bra when she went out for runs.

Because this is before they knew it was her. And the detectives had not told her him that the woman found near the drainage ditch had not nothing more than a sports bra. So they said he held his hair and he moaned. The detective said, I did not see him cry. The groaning seemed a little strange and a little forced. They also talked. The detectives talked about photographs he took in the Cooper home the day that Nancy was reported missing.

He said the day she was reported missing, he recalled the TV in the den was turned to a golf match that afternoon. That struck me as odd. A lot of people just put TV on in the background for noise and it helps them. So like, I always, whether I'm watching it or not, I people just put TV on in the background for noise and it helps them. So like, I always, whether I'm watching it or not, I'm working with TVs on in the background. I'm not even watching it.

I've gone through, yeah, I've gone through 10 seasons of Family Guide. I've only seen a couple episodes. Yeah, that's what I mean. They're just, it's on. And also they found it odd that when police came to the house, they found Brad Cooper was cleaning in the middle of them when they got there. Cooper told detectives he'd been scrubbing the house while waiting for his wife to return from her run.

He said that she came home from vacation with her family about a week before and she was fucking pissed to find the house was dirty. So I'm trying to fucking be better, he told the cops. I'm trying to. I got ants guys. Yeah, I got actual bugs in here and shit. I need to set up traps. This is bad.

So friends and family said they found it unlikely that he would clean up the house just to make Nancy happy. Really? Now, investigators also noticed that Cooper had been cleaning the bathroom attached to the bedroom where his wife had allegedly been sleeping. An officer said he saw a dried stain on the bed sheet in that bedroom. Again, that's two adults live there. Don't sniff that.

Anything, that could be literally anything. We have no idea. So he did also numerous loads of laundry in between the two days, between the time his wife was reported missing and she was found. Now, at the same time, I'm gonna say, yeah, that's weird,

because it looks covering up. But at the same time, he's gonna say, yeah, that's weird, because it looks covering up, but at the same time, he's used to working a corporate job every day and he has nothing to do. So he might just be like, busy work. Staying busy, yeah. I don't know, or he's covering something up, we don't know. So there he washed the teal green sundress

that she had worn to the neighbor's cookout. That's what the police said. He said he noticed a barbecue sauce stain on it, so he washed it. But later on, it comes out of trial. I don't think he did wash it. No? Because it had deodorant stains on the armpit and it still had a grease stain on it. Now, the grease stain might stay, but the deodorant stains will go away with the washing. They should, yeah. unless they're with that yellow shit. You know what I mean? Something.

Yeah, this is just, you know, she's slapping some degree on. That shit's going to go away with a washing. So the investigators go from room to room looking for clues. They take photos. The photos portrayed a cluttered house with scattered toys, boxes, and clothes in many rooms. Jessica Adam, the neighbor who called the cops and went crazy being a real Jessica, she told investigators she noticed several things in

the photos were different from the last time she'd been in the Cooper house. Oh, really? Here. She said a duck collection is missing from the table in the foyer. Duck collection? Fake ducks. She's got fake ducks there. They're all there. And bamboo was missing from a large red vase. There was bamboo sticks coming out of it. Okay. Lots of clothes were hanging over the banister that had not been there the day before also.

Well, they might be drying if he's doing laundry and... Could be. ...might have some things that he doesn't want to shrink. As someone who's tall, there's stuff you don't want to shrink because then you can't wear it anymore. So, the duck collection, by the way, they make a huge deal out of this. The ducks were later found in a box somewhere. So just because Jessica hadn't been there that week to see every design update that they've made on their house,

Jessica's a pain in my ass right now. I get that she's worried about her friend, but you got to stop Jessica-ing so hard right now. And some people, oh God, some people put things up for like a week and then change their decoration. Yeah, or it's seasonal too. I mean, what are we in? What is this?

Fall. Fall, yeah, so I mean, no, it's July. It's the middle of summer. Oh, there, I thought you were talking about us. No, no, no, it's July. It's the middle of summer. So maybe they were up for the fourth, I don't know. Maybe those were up for spring.

They could have been spring ducks. Once the fourth hits, you go, we're definitely in the summer now. We're past spring ducks. And especially if it's like a mother duck and a bunch of little ducks, that's a spring decoration. They're all grown up. That's it. They're flying on their own now. A photo of the inside of the BMW SUV that Nancy usually drove showed a purse on the floor and cash and a child's clothes on a seat.

Jessica said she had seen a cell phone in the vehicle earlier that day, but Brad Cooper retrieved the phone from a drawer in the house for the cops. A receipt from a kangaroo convenience store was on the seat of the BMW sedan that Brad usually drove. A floor mat was on the driveway between the two BMWs. That's weird. Yeah. Yes. So, Brad's story. Here it is. Okay. 4 a.m. He said that he's awakened by the 2 year-old like we said he went downstairs try to calm her down but they were out of milk. All out of milk. Now according to Brad Nancy showed up right in the kitchen

with him she's an early riser too and they took turns dealing with the daughter while also getting some laundry done. They're both always up she She's up to go running. He usually starts working. It's normal. So eventually they realize that, look, we need to get milk. So Brad ends up going to the Harris Teeter store,

and there's video of him in there, shortly after 6 a.m. to get some milk. Soon after he returns, Nancy said, shit, we're out of detergent too. I wanted to do another load So he goes back to Harris teeter to get detergent again with more footage of him in there He said that Yeah, while en route to the store Nancy called him and asked him also to grab some naked green juice naked brand green green machine

I believe it's called that one not my favorite one. I like the citrus, the vitamin C one is good. Look at you. Love that shit, it's good shit. So, get a naked juice for Bella. She likes the older daughter likes it. She's given nakeds to four year olds? That's why, that's like a $4, $4.59 drink. I'm not giving a four year old that.

Fuck that. You can have a couple orange chips. I feel like a four. Fuck that. I feel like a four year old's, I feel like a four year old's kind of making their own vitamins enough, right? You don't need. You can have a cup of Tropicana. I'm not buying you $7, eight ounce, 12 ounce. No!

I'm an adult, I'm depleted. Yeah, I have shit to do. You're full of vitamins. There's vitamins falling on you at all times. So Brad enjoyed the drink and soon Bella started asking for it too because she asked for sips of it. Just for kids like dark green liquids to drink. That's what all the little kids love.

Now he said that he later on he returned home to Katie upstairs, the younger daughter, to his office to finish her bottle. He heard Nancy yell up and asked if he'd seen her shirt and then quickly said, nevermind. Have you seen my shirt? Oh, nevermind, like I found it. So after that, he said he heard the door open

and close at about 7 a.m. He said, that's when she went jogging. She said she was gonna go jogging. When she didn't return by 12.30, he said that's when he started getting worried. Jessica's bullshit was he didn't care about, but 1230 is like, okay, no one runs for five and a half hours. So that's when he started driving around and looking for her, he said. And he said his wife was often gone for long stretches of time, but not that long in a running running.

So he he told police he'd recently cleaned the trunk of his BMW because he had spilled gas in it. Oh. So detectives found no odor of gas or cleaning solution in the trunk but said it appeared to have been vacuumed. The passenger compartment did not appear to have been recently vacuumed and was littered with paper. In this, so nothing was put in there.

In the house, the cops found Nancy Cooper's cell phone, a key ring with her car and house keys on it. That's interesting, usually leaving the keys. The affidavit later noted that people who knew her well said Nancy Cooper kept her keys and cell phone with her at all times because she didn't want her husband going into her car where she kept her passport and divorce and custody papers.

She had like a little roaming office there. So police said that Nancy wrote about her husband's actions and those documents may have been in the car. They also noted that when she was running, Nancy made a habit of clutching her keys between her fingers as every fucking woman on earth does. And if you don't, you fucking better. If you don't, you better or you're a bad bitch

and that's cool too. Good for you. I don't know if you're some like fucking professional Christy Martin or something out there. No one wants to jump her while she's jogging. She'll beat the living shit out of you in the street or our friend Mandy Maloon or something. She'll kick you right in the face. She doesn't need her keys but a lot of people do.

So they said that's what she would use. So for her to leave her keys at home wouldn't be normal. A detective observed that Brad Cooper had small red marks or scratches on his neck and he said he did. They said he didn't explain the marks. If you have a problem with that is if they're small red marks and you have a two year old, they're always, you're holding them. They're always scratching on you and grabbing you. And they, even when you pick them up, they grab you around the neck. You always have marks on you from that. If so. If it's an adult fighting for their life, I would expect more than light.

Those are gonna draw blood, yeah. Yeah, light scratches. So they said, is your marriage okay? And he said, no, it's pretty fucked up actually. He said, I had an affair with one of my wife's best friends. That pissed her off good. That'll do, let me tell you, that's not a good idea. Take it from me, buddy.

So that drove him to marriage counseling, he said, but he eventually decided that their foundation was beyond repair. So that spring they decided they'd separate, share custody of the daughters and all that kind of thing, sharing custody. And they both hired lawyers and nitpicked over furniture and visitation schedules and all that kind of thing. He said they slept in separate rooms. Their finances were strained, so he had to put her on an allowance.

One that she routinely blew through by buying things she couldn't afford, he said. He said, quote, status was an important thing to Nancy and I indulged her too much. That's what he said, which doesn't sound great at all. Now, Nancy Cooper's friends said that Brad was so tight with money that she was selling her clothes and painting homes to buy groceries. She said, during the spring, the Cooper's water was shut off in the home because the payment was late. Nancy couldn't get it turned back on as he'd taken her name off of all the accounts. So that's annoying.

Nancy's close friends described her, I assume Jessica's involved in this, described him as a self-absorbed, awkward man that they barely saw. Michael Morwick said, Brad was never a family man. His priorities were always first, be it training, his priorities were always first, be it training for an Ironman event, his higher education pursuits, or unexplained absences, Brad took care of himself first. So none of these people are saying like,

the guy works 65 hours a week or something. That's not, this isn't about work, this is about extracurriculars. And an incredibly selfish man. Very selfish. So after Brad, because they take Brad down to identify the body officially at the medical examiner's office, they said they brought him back and he was sitting at his dining room table again and they asked if he would consent to a search of his home like a thorough

search at this time. And he said no. Really? Don't think so. He said the police and fucking NBC News and everybody else has singled me out as a suspect already And I'm not gonna fucking help you and I think I should talk to an attorney before I let you do anything in my fucking House. Okay now they said oh shit. Okay, that's that's a new wrinkle to this Brad by the way because the investigators plan to obtain warrants to search the home and vehicles Brad called Heather Mitor's husband, the woman he had an affair with, to come pick him up that day. Will you come grab me?

So police followed in an undercover car. Cooper spent a short time in his home and later that night he went, I guess this guy dropped, this is fucking wild, he spent a short time with Heather and then ended up going with the husband for a while too. So July 16th, this is all within four days of her going missing. July 16th, there's an emergency custody hearing where a judge awards emergency custody of the two young daughters to Nancy's parents and sister. He hasn't even been charged.

Wow. He hasn't even been charged. Wow. He hasn't even been charged. That is wild. This is mainly the father and the twin sister are the main litigants here. They're fighting to do that. A judge granted them emergency custody. Brad said, what the fuck?

He said he's involved and get engaged father who Nancy Cooper called super dad. That's what he said. I don't think so. I think the truth is in the middle there, chief. More than a dozen of her friends insist that he's distant, selfish and absent all the time. The day a judge signed this transferring order giving the grandparents and aunt the fucking kids, Bradley had already arranged to meet with them at Bullwinklesinkles a children's arcade and restaurant so they could visit the girls instead he showed up and the cops were there to tell him that you're not getting your kids. It's a fair way to do it.

No you're not getting your kids we're taking your kids. Yeah. And we're giving them to them. They said that the old Bella lost it and they had to pull her off of her father basically because her mom is gone. Yeah. And now you're saying no more dad either.

And while she may love her grandparents, she doesn't stay live in Canada. She doesn't see them all the time. Her father is probably a little more close. Now the kids don't know anything about the legal aspects of this at all. They have a memorial and 300 people were there and this is in Edmonton. So they have a big memorial in Edmonton and all that sort of thing and they said that she asked about the kids and they said Katie is young so it's a little bit over her head but Bella's

starting to figure it out. She knows, mom's not coming back. Yeah, they start to get understanding of time and space when they're around five. That's because that's when you send them to school because they know what's going on but two and a half they have no idea if Mom if you told them mom is on Mars fighting aliens, they go. Oh good. I hope she wins like they don't know fucking idea So yeah weapons she takes Jesus No shit now They want to search Brad's office at Cisco, his home, both his cars a little more

thoroughly, his computers, his phones, everything. They want to search all this shit. They're looking for financial inquiries, withdrawals or other transactions and files related to instructions, methods or means of committing the crime of homicide or of disposing a human body. They seize a number of items, including clothing, car seat covers, and bed linens. And the police secure a warrant for his DNA, seize his computers, telling a judge they need to search for this evidence. They find on here, this is the big deal. Okay. Through all of this, they find zero evidence of anything.

Really? They have a theory that possibly she was in the entryway of the home where the ducks usually are, and he strangled her in the entryway and that's why the ducks were gone because they got broken in the struggle. That was the theory. Okay. Later on the ducks are in a box unharmed. So that didn't happen.

It's interesting. But they seize his computer's police find Google Maps searches of the area where the body was found on his computer. Searches, not tied fucking things of right where your wife's body's found, not things like Scott Petersen, less than Scott Peterson by far they found here. This was deep inside a laptop that Brad Cooper used at work, were files that when pieced

together showed a satellite image of the remote site where Nancy's body was found. That's what they say. Now in the documents they describe his uncharacteristic cleaning of the house while his wife was missing, unexplained scratches on his neck and the discovery of Nancy's keys and cell phone in the house When people said she always kept him with her now you get to all of this shit Picks Google map and all this type of thing and they're going hmm. I don't know about this Yeah, so much so that they even think that he faked a call from his home phone to his cell phone To make it look like Nancy was still alive to ask him to get green juice.

Okay. Okay. Well, to find out why in a minute though. They say that he did this on purpose because that's a time when they knew his image would be captured on grocery store surveillance cameras. So he was setting up his alibi and his cover up here. Fascinating. So who gets involved in this?

Nancy Grace and Mark Fuhrman of course. Of course they do. Of course. The two of the biggest assholes that we have to offer as a human species. Never mind that. Yeah. Fucking Jesus. These two loud mouths. So they're talking about it on TV and Nancy Grace said, you know, this woman, Nancy Cooper was a real star. Descro said that she was excellent at ice sports in Canada. She said, yes, can you imagine the envy, the jealousy that must've stirred up on his part? Oh, yeah. And that's why with intimate homicides, we look at family members often because it's in the context of attachment that

envy rage and the wish to be like the other gets stirred up. And she was a star. Maybe he felt he wasn't that is a crazy Insane fucking theory. Well, that's just a Nancy wishing she was a different Nancy Wow Holy shit. She's an athlete and I'm a fucking loudmouth asshole on TV How many NFL players would be murdered in bed by their wives then? Or you know what I'm saying? Like what the fuck are you talking about? That's ridiculous.

Yeah. But everything she says is ridiculous because she's a fucking, a silly person. A not serious. Not serious woman. Absolutely. Not a serious person. July 18th, 2008, there's a press conference.

Brad's lawyers hold a press conference now. Oh boy. To confront the the what they quote as wild speculation about the case and address the notable absence at memorials and press conferences of Brad. One lawyer said, Brad Cooper is a very private man. He's not accustomed to the hot glare of the media spotlight. He never dreamed that he would see his face splashed across television news shows, nor his name in headlines, especially not under these terrible circumstances. Different people grieve in different ways. Mr. Cooper wishes to mourn privately." Okay. Yes. They also said that there's no new developments. And they said, had there been substantial credible evidence pointing to Brad,

I assume he'd be in custody right now. Certainly, yeah. The police chief though cautioned about reading too much into the court documents that have come out. They said when the details of a search warrant become public, everyone must remember the investigations are as much about ruling things out as ruling things in. And if the evidence that comes from a search warrant, not the warrant itself that makes a difference in the case.

Just because there is a warrant. The DA in responding to the Brad's press conference here said that they don't see a man in mourning at all. They see what they've seen many times before in domestic homicide cases. They note that Brad had never called the police and wasn't checking for updates about the case. His reactions seem muted and dull. This guy said, I've been doing it for 25 years and I've seen, unfortunately, a lot of middle to upper-class husbands kill their wives.

And it's classic the way they act. Right. That's it, yeah. He said he knew in domestic homicides there was nearly always a divorce pending, sometimes a girlfriend. The husband was usually a man who couldn't strike, who could strike people as a bit strange, who seemed to have a secret side others didn't often see. This is very generalization here. Sure is, and they really don't like him at all. No.

He goes on to say, and they often tend to be volatile and in public in their criticism of the spouses. That part of this is sort of classic psychological domestic abuse, you know, because you get to talk shit about the person and they can't say anything back. So Nancy Cooper's friends are asked to turn turnover documents that they have about their troubled marriage, anything that text messages, letters, all their dirt. Yep. So according to the records, attorneys for Bradley Cooper have ordered his wife's friends to turn these over, they subpoenaed them diaries, appointment books, phone records, pictures, anything that might prove backup

statements made in affidavits filing after the death. Friends claimed that Cooper was emotionally unstable, unfaithful, and had been controlling and demeaning, but more than a dozen of her friends challenged the subpoena ordering them to turn over the information. So Brad's friend, the tennis guy, the guy who's supposed to play tennis with, said he was pressured by others to file affidavits pointing the finger at Brad for the murder. He also said that Nancy Cooper had a tendency to exaggerate problems in her marriage. He said-

He's laying in a gully, man. So- Now. Well, they're saying, though, that doesn't mean he did it. So this guy says, one example of the exaggeration is the story of how Nancy was trapped because she did not have a car He said Nancy was only without a car for a short period of time Nancy told me it was her own decision for wait to wait for the dealer to find the specific Preferred pre-owned model and year BMW x5 that she wanted. That's why she didn't have a car.

She was waiting for a specific $70,000 car. That's why. M3, yeah. Jesus Christ. Now friends say that police, another friend says police pressured him here. That's Mike Hiller, same guy. He says that police tried to coerce him

into admitting that he repeatedly called Nancy Cooper's cell phone to help her husband explain his whereabouts. Hiller said that police began questioning him with a conversation about the morning of the disappearance, but the mood and tone of the conversation quickly changed when a big nice detective entered the room and put him in the hot seat by accusing him of using Nancy Cooper's cell phone. Basically what they're saying is he called using the cell phone, yes, to set it up. A detective told Hiller that a witness saw him using her cell phone. And Hiller said, I don't know where they were getting that. I didn't use her cell phone.

I didn't help Brad and I didn't hurt anybody. Okay. I think they believed me that I was being truthful. It contradicted everything that I had been talking about up to that point I was like, I don't understand it He said he was shaken up after this incident and didn't understand what the fuck the cops were doing He said police told him they had to investigate Bradley Cooper because if they arrested someone else for the slaying without Investigating her husband a defense attorney would accuse them of doing poor police work on rightly

Hiller said they've the cops have interviewed him three times, most recently about a few weeks after the murder. He said that he accused the police of doing good cop, bad cop tactics while trying to coerce me to admit that I made calls on Nancy's cell phone to help Brad establish an alibi. He said they're doing a good job with the information they have. Personally, I wish they could put everyone who is in Cary that day under that kind of pressure if it gets to the bottom of this Said I'll deal with it because I mean this is what you have to do. They pressured me I didn't have anything to do this. So I don't care but

Somebody that did it. Maybe they'd maybe they'd crack Yeah, exactly Hiller said he and his wife were there with the Coopers at the barbecue and he said I specifically asked Nancy Friday night if Brad could play tennis with me at nine 30 the next day. And Nancy told me, yeah, that's fine. Piller said that Brad called him about nine 15 a.m. and said Nancy had not yet returned from her jog. And then Bradley called him three more times that morning. Finally at 1004, they rescheduled the tennis match, obviously.

So also Kerry police here had they this is the biggest tennis match, obviously. So also, Carrie Police here had, this is the biggest fuck up of all. Okay, they get Nancy's phone. Yeah, they rolled around in their bed and they're gonna fuck up harder than that? They way harder than that. They had Nancy's phone, okay? They put it in a drawer for two weeks.

Then a detective calls AT&T to get a tech person to tell him how to download all the data off of it. Okay, this cop hears this, doesn't do it as he's on the phone, does it later at another time and erases the entire phone. He erased every bit of information off the fucking phone. They have none of her Social media and then confirmed it. Yeah, none of her social media none of her texts None of that none of all of the shit that would say exactly if she was talking to someone else if anyone else could have

Been there all of this gone poof gone Fucked up how stupid that guy feels. He's gotta feel like a complete idiot. But later on, I don't think he does feel too stupid. I had to go buy a phone recently, and you can do it at home? Like, they send you the phone and you can switch it on?

I took it right the fuck to the store. I'm like, I'm not doing this. How will fuck this up? It's a pain in the ass. They looked at you like you were 75 when you walked in there. Here we go another person can't figure out how to start their phone. Here's a guy they can't transfer information. Here he comes. I will delete everything I own. You do it. I will ruin my next booked flights if you don't do this.

Oh so the theory is they think that either Brad might have come home early from the party, got the kids secured in the room, then when Nancy went to sleep, he grabbed her from behind and choked her out, dumped her body at the spot already chosen, cleaned the house, washed the clothes, used his telephone skills to fake a phone call to make it appear as if she was still alive. That's a lot. They theorize that Brad strangled Nancy when he returned home from the party after midnight, that he removed her dress, dressed her only in a sports bra to make it appear as though

she was assaulted while driving, then transported her body to Fielding Drive. They speculated that since Brad was a voice over IP expert, he must have automated a phone call to make it appear as if Nancy called while he was on his way to the store. Okay, that is crazy. All right, everything would have had to work out perfect for that shit. Sure would, yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of things here. The murder plan would have- He's got two kids to deal with while that happens, yeah. And they're gonna be alive and awake and all that. The murder plan would have- He's got two kids to deal with while that happens, yeah. And they're gonna be alive and awake and all that. The murder plan would have consisted of Brad pulling his car to the garage in the middle of the night to place the body in the trunk,

hoping it wouldn't leave a trace of evidence or wake the neighbors or his daughters with any of this noise. Also include leaving his daughter's home alone three times, first to get rid of the body, then two more times with the trips to the store and to set up an alibi. There would also be the risk that they would wake up,

become terrified of being alone, and more risk that they would possibly inform someone that they were alone, which would fuck up his entire thing as well. There's a lot of risks to be taken here. Not to mention, you know, tracking dirt from the dump location. He could get pulled over, he could get an ax.

There's a lot of different things here. Absolutely. So October 2nd, 2008, there's a custody deposition. Again, no one's been arrested. Wow. So the prosecutor's reason he shouldn't be able to have his kids. Nope.

So the prosecutor said that he saw exactly what he expected from Brad Cooper, a man still angry at his wife and taking the opportunity to further demean her. Brad spoke repeatedly about how she spent too much money, drank too much, and was never happy with anything he did. The prosecutor said, she's the mother of your kids. You can't, you say you didn't do this. Well, how about shedding a few tears and saying what a great woman she was and how much everybody's

going to miss her? Well, you're in the middle of a divorce, so you don't feel that way about her. Yeah, to me, if he said that, that would seem disingenuous because you'd be going you were divorcing her you don't think that about her. You don't love her at all. You've been fighting like crazy and this guy says but they can't do that because they've never been positive toward them even when they were alive. That could be true too that's the thing.

You could go either way here. So they said during this in the deposition Brad Cooper swore he'd never been to the spot where Nancy's body was found and didn't know anything about it except when he'd seen it on the news. That contradicted the evidence of the FBI investigators who had forensic computer evidence that he said that said he did a Google map search of the area, zooming in on the exact spot where her body was found. The prosecutor said that was like kind of enough is enough. Let's charge him. So the judge awards custody of the kids to the Nancy's family. And on October 22nd, 2008, they charge him with first degree murder. And they said this has never been a case of a jogger randomly attacked. It was a case of domestic abuse of the worst kind.

So yeah, it's a lot. Now, immediately there is a free Brad Cooper movement. Really? Oh yeah. There's a whole blog going on out there of justiceforbradcooper.wordpress.com. Look at that. They love blogs. This is a 100% Scott Peterson sister-in-law situation going on here.

So oh yeah, people are waiting on the forums and there's because now it's the internet. So I mean it's people are, you know, talking about what they think they are. It's fucking crazy. There's an episode of Dateline about the murder. A book comes out called Love Lies, a true story of marriage and murder in the suburbs. Yeah, it's a lot. But a biologist whose husband worked at Cisco was so convinced of his innocence, Brad's innocence, she started a free Brad Cooper website and blog in his defense and later

will write a book. Is that right? Yes. This is crazy. At one point, there were t-shirts being sold with pictures of other suspects in the murder, including Nancy's family. Is that right? Yes.

Nancy's family and friends tried to ignore the shit. Nancy's younger sister, Jill, went on vacation in Hawaii when she saw a young man wearing a free Brad shirt. She approached him. He told her that he got it at a thrift store and he doesn't know what the fuck it even is. I just needed a shirt. It was 50 cents.

It was in good shape and it's 50 cents. I don't know what to tell you. It hides my nipples. So yes, now 2010 there's a scandal. An independent audit of the North Carolina SBI revealed that a crime lab analysts, or many of them, were routinely withholding more sensitive blood tests that were exculpatory to defendants. There were over 200 reported cases of this.

The Cooper investigation happened in 2008, which is right in the middle of when this was all going on, which we've had that happen in other states too. In New York there was a guy in Virginia, I want to say. 2011 in March is the trial. Okay. Here we go. Ten women and two men on the jury. That doesn't bode well.

No. Now, they tried to get it moved somewhere else, but they didn't. It didn't work. This trial lasts two months, 36 days of testimony. Yikes. Wow. That is amazing. The prosecutor said in his opening, you'll be convinced that Nancy Rents Cooper never went for a run on July 12, 2008, and that Bradley Graham Cooper killed his wife and

is guilty of first degree murder. He said that there is no physical evidence, blood, hair, fingerprints, witnesses, anything. The one piece of evidence they have is Google map search. And the search and the zoom in. And then the zoom in of that same, the same one piece of evidence. That's the only piece of evidence they have. That's enough.

Literally. Nothing else, which is tough if you're a prosecutor to put that. Now the defense said, this is his, their lawyer, the husband must have done it because we don't have another suspect. They had a theory and their theory was that it was Brad Cooper. That's it. That's why he's sitting here. They got nothing else. They also said the defense team contends the medical examiner's report will show her stomach was empty, but there were traces of caffeine in her body. They say that shows that the likelihood that she woke up and had some coffee in the morning before her run, which is exactly what he said.

She got up and made coffee. So they talk about the extra marital affair and they also said, well, she had an affair too. And years after that, she had an affair with a guy from Florida. Then she had another affair in 2005 that we'll talk about here. Defense attorneys questioned basically everything. They questioned all the neighbors. Nancy Cooper told her sister that the husband across the street, Craig Duncan, her friend's

husband made advances toward her one night and it disturbed her and made her uncomfortable. Her sister said she was creeped out. So the defense is saying, she literally rebuffed this guy's fucking sexual advances and they live across the street. What if she told this guy's wife? Maybe he had motive to kill her. That's what they're saying. So the whole fucking trial basically is, and also in the opening statement, they just skewered

the police for erasing Nancy's phone data. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fun. Fuck. They talk about this whole thing is just a big, juicy, it's just affairs and fights and behind closed doors and it's real fucking juicy here.

They said, you will hear from a click in and around Carrie the defense attorney said they are pretty they are popular They are affluent. They are highly successful and they're all gonna say that they hate Brad They said also you're gonna hear a lot about money whether it was Brad's $135 135 thousand dollar salary his wife's 24 grand American Express credit card debt or of shit that compounds with interest Oh 24 grand American Express credit card debt or shit that compounds with interest Oh Amex you don't want to fuck with Amex. No, no, no, no Fucking life. They will destroy you your house will be an Amex Center anytime sometime soon So now affairs here we go one point the jurors here that Bradley Cooper said he'd had sex with Heather Mitor in the master bedroom, like we talked about. In another, they heard

of Nancy's rendezvous with a man she brought home from a Halloween party who washed the makeup from his costume before they ended up naked on a couch together. Nice. John Pearson is his name. He told the jury he was too drunk to remember the extent of their involvement. Oh, you dummy! Blackout drunk. So, here we go. They find out that their second child was born eight months and 24 days after they were together.

Oh no. Yeah. Oh, the youngest? Yeah, and they never did a paternity test to find out to eight months and 24 days is after Halloween. Oh, that's brutal, man. So, um, he said that he and Nancy discussed the timing of the pregnancy and she told him he's not the father. Well, of course it'd be a lot easier to just say, yeah, you're not the father. Don't worry about it. Don't worry. I'm married. He's, I'll convince him. He's he said we both agreed that we didn't remember the intercourse.

So it didn't get that blackout drug naked people never fuck. Right. Is that, is that a rule? I guess no. Heather Meador also comes up on the stand and said that Brad Cooper had an affair with him, and, or with her, and everything like that, and everything. Cooper admitted to having an affair with her, and she was also the subject of an alienation of affection lawsuit brought by Pearson's ex-wife.

Apparently, yeah, Pearson's ex-wife was suing him and included Nancy in it because they fucked. So, wow. He said he recalled they were both naked on the couch but didn't remember much more. He said he had limited contact with Nancy after the incident and that they didn't speak much, but the defense produced phone records showing more than 10 phone calls made between Pearson and Nancy between early May and the middle of June 2008, which is when she was killed. And the phone records show that a series of phone calls between the two also happened in May 2007. He talks to her all the time. Pearson said the phone calls in 2008 were of limited substance. He said the ones in 2007 came after Nancy confirmed

that Brad had the affair with Heather Mitor. He also said that besides the 2008 meeting and bumping into her at a grocery store in June he didn't besides the ten times we talked and the one time I saw her in person the month before she was killed I hadn't seen her at all. But he also says he has an alibi for the night he was murdered do you know where he was or the night she was murdered you know where he was? In bed with his wife. At his apartment with Heather Mitor. Holy shit! Heather! God damn woman! Good for you Heather. Heather's getting it. Who doesn't she sleep with in this town? My word Heather. It's crazy. So then they bring

in a colleague of Brad's at Cisco, talked about a phone account set up in Paris. Through that account, according to testimony, Brad could, if he wanted to, route calls to and through Paris to other phones. So, because they alleged that he was having different shit routed. So yeah, they say that they think that he called a Cisco voicemail system in Ireland and sent a three second message to his office phone in Research Triangle Park.

A colleague of Cooper's at Cisco spent the time on the witness stand talking about how internet phone systems in a murder trial, you know, how this all happens. They said that Brad Cooper, within 16 minutes of on morning, when his wife was reported missing, Brad Cooper made four checks of his voicemail on two phones, which would make sense to see if she called and left a voicemail. Sure, sure. But I mean, it also could be bad. It could go either way. They said they received the voicemail message that Cooper forwarded through a Cisco system

in Galway, Ireland to his Research Triangle Park office. That was a message that Cooper had not received. It said test one, test two, three. Why is he doing that, though? I don't know. He told who knows for work. Who the fuck knows what they do over there? He told police that he made two trips to a Harris Teeter that morning before she left for a run and all that shit.

So that's what they're doing here. So prosecutors say with his professional expertise and technology, he's capable of making a fake phone call from his home to his cell phone that morning to make it look like his wife was alive. Okay. That's it. Now, quick trial break, by the way. The neighbors who were forced to reveal

all sorts of trysts and affair, and affairs during this trial are not happy. The trial revealed secrets that are now known to everybody around there. One Carrie woman, Angie Barfield, watched hours of testimony that unwound the lives of the most sociable people in her neighborhood. She said, I would never dream up half the things they got themselves into. She only lives a few hundred yards away from the Coopers home. She said she'd seen them and their friends

touring the neighborhood with wine glasses in hand the year before Nancy Cooper died. She moved in before it exploded in price. She's like these fucking yuppies. And she said we dress the same, we drive the same cars. So like I know these people I feel like. So she said but she realized she didn't know her neighbors when she heard everything from the trial. Doing terrible things like this, Jesus. She said, I can sit and watch what you did, look inside of your homes to see that you can have that

much of your life on parade is sobering. Also, they talk about no signs of sexual assault. The defense tries to say that the degree, this is July in North Carolina, and that it's probably, it could be too degraded to identify sperm in the same way that, you know, it happened otherwise. Nancy's friend, Teresa, says that Nancy told her

she slept in jeans in her pocket, they brought her on. Another runner spent several minutes on the stand talking about how they put on a sports bra literally she explained that the sports bras often bunch up under the arms when women women first put them on but it would be uncomfortable to go out for a run without pulling the sides down yeah if you watch one put on sports bra they put their hands in and pull it down yeah yeah, that looks like a nightmare, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot here.

Also, the Google Map shit, they bring in that, and the defense team raised questions about the validity of the timestamps on the laptop files. They're saying, those searches came after the body was found. Oh. That's what they're trying to say. Okay, so maybe he's looking for where, yeah.

Where they say they found her, okay. And the judge ruled against the defense's attempt to classify two witnesses as forensic experts to raise questions about the computer evidence, and they weren't allowed to do anything with the computer evidence. Wow. Yes, a psychologist testifying for him said he was behaving normally under the circumstances.

Several strangers who swore they saw Nancy the morning he said she was jogging. The verdict comes in here. Now what do you do? The circumstantial, the just kind of inference evidence is huge. He seems real guilty. Does he but the oh well, I mean just the fact that you know, she wants money from him and all that but an alibi Evidence I mean lies. Yeah motive wise is huge but evidence wise all they have is Google Maps

They did not find one drop of a sign of a struggle in that house. Nothing They find him guilty of first degree murder. First! First. Which if you think Scott Peterson, they didn't have enough evidence to convict him, they had a hundred times more evidence to convict him than they had to. They had a hair, they had DNA, they had him searching tidal pools a month before he bought a fucking boat for Christ's sake.

He's missing four anchors and her body's missing four limbs. Yeah. Telling his girlfriend that he's like in Paris for New Year. Like he's... Jesus. So the parents are all decent Canadians, by the way. Nancy's parents walked across the courtroom to shake hands with his parents and said, I'm sorry for your loss.

You're losing a kid too? Yeah, and they all hugged and fucking, because they're Canadians and they're nice people. If this was just Americans, they would have been beating each other up. They'd have to separate them with fucking bailiffs for Christ's sake. So the jurors get thanked for their shit here and the judge says, I have reason to believe the issue will be the subject of a television documentary and a book So sentencing comes in Okay, you sir may fuck off life in prison for Brad. Yeah. All right

The district attorney said I think the jury has spoken The only thing that was dishonest about this was the defendant's defense. The jury was not swayed by those shenanigans Shenanigans he those shenanigans. Shenanigans. Shenanigans. He called shenanigans. The defense attorney said, we're disappointed in the jury's verdict. We believe the case for Brad's innocence was strong. We felt that the jury had been permitted to hear the testimony of our computer experts. The verdict would have been much different. And they say, but looks like we have a lot of shit to appeal on basically. And Nancy's twin said she hopes to hear from Brad someday. Really?

She said that, yep, she said that was the safe guy, the guy that wouldn't cheat on her, the guy that wouldn't hurt her. And he says that she says I want him to talk to me because I want to know why. Well, I mean, I don't. Yeah, I mean, lady, I don't. Yeah, I mean. Tell the lady, I don't think he's gonna tell you. The town manager said, with today's verdict and despite the very public and hurtful allegations

to the contrary, it's clear that they are exemplary and carry is served by the best, meaning the police force. You were raised a murder victim cell phone, David. You're not the best. Best cops ever. You're definitely not the best. We know that. You might not be corrupt or awful, but you're certainly not the best. You're inept. You're definitely not the best. We can we know that you might not be corrupt or awful, but you're certainly not the best. You're inept. You're inept at best. They work tirelessly

professionally and with unimpeachable integrity against their own current that they created. Now he appeals a three judge appellate panel issued a unanimous ruling. State Attorney General Roy Cooper, no relation to Brad, sought review of the decision by the state's highest court. Brad's attorney in return asked the state attorney general's appeal for review be dismissed. That's because the evidence in the case was largely circumstantial.

Jurors said afterwards the prosecutors won with the computer evidence that the defense never got a chance to try to argue. The defense argued that the police investigation was completely inept and who's to say why would their computer shit be any better than the rest of them? They questioned the timestamps of the files. The judge ruled against us bringing in our own experts. The panel of judges here says the appeals court panel added whether the error was constitutional

or not failure to let Brad Cooper use his experts at trial was a key error that warrants a new trial. Okay. So they said there's reasonable possibility that had the error in question not been committed a different result would have been reached at trial which is exactly what this appeal is for. So he's granted a new trial. Not so fast. He takes a plea.

What? He takes a plea to second degree murder. Okay. As part of the plea, they ask him, did you do all this? And he just has to say yes, but he doesn't have to describe anything. Okay.

Now, during this plea here, this is obviously a big difference. They said, did you in fact kill Nancy Cooper and dump her body on Fielding Drive? He said yes. That didn't elaborate on anything else, no apologies. Part of this plea bargain was he gives up the rights to his children who are being raised in British Columbia. He did it?

He did it? The judge says he found it repulsive that Brad would bargain away his rights as a parent to spend less time behind bars. But the in-laws agreed to the agreement so you sir may fuck off. 12-15 years in prison. Which is nothing like life. He has to spend 12 years in prison but but he'll get credit for 2100 56 days Seven served already which is already a shitload more than five years

he could be released seven years from then and The Rences said that his granddaughters would be teenagers by them then and they could decide for themselves If they want to have a relationship with their father. What the fuck? Yes, so Gary Rents said, when we started this process years ago, one of the first things I said was that I wished the person who was responsible for this crime would come forward and acknowledge their guilt

and own up to their behavior. That's happened today, meaning when he said yes when he pled. Meanwhile, on the internet, everything went up. People are, it's conspiracies and he took the plea just for the shorter sentence. Justice for Brad is there, the Justice for Brad blog, Lynn Blanchard writes extremely lengthy posts.

I have another 10 pages of her shit that we don't have time to read at all. But she talks about all this shit have, you know, he's, it's fucking crazy. By the way, Jill, the sister started a program in Edmonton for abused women, a domestic abuse program. Which is very nice. He had to do it, right? I don't know who the fuck else could have done it. You don't take that plea if you didn't do it Well, you do because it's that or life

It's that you're gonna go back to trial with the same evidence and they could convict you if my attorney's telling me listen You did five you're gonna get out in seven if you just shut the fuck up and say yes Or you might be going for life without yeah You want seven more and then just get be done and you can go see your kids or what? So I mean whether you did it or not, it makes sense. Honestly, like a lot of people that didn't do it, they'll take a plea because they think they're going to get convicted and you know, they're already in anyway. So what's the difference? 2020 Brad is released from prison. Already out. He's out, baby. Yep. He's out But the US authority said the US immigration and customs enforcement would take him into custody

Immediately upon release and begin the process of deporting him to Canada Okay, isn't a little not allowed to contact his daughters who were 16 and 14 at the time and this is nice, too The family this is the Alice Stubbs who Nancy had contact who's now speaking for the family She said the family. She said, the family doesn't want revenge. They've never wanted revenge. The only thing they've wanted was to protect Katie and Bella and they've done that. The silver lining, I think, is that when he pleaded guilty to second degree murder and

admitted that he killed her, those children were protected. And from my standpoint, justice was done in family court. Okay. Now the book is called Framed, an Examination of the Nancy Cooper Murder Case by Lynn Blanchard. That's what it is. And she explains in great fucking detail about shoes. There's a lot of shoe discrepancy. The cop saying her shoes was gone.

There's missing shoes, but they're not actually missing. They're there. A lot of shit about shoes. The bleach thing they talk about, and the computer thing. There is pages and pages and pages of how they, of why they believe they fucked up the computer evidence based on their experts, based on the defense experts telling on it. So it is a lot. Basically I think he fucking did it and did it in a way where he left no fucking evidence

and did a very good job of doing it. Yeah, sounds like it. Jesus. That's what he did. He had a very good dismount, but I think he did it. You had to because there's no other suspect. The only person mad at her is you. I mean, it could have been a random person picking her up off the street and because

she was found, you know, with just a fucking sports bra pulled up. It's, I mean, I don't know. Most people wouldn't want their, even if they're divorcing, they wouldn't want their wife like exposed like that to everybody. You know what I'm saying? So I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm 75% sure that he did it in my own brain. 75, 80% sure, but I don't think there's any evidence of it. I don't take a plea unless I did it, to be honest. Especially if it comes to my kids, man. I'm screaming forever. I get it.

There's a lot of people that are, what you think about that, if you're 35 years old and they go, would you like to get out when you're 42 or never? That sounds like, and you've already done five. That's, I'd take that deal whether I did it or not, honestly. Cause you, if you didn't do it, you sat through a whole trial where you got convicted of something you didn't do. Right, right. So you are gotta be leery of a trial system because you know you didn't do it the first

time and they still convicted you. So I'm taking the deal personally just because the world sucks, either way I think he did it anyway there you go that is Cary North Carolina it's a crazy case you see why we went to a little bit bigger town yeah but it's very small-towny I mean there's nothing city about that shit it's all jogging around the woman jock yeah it's a small town as it gets so if you like, tell the world about it. Get on whatever app you're on and give us five stars. It means the world to us.

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You get everything there's back catalog of hundreds of bonus episodes You've never heard new ones every other week one crime and sports one small-town murder this week We're gonna cover for crime and sports one of the worst people has ever been involved in baseball Marge shot She owned the Reds and was just a terrible nightmare awful person and then for small town murder we're gonna switch up what we were gonna do and we're gonna talk about the Sarah Boone murder trial which has been completed and I watched every fucking minute of it so I have to talk about it cuz it's she testified dude it was crazy I can't wait so what's up face and put it on the stand.

She went down and, and demonstrated how she'd zip the suitcase. That is like a murderer taking a fucking knife in their hand and demonstrating how they stand and then going, I didn't kill him though. Crazy. So we'll talk about that. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show which is right fucking now. Jimmy hit me with the names of the most wonderful fucking people in the world who would never ever put us in a suitcase, dump us nude in a golf course or any of the above. Hit me with them right now.

This week's executive producer Andy Fritch and his wife they're celebrating their 30th anniversary. Happy anniversary. That's a lot of them. Holy shit. Happy happy fuckers. Congrats. Not bad. Other executive producer this week,

Indigo Clark, thank you, Indigo. She is fantastic. She has a sister that listens also. She lives in Arizona somewheres. They're great guys. Thank you so much, Indigo. You're terrific. Other producers this week,

Peyton Meadows, Gary Howard, Janice Hill, Georgia Liptax, Centeno Kennels in Canada, Carly Plimes, I think, Leslie Maxwell, Maxwell, who says it like that, Annie Riffino. Riffino. Maxwell. Irfino, Irfino, Irfinio.

All right, Patricia. This is my man. Patricia Longhorn, May Corwin, Kiara would know last name, Jen would know last name, Brie Rosen, Whiskey Chick, Katie Taylor, Patty would know last name, Babs Michelle, Rich Gillum, JBM 314, Timothy Knight, Linda Ann Nalph, Brian Potter,

Jen would know last name, Kelsey Rowan, Amanda McPherson, Angela Gilbert, Dr. Stephanie Drescher, yep, that is correct. I wanna get that name correct because she spent many years in school for that. Brent Leib, Wendy Stan. The doctor part, not the dresser part. Yeah, that's true.

Adam9750, that is a part of an email address because they put Chinese letters in there that I'll never be able to pronounce. Wendy Stanton, I said that. Be thrust. Jenny Mullen, Kurt Fowler, Devin would know last name, Connor Robinson, Lacey would know last name, Grace Gertron, Jacob. Chinese letters, not characters would know last name, Connor Robinson, Lacey would know last name, Grace Gert and Jacob Heater.

Why would they do that? Are they letters? Characters. Whatever they are, who cares? That's what I love, letters, Chinese letters. What is that, a Chinese H? I don't know what that is. These are all English characters, right?

Nicholas Tilly, that's a whole bunch of Jacob Heater. I said that. Morgan, yes. I don't think that's right. bunch of Jacob Heater. I said that. Morgan Yes, I don't think that's right. I think they just auto corrected. Morgan No. I think it just auto corrected her name. I'm sorry. Morgan maybe. Susan G. Katie Hayes, Michelle Henrichs, Myro, Kelsey Natatovich, Laura O'Malley, Nicholas Dew, Jared Wilson, Morgan VB, Randy Rogue, Rochelle Trendley, I believe, Jamie G, Nathan Springer, Michelle Colison, Rowan8436, Angela Peterson, Zach

Riselman, Madeline Gadair, Sonia Alexander, Lacey Parker, Gilbert Quintero, Jacob Sions, Olivia Alcorta, Storybook Farm, Collette Ormandy, Sarah Sorry, Carly Miller, Kennedy Johnson, Travis Trotrot, LC, Tiffany Organdy, Organdy? Little Orgon Big D. William- A little Or Oregon Big D. Uh, William. Little Oregon Big D? That was so not on purpose and you did not even notice you said that, which is hilarious. William Quimby, Andrea Nunley, Eric J. Reimer's Ghost, Akuma EX, Hope Luther, Misty Belcher,

John Alstott, Taylor would know last name, Alicia Summers, Katie Kapler, Dee Pacheco, Zach Leopold, Wade Fleishacher, Emily Gerrish, Randy Glissman, Lindy Lindsey, Lindsey Behan, oh like the sheriff of fucking Tombstone. Sheriff of Tombstone. Ashley Brady, Noah Jackson, Alicia DiBattista, was he sheriff? He was sheriff, wasn't he? And president of the anti-Chinese party. The anti-Chinese league.

Nonpartisan. Nonpartisan, anti-Chinese league. We all hate him. Ashley Brady, Noah Jackson, Alicia DiBattista. Not us, people in Tentastone. They all hate him because they're nonpartisan. Pasha Stinson, Blake with no last name, Matt Locke. Is that right, Matt Locke, your parents named you Matt

when Matt Locke exists? That's crazy. Kerry with no last name. Michelle Hubbard. Kushal Kesta. Kush, Kush, he's terrific. He's a big guy. Great guy, him and his dad, I love them both.

Amanda Koester, maybe Keester. Brandi Wilson, Liam Parker, Tevin Johnson, Marina Lindland, Sherri Combs, Declan Swans Mark Jones, I don't know what that is. Samantha Redmond. Redmond. Elvis Pastello's real name? Possibly, is that Declan Swans?

I think Declan's, I don't know his last name, I thought that was his real first name. Hunter Pogue, Allison Rodenberg, Lynn Weir, Robin Grenz, Eddamede Erica Labarrier, what? Labarrier? Yeah, all of those. Holly with no last name, Patricia Troutman, Daniel Toner, Ryan with no last name,

Isaac Allen, Lee Buckner, Carolyn Doughton, Doughton maybe, Kira Schwartz, Kevin McCarthy, fucking wow, Jimmy with no last name, Benjamin with no last name, Derp Callie Mertens, Allison Legger, JR Okuna, Megan Mast, Jay Hutchins, terrific, Holly, nope, that's Molly. Molly Miller. Leslie Camargo. Logan Pawaski. Laina. Something Polish. Something Polish.

I've been watching a lot of family guys. Something Polish. That's Night Shift. I've been watching a lot of family guy and he is just, god damn if that show is not one of the best things that's ever been created. It is so good and I'd sit and write all this shit and watch the show at the same time, not really watching, just writing,

and then I hear something and I just have to stop for a while because it's just amazing. It's so good. Lena Patricia, Ryan Quick, Tracy Adkin, Adolf, what? Oliver Titt? I hope not. Lauren.

Lauren Oliver Titt, where are you? Adolf what Oliver tit I hope not Lauren Oliver tit where are you Adolf oh I Adolf Oliver tit all right oh you're a real dickhead for that one really something I'm not proud of you no no you shouldn't be proud either sir or ma'am we don't't know. It's a man. You know that to sir. That was the joke. Yeah, obviously. He's a real dick. Yeah. Lauren, with no last name. Isabeau Blue. Heather Hachor. Hayden Young. Jenny, with no last name. Lori, with no last name. B Doe. Darryl Russel. Mary Morgan. Holly Heldreth, Rosie Parkour, Austin Hurley, Tony Yates,

Colleen Shirley, Michelle Suwala, Becca Otto, Blackice23, Christopher Barker, Daisy Machado, Dan M, Milana Kobic, Evelyn Lankoin, I think? Evelyn, I don't know Joanne Carlin Jenny grubba Austin August August be Stacy Roy Rhett hone Dulce Hall Olivia Rodriguez. Nope. That's Olivia can My daughter and her bullshit music Amanda Davis Karen would know last name Stephanie Roning Ryan walls Morgan little sky Last name Stephanie Roning Ryan walls Morgan little sky SGB Austin green and every one of our patrons you guys are the best. Thank you Thank you everybody so much for all that you do for us

Honestly, you're fucking superstars and we can't do the shit without you. So thank you for what you do for us Thank you for keeping continuing to do that. Tell your friends keep hanging out You want to follow us on social media head over to to shutupandgivemeurder.com. There's a drop down menu. You can find us all on there and find everything you can need and keep coming back when you're done with that. And until next week everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. If you like Small Town Murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in the mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker rated ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange

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