Someone Knows Something - S6 Episode 4: Fragments

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Debra proposes a new dig on a Mississippi property in her search for answers. Could it be the spark the case needs? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks/someone-knows-something-season-6-donald-izzett-jr-transcripts-listen-1.5558068

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This is Season 6, Episode 4, Fragments. You're listening to Someone Knows Something from CBC Podcasts. This is Season 6, Episode 4, Fragments. Owen, hi, kiddo kiddos. How are you? I'm good, how are you? I'm so glad you came. I'm good. Down in Macomb, Mississippi once again, May 2019, and my son Owen has come with me.

Debra's met him before, and they've formed a strong connection over the time we've worked together. She's told me a few times how he reminds her of Donnie. Owen, meet Owen. Found him out in the alley. Debra frisks out her phone and shows Owen a video she's made of a dusty, beige cat she recently rescued back in Maryland. Oh, that's a lovely cat. So the cat is named Owen.

Because your son, he made a good impression and I love him to pieces, so I named Owen. This is the cat, Owen. He looks in good shape. Owen's on break from his university biology program, and he's come with me to look for southern insect and fish species. He also helps me by just being around. He's got a scruffy beard and is wearing tick-proof military fatigues and stays in the background mostly, but when he can, emerges to check in on Deborah and see how she's doing.

He's a part of her life now. All the other cats, you know, run and he's just, he's like a dog. It's like our cats. Deborah's paying for a new dig to search for Donnie's remains at Dr. Noble's farm. To prepare, we spoke a few months ago to Marcy Haddad, someone who knows a lot about the property, among other things. Hi, Marcy, how are you? Thanks for coming. We've been sort of walking around a bit.

If you could just kind of take me around the property and show me things and we can chat about things. Marcy is wearing a thin V-neck sweater, jeans and wayfarers. She's in her late 50s and I've asked her to come out to the Nobles Farm to show me around. She used to visit here often and even lived here for a while. I moved down here when I was third grade. She's also Shane Gunther's sister. Shane and your brother Freddie, you have other siblings?

No, just two brothers. I'm the middle child. Freddie and I are close in age, a little over a year apart. And we were always very close. I'll have to talk to Freddie at some point when the timing's right. Then Marcy mentions her other brother, George, or Shane Gunther. Eight years later, George, which was his given name, was born. And he was born in California. And just, you know, he was just our little baby. He was like a little toy to us.

But as we got older, he kind of just did his own thing. I let the moment pass without comment. We'll come back to Shane, I'm certain. Marcy keeps talking and tells me that her grandparents built this house in the 1950s. Her grandfather had been hired out of Chicago to work at a nearby box company. And we would come up here on the weekends and spent so much time here. It looked a lot different then. We had more trees. There was a long line of pine trees on this road here. You felt like you were in a confined little spot.

So what is now Dr. Noble's farm was used as a cottage or summer property by the Gunthers. It's unclear to me exactly where her family came into money along their timeline, probably not just the Fernwood Box Company. But by the way Marcy talks about her life, her travels, and childhood, it's obvious that she comes from a considerable amount of it. We head down to the barn area, where I want Marcy to show me where she remembers the burn pile being. It's going through into a clearing in the woods here.

I remember burn piles being here. Right in this spot, right where you are. It's right here. Marcy is standing several meters to the south of where the previous trench was dug. The trench barely covers a quarter of the area Marcy is pointing out. Could police have dug in the wrong spot? They think the center of the burn pile was in the middle of that line. No, that's too far away.

That makes no sense. Think about it rationally. Why would you put a burn pile way over there when your only source of water is right there? So you're positioning the burn pile like quite a bit. Would you say the center of it is there kind of thing? And that's about, what, 50 feet from the barn? Kyle said that when he arrived, the wood was already stacked in a neat, high pile.

It was always prepared here with sort of stacked wood in the middle? No, we never stacked the wood. You just threw all the stuff in the middle and then we got to it. Like here, this tree, you know, you'd cut it up and you'd just throw it right there in the middle. You'd throw it where the burn pile, wherever you wanted to make it. And then once, you know, it got too big, then you'd set it on fire. Usually we left it for the summers. There was always a hose here, and whatever you burned, in my world, had to be close enough to the hose, because there was

always a fear that we would catch a fire, because there were thousands more trees. I've seen two photos from Marcy's era that show fire pit wood on the property. In one, the wood was neatly stacked, as Kyle describes, and in the other it's a random bush pile, as Marcy describes, so both versions could be accurate. And Kyle remembers a spigot for a hose being close to where the fire pit was. I kind of remember there being a hose that we brought to the fire, close to the fire. Looking over at the corner of the drive shed, I see a corroded spigot for a hose. The details matter, and they add credibility to Kyle's story. A burn pit near a barn, a spigot.

But differing stories about piles of wood. It would also strengthen the case if other people can remember actually seeing Donnie in Mississippi in May of 1995. I didn't know Donnie. I never met Donnie. The only thing I remember about hearing about Donnie, and I assume it was Donnie was that Shane had a guy that he was in love with and cared deeply for Marcy remember Shane asking both she and their mother sue if he could bring a friend to the farmhouse about a week before they arrived in the spring of 1995 was coming back I guess to get his dogs from mom, because mom had kept his dogs for a while, his puppies. And Shane was coming with a friend of his.

He wanted to show the house, because this was kind of like the family house. And said, can we stay there? And I talked to my husband and we both were like, no, I don't think that's a good idea. He can stay with mom or my grandmother. They were all living in town, so there was no reason for them to actually stay here. And he kind of got pissed off at me. He was upset that I wouldn't let him come stay here, which was like, you know, I didn't really understand what the big deal was anyway, you know. And then after we got in that little tiff, I just didn't think he would come by.

I think maybe he had made some comment to me, like, oh, well, we're not, you know, whatever. I don't know if it was weeks, months. The police came by and said that Shane and Donnie had come by the house and spent some time here. Marcy says she didn't even know that Donnie was in Mississippi until the police came to her door many weeks later. So police came. I don't know anything about it. Police came and said.

They said he was missing. You didn't even know. I didn't even know that they'd come by, really, at that point. He never called. Shane never called me and said, oh, we came by the house and we did X. And that we, you know. Driving over here, I'm thinking, where else, where else could this have happened? And if Kyle, if what he said is true, is it possible that they were somewhere else?

You know, but the police have told me that, no, he pretty much came right here and walked and everything was familiar to him. You know, I wish I had been here to see what they actually did, but yeah, he's got enough information to kind of, it makes sense. Like if you were in a panic situation, okay, I shot somebody, where do I go? Well, to take him out here, if we were gone, would make sense. This is kind of a second home to him. This is a comfort zone for him, or it would have been.

I asked Marcy why she was here, why she was talking to me about burn piles and her brother in connection with Donnie's disappearance. Why would I help out? Because I'm a Christian, because I'm a good person. If somebody kills somebody else, I'm going to tell everything I know about it. I think it's a wrong. It's a moral wrong. It's just wrong. You just don't kill somebody. Now, if he didn't do it, that's fine. But if I can help out in any way I can, I will certainly do that for anybody. And now that I know Deborah, I just feel for her. I just can't even imagine what she's been through. And just my heart goes out to her.

And you know, I've seen things with my brother that I just can't believe some of the things he's done to me and to our family. He's a self-centered, narcissistic human being. So if I can help out, I will. I'm not going to come up with something that's not true just to help her out or help her find, but I think she needs closure. And the thought that we were living in this house,

and my brother did what he did and brought Donnie's body back here, or killed Donnie, or did that on this. To me, hallowed ground just amazes me. I can't, it just, you know, further cements the idea that there's something very wrong with him, you know. He was always very abusive to my mother, like mentally, emotionally abusive. He didn't have the relationship with my mother that he had with my grandmother.

Shane didn't pick on my grandmother. He was very, very endearing, very sweet with my grandmother. Never raised his voice. Just, you know, she was kind of his person. She always took care of him. If he ever got in a situation where he needed money, my mom, she would send the money. And I didn't find out all this until later, you know, that she did some of the things that she did do.

Marcy and Shane's mother, Sue, died in August of 2010. She would have been a valuable potential witness to the Izzet case because she was in the area at the time. What else did she know apart from what she said to Debra in that phone call in October 1995? In that call, Debra says, Sue described in detail seeing Donnie in Mississippi and witnessing an argument between him and Shane. But according to the police file, Sue made different claims to them. Possibly the most perplexing, Sue says Donnie called her in June of 1995. This would have been days after the events that Kyle has told police about. Donnie called, Sue says, and asked where Shane was. But Debra is adamant that Sue never uttered this detail to her.

And police were never able to substantiate Sue's claim of this alleged call from Donnie. I wonder if Sue knew more than she was letting on. Did you ever get the impression that your mom knew something more about this? She never said anything about it. We never talked about it. At first, I've been like, there's no way mom would have hidden anything, or my grandmother would have hidden anything from me about if this had happened with Shane. They wouldn't have protected him, but, you know, I guess with your kids, you just pretty much do about anything. A Mississippi police detective working for Pike County named Perry Ashley

had been asked by Maryland police at the time to interview Sue Gunther. This would have been March 1996. Ashley's report is in Deborah's police file as are notes on the communications with Sue Gunther made by Maryland police about the case. And with the stories

Sue told Deborah and police not in alignment, I really need to speak to Perry Ashley to get to the bottom of them. After a series of unanswered messages, I finally track him down at his home in Macomb. Hello? Oh, hi, is this Perry? Perry Ashley, yes. Oh, hi, Perry. My name's David Ridgen.

I work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I'm investigating a case that I think he worked on back in the early days. The case of who? His name was Donald Izzet. There was a woman in the case named Sue Gunther, who I think you may have interviewed. Do you remember Sue Gunther and any of her family members? The name sounds familiar, but no, that's all it is.

I have actually your document that you typed up about that interview, which I could show you, actually, to refresh your memory. Do you think I could bring that over and show it to you? It's just a one-page document. That's fine. Thanks very much. We arrange to meet later. Who's in charge here of this group here, then? Good morning. Good morning. I'm David.

David, hi, I'm Kathy Meyer. Very nice to meet you. After breakfast, Deborah, Owen, and I arrive at Noble's property and walk down the slope to the area next to the barn. In front of me, Kathy Meyer, the owner of a small archaeological dig company out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She's in a hat and blue T-shirt and carrying a square-ended shovel. Spread out across the field next to the barn, a team of other diggers, each delicately scraping and brushing aside the top layers of soil, millimetre by millimetre, in four or five areas they've deemed looked right

for an historic fire having been there. This is actually the first project like this that we've worked on. Everything else we do is related to prehistoric and historic archaeological sites, historic structures, historic cemeteries and stuff. Same principles apply, though, right? Yes, exactly. What we're doing here is the same exact thing that we would do when we're testing at any archaeological site.

Okay, Marcy's got a picture that said, I found a pick where we burned at the far spot where we first moved there. Can you see where it is? Is it there? I mean, is that where we're looking at those trees? Marcy has texted a photo to Deborah of another area where they used to burn, but it's hard to figure out exactly where it is in relation to the way the trees are now. Owen is good with tree identification,

so he's called over to see if he can figure it out. Hey, Owen. Have a look at some of these burn pile pictures. We want to figure out, historically, the trees in the background, what they became later, and the positions and the sizes and ages and then if you can figure out which direction they're taking the photo from you might win the prize

I think it may have been here that's what they're hoping like I think it may have been here. That's what they're hoping. Like I think it's that tree and that tree are the ones out of two non... like look see that tree and that tree are the only two non pines that I can see in here. Yep. So I think it's that tree, that tree and then the pines in the back. So where's the fire pit? Where's that black stuff? Where is that supposed to be? Should be right... Right where she's standing? Should be right there. He thinks the other fire pit was right here. Some charcoal has been found in that area already, so this new burn area could be the pit

Marcy's talking about. I watch Owen go off to look for fish in the nearby pond and then I remember Marcy telling us about the other fire pit, the one that the police trench barely touches. When I was here before with Marcy she pointed out allegedly a different spot. David took a picture of she and I standing there and it was a good distance from where we were digging before. Let's walk around if you could show us because we do have a I think it's a 1997 aerial photograph that shows a black smudge and we want to see if that's the same burn pile that you're talking about. I go crazy because I keep thinking we did that trench what if we're two inches off? That's the disadvantage of doing a trench like this.

It can be very good if you're hitting the target that you're trying to focus on, but if you miss the target, then yeah. I know this doesn't help in a scientist manner as far as finding Donnie, but every time I came here and I don't know how to explain it, he's there. Yeah. I know it. When Deborah says he's there, she's pointing to the new burn site near the trees Owen identified. Tears drip from her face. Deborah decides to situate herself completely off the dig site in a lawn chair shaded by a tall water oak

close to the barn. She wants to make sure she's separated from any potential discovery of evidence and wants nobody to be able to level any suggestion that she may have contaminated the proceedings. Now I'm not walking to the, I'm not walking and anyone can verify I haven't walked up to any of those, even though they would let me. It was basically my decision not to walk up to anything because just so I could testify that, you know, it'd be totally truthful. Gotta find some orange. Looking for orange.

Each scrape of the shovel reveals dirt of different colors, black, grays, reds, oranges, all indicative of the soil's past. Over time, the ground and its contents can shift and flow, with wind and water erosion away from the place of origin, and a skilled eye is needed to follow the color lines back to their source. Certain colors with ash present can indicate a hotter burn, the kind of heat an eight-hour-plus fire might make. Jeff Meyer, Kathy's husband in a big straw hat, is trying to follow a vein of orange now.

The orange means that fire's gotten real hot out here a little bit. So it's kind of ashy here, but that ash is kind of moving this way, so it's going to be just a tad deeper down here. So you got that mottling. It's kind of an arcane-seeming science. Lynn, this is David. It's kind of an arcane-seeming science. Lynn, this is David. Hi. Nice to meet you. He's with Canadian Broadcasting. This is Lynn Funkhouser.

The most experienced forensic digger on the site is archaeologist Lynn Funkhouser. Lynn is mid-30s and is as focused and meticulous as she is covered in dirt. She's doing her dissertation at the University of Alabama on an analysis of cemeteries and has been doing digs at crime scenes for over 10 years. What are your feelings on the areas here? I think it's all potentially more complicated than we had originally anticipated. I think that might be true

for any archeological investigation and certainly any crime scene. And this conflation of the two just seems to have brought it out even more. How much soil would accrue over whatever since 1995? But if we're talking inches, feet, probably just inches, right? Inches. Inches.

Yeah. Because ash will compact, right, or dissipate somehow? It depends on what they do with it. Because, to the best of our knowledge, they let the embers cool before they were deposited. That'll actually help promote structural integrity post deposition. If they had buried it while it was hot the weight of the earth would have further fragmented it and further dispersed it into the soil matrix. So if our information is correct and we are looking for a depositional event then we should be able to find it and find it intact.

It's just clean so far. Clean meaning? Without artifacts, without cultural material, modern or otherwise. Kathy Meyer chimes in. And so we did the shovel skimming and I believe that we're probably going to be screening this material and we're going to be doing that with everything that we excavate. And then of course anything that you know appears to be bone, bullet fragments, or probably just about

anything that's not natural we'll collect. Once hot spots, charcoal, and ash are found, the group carefully takes samples and sifts them through large wooden-framed screens. Objects from one centimeter and larger are left on the screen, while the rest drops to the ground. Anything that catches their eye as different is kept. Even though this guy thinks he cleaned up all the human remains, he didn't. There's still stuff out here that he would not have recognized as, you know, bone. And so it's just a matter of if we can find it in a real discreet pocket.

What happens at the point where you find what you think is a human remain? Basically, the plan will be, it's very possible we'll come across bone and it'll be such a small fragment that we won't be able to tell if it's human. So we would collect that too. But if we did run across, we would go ahead and contact the DA. I check in on Debra, settled in her lawn chair. She's feeding ice cubes to Lucky Dog. If I give her water, she won't drink it. If I do the ice, she'll sit there and eat it.

She's been eating a handful of it. So they do all these tasks, they set up, they do the mapping, they get it all set to go, and now she's troweling around the outside edges of the fire pit trying to start from the outside in. So in the file it says that Sue Gunther says that she knew that Donnie was close to his grandmother and kept in touch with her.

So she knew that and she told a police person that. How would she know that? Because she talked to him. He was here. Right. Okay. Or Shane could have told her, right? Donnie positively, positively was here. She said that yes, that Donnie had been here, that they had been here, and that he and Donnie had gotten into a fight, argument, in the driveway, and that they left, and then when Shane came back,

Shane's exact words to her was, Donnie would not be accompanying him back to California. There was a person there, but she never said to me, that person left with Shane and Donnie. And there's never been any understanding of who the other person might have been that was present when Shane had his argument with Donnie. She never mentioned a name to me. If Kyle's statement is to be believed,

it rules him out as the other person Sue Gunther told Debra that she saw in the driveway, since he says he arrived on scene after Donnie was shot. I don't know. I know one, but so help me God, Shane's mother did not give me a name. No way. I mean, I'm sure I would have remembered that. Okay. I really want to talk to Perry Ashley. Turn right on Washington Avenue, then turn left.

My eyes are like on fire burning. No, my whole face is... You're outside all day, it just wipes you out, eh? In this heat. We head to former Pike County detective Perry Ashley's place in Macomb. I bet you it's up just past this yellow house. We drive up on a well-maintained bungalow set back on a crisply tended lawn. Mr. Ashley.

Sir! Thanks so much for taking that call. This is a microphone. So I'm a journalist, and I'm working with Deborah Skelly. She's Donia's mother. And Shane Gunther was the name of the person who allegedly had killed Donia Izzet and Donnie is Deborah's son. You said allegedly have killed Donnie Izzet? Yeah.

And how did you come to that conclusion? We have a source who has told the story of how he helped Shane burn Donnie Izzet's body on the farm which is now owned by Dr. Nobles out in that Gunther estate out there. I have a file I want to show you and I want you to tell me if it's your signature on it just to make sure it's yours. Where you interviewed Sue Gunther the mother of Shane and she gives a sort of a story about what happened that day. Sue Gunther's dead now so we can't interview her but if somebody else did it looks like she changed her story as time went on through the documents that I've read. Let me read this and see what you got.

Is that your signature? Sure it is. Now, let me say this to you. I don't remember the case simply because all I did was make contact with one person. That's been 25 years ago. I'm sorry. If I had more I'd be more than happy to tell you about it. I'd be more than happy to come to court for you. But I don't have anything. I really don't. It was not significant enough for me to retain it in my memory. Somebody called. I responded to their call and that was the end of that. I made my report, I mailed it to them, and that's all I did. Okay? That's all I do.

Detective Ashley can't remember a single thing about the case, and no recording was ever made of Sue to my knowledge. So all we have is Perry's short two-page letter to Maryland police and their own terse notes about their phone contact with Sue Gunther. In Ashley's letter, Sue states that the only time Shane and Donnie were at her home was in April 1995, when they were on a different trip en route to Florida. She states that when Shane came to get his puppies, which would have been May 1995, Donald was left in New Orleans.

This is at odds with her son Shane's own statements to police about bringing Donnie to Macomb, and with Kyle's statements. Although Sue does confirm to Ashley that Kyle came to Macomb for a few days in May and she says that Shane removed the front seat from his Miata and placed the puppies in a portable kennel where the seat was. She told me when I called that Shane and Donnie were there and that they got into a fight. And that's when Shane left with Donnie. And Shane came back and told his mother that Donnie wouldn't be accompanying him back to California, that he left him in New Orleans. And she was telling me that

the passenger seat wasn't in the car and that it was taken out to transport puppies back. If Shane and Donnie's trip from California to Mississippi was to pick up puppies, as Kyle remembers, what was the plan for Donnie in the two-seater Miata on the way back? Another unanswered question. Deborah is discouraged, but also wants to press on. I want to go over to where Sue Gunther lived in 95. Sue used to live in a bungalow here in Macomb, and this is where she would have seen the argument between Shane and Donnie. Deborah has learned something from Marcy that she wants to check here.

The property where the burn piles are located, now Dr. Noble's farm, is about a 15-minute drive from here. There's a flower box that Sue Gunther had put in immediately after, I don't know, like the end of May, first part of June, something along those lines. She was adamant about having this flower box put in, and her son, Freddie, put this flower box in, and Marcy remembers even planting roses in this, and then it was immediately after that, Ms. Gunther moved to Texas, and I'm just wondering why she was so adamant about having us put in there and moved right away. According to the police report, Sue Gunther moved to Texas and took the Miata car seat with her. Maryland police noted seeing Sue's house for sale in August 1996, but that she had moved before that. All the information I have indicates that Sue could have moved

between a month and ten months after Donnie disappeared. Deborah believes that something might be buried under the flower box at the house we pull up on. The FBI apparently looked in the wooded area behind this house a couple of years ago but Deborah says they didn't examine the yard or dig under the flower box, and she's not satisfied. Turn right on Love Street, then turn left. What the hell? This is like...

Is this where Mrs. Gunther used to live? Yeah, she's on Lakeville. Well, we're going to go to the front and then, um, we can ride to the back and see. Big house. We get out of the car, but I hang back in case first sight of my microphone setup might discourage the current occupant of the home from opening the door. Deborah walks quickly up and knocks. Nobody answers so I watch as she walks beside the house and jumps the fence into the backyard. Deborah's just gone behind this house to see a flower box in the back.

There's another dog barking at her. Then the front door opens and a bleary-eyed woman in a bathrobe appears. I move into action with Deborah still in the backyard of this woman's house. Hello, sorry to wake you up there. I'm with a woman who wanted to know about one of the flower boxes in the backyard here because there's a case involving her son and it's nothing to do with you or the occupant of this house. But is there a flower box that was here when you moved in at the back of the house? Just then, Deborah comes around the corner and joins seamlessly into the conversation.

Well, I've just been living here like seven years. And is there a big flower box? Built above ground, made out of wood. I was here three years ago when they were digging out back. And the FBI had the street blocked off. That's my son they were looking for. They were suspicious that maybe the remains of her son were buried in the backyard.

But the woman, whose name is Greta, tells us that the boxes are no longer there. Can we just have a little look to see where it used to be? Because she knows where it used to be in the backyard there. I just want to see it. Can she show me where it used to be? Is that okay? You can go around to the side. Okay, Yeah, we'll go around. Thank you.

Where was it, Debra? All from the patio. It was over here? The glass-bottomed patio door. And it would have been in front of one of these. Oh, right here. Okay. Yeah. Right off the patio. And then he took him to another house a couple miles from here and actually that's where they burned his body up. Oh, my God. Ma'am, I'm so sorry about your son.

Thank you. That's why I wanted to talk to Freddie, because Freddie's the one that their mom wanted this flower box put in right away. He built it right after Donnie was killed, and then she moved to Texas right after that. Even left all her furniture, everything. Everything she took with her, according to Marcy, tell me when the police was the passenger seat of the car. They didn't search anything.

Maryland police was here, but they never ever searched. There was always conversation. Never searched nothing. They're not going to do it now. She says passed and all that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, I know they came here, what, how many years ago that was? Two and a half.

Yeah, it wasn't too long ago. But thank you very much for your time. Yeah, thanks. For shooting us. Gary. I ain't gonna shoot nobody, but I'm just saying be careful, you know. I, I, ooh, I hate that so bad. Debra shares her theory on what happened to Donnie with Greta.

So he's not in jail? Not yet. But a person that helped him has confessed everything. Oh, so he's going to be in there soon. Hopefully, yes. Well, good luck, honey. He don't deserve to be walking around. That's for sure.

My lord. Deborah gets the blessing of the current owner and thinks she might try to return for an excavation here someday. But for now, we head back to the dig site at Dr. Noble's to see what's happening. This darker area that's got some charcoal flecking. Yeah, and then we'll map those in. I'd helped to set up a white pergola tent over one of the dig sites before we left. They do this so that the soil color can be seen better out of the sun.

And now I notice everyone on the site has gathered around under it. I've approached the margins without touching the actual dig area. I like that we found more charcoal with this one. Yeah, this one's interesting. It's just hot. I mean, it's a hotbed. Yeah. More ruminations about various colours,

different burn areas scraping and sifting. Things seem to be moving along slowly. You finding much more than glass here, or charcoal, rocks? Pretty much glass, metal, heated rock. I don't think we've found anything that has excited us, but we do have a bag of stuff we're going to look at a little closer tonight because we need a magnifying glass. So, but no, we haven't found anything that we're like, yes, this is it, no. We decide to get some rest and start fresh the next day.

All right, let's say goodbye to these guys. All right, see you guys tomorrow then, yeah? Take care. All right, I'll go get Owen. Okay, we will see y'all in the morning. Have an uneventful evening. In my mind, I just want to dig the whole entire area, and I know the money, everything's always money.

I mean, to have it done. Deborah is going into heavy debt over Donnie's case, and paying for the dig out of her own pocket is just a part of that. I just had myself crazy, just everything. It's like, maybe I'm not doing this right. I mean, like, I pray a lot, but last night I was like, well, just maybe if I do what you're supposed to do, because I was Catholic and you're always, you kneel and you, you know, whatever.

And so I kneeled beside the bed and was praying. Like, maybe I've been doing it wrong. It's just crazy. Well, I don't know that there is a right way to pray. No, there is a sort of... I'm no expert on prayer, don't ask me, but... It's crazy. So I'm even more angry,

I'm more confused on why we're still studying here and I don't have a conviction. I just, I don't get it. I don't understand any of it. I mean, I just can't understand how you could say, I helped bury this body and I did all these things and this is when I did it, this is where we did it. And nothing happens to you. I don't think anybody listening would question that. But how does he, how does Kyle, how can he tell all this stuff and nothing's happening?

Nothing, they're not going after Satan. I don't get it. I don't. They can go after him. They can try. But they say they need to have the peace. individuals who have shaped Mississauga into the vibrant city it is today. This brand new series created by Visit Mississauga celebrates a city 50 years in the making, paying homage to Ontario's vibrant, diverse, and dynamic third largest city. Tune in to Visit Mississauga's brand new podcast, We Built This City, to learn more. Available now on CBZ Listen. Oh, that coffee smells good. Can you pass me

the sugar when you're finished? Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing? That's salt, not sugar. Let's get you another coffee. Feeling distracted? You're not alone. Many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with mortgage payments on their minds. If you're struggling with your payments, speak to your bank. The earlier they understand

your situation, the more options and relief measures could be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. Morning. Morning. The next morning, we finish our hotel breakfast and head out in separate cars. Deborah arrives just ahead of me at the Nobles, and when I arrive, her car is parked outside the guest house. So I head down to the dig site to find her. Owen goes looking for sun-basking snakes around the gigantic pond a few hundred meters away.

When I arrive, I see Jeff in the distance skimming across one of the features with his shovel. Deborah, nowhere to be seen. Looks like it's a charcoal or charcoal... Yeah, it's got a little clay cap on the top that's kind of going away and we're getting down to some charcoal and ash now, so not really sure how deep this is going to be. Right.

But today should get interesting, so be on your game because it's about to happen here in just about an hour or two. There's something going on here, I can tell. Then a text comes in. It's got a text from Deborah saying they found human remains. So now I'm going to go back up to where I guess she is. As I near the cottage with the carport, Deborah emerges looking completely shattered.

Tears are streaming down her face. What's going on? They found human remains. Who said that? They called me in and started hugging me and crying. And they didn't want to tell anybody or do anything until they told me. Because they wanted me to know before they called law enforcement. But they won't let me see it or take pictures. I need somebody to take pictures, please.

Okay, well, let's go in. They can't. They won go in. They can't. They won't listen. They won't talk to me about it? No, no. Nothing. They're strictly guarding it. Wow.

How did they confirm that, and where did they find it? Where the tent is, under the tree and all that stuff. I was wondering where you went. I went up the door to take the cooler in to get my water and put in the cooler, and the door was locked, but I could hear them in there talking. I thought, this is weird. And they opened up the door, landed, and it's just for a little bit. And she stuck her head out.

I was like, this is weird. And then she told Kathy it was me. Can I let her in? They said, yeah. And they just stood there. They were teary-eyed and all that and they just started hugging on me and said they found him. Wow. I'm going to have to go over and ask them.

After a bit of convincing, Kathy and Lynn give me a rundown of what has just transpired. Yes, so we found within what we're calling Unit 1, three fragments that have the appropriate consistency of bone, one of which is an absolute. So one of the fragments is definitely bone. I think it is very probably human. We're going to need a second opinion to confirm, preferably a specialist in cremated remains.

When bone burns over time at high temperature, it changes in composition and size. Burnt remains are one of the trickier areas of forensic science. This is underneath the pergola there? Yeah, Unit 1, Feature 1. And was it pulled out yesterday? I remember pieces of charcoal being brought out while I was standing there. That's the kind of stuff that you're talking about?

That's the kind of stuff we were talking about. We needed magnification and we needed to clean it up a little bit before we could be sure and that happened last night. So the process from now on what's the difference now? It includes decreasing the screen size so we've got inserts into the screen. We had originally been using quarter inch and now we're going to move to something much smaller so that we can get finer grade material. We've been collecting all of the back dirt on tarps just for this situation, so now we can pull all of that earth and screen that as well so nothing is lost. We'll widen the perimeter around Unit 1.

It looks like the ashlands that was associated with the burn pile was leveled and that's where we can anticipate potentially finding more of anything even cremation specialists don't get all the remains up so there's no way two random dudes in south miss Mississippi are gonna do it. So color is acting as a good diagnostic indicator for us. We're finding it on a spectrum, which is also helping with our interpretation. When bone burns, it's got a range between black and white that includes gray and kind of a a bluish gray and that's that's what we've got so it's good news.

I'm totally impressed and I'm so grateful so so grateful and of course we're happy to help I'm so glad. I'm so glad this has ended well. Thank you so much. Fingers pressed. If there's anything I can get for you, just let me know. Just do what you're doing. Hi. Hey, how are you? How are you all doing today? Fine. Good. Good.

Is there a crime scene involved? Okay. Word of the discovery travels fast, and it doesn't take long for Detective John Glapion and other police to show up. Glapion asks everyone to make entries in a log of their visits to the site. This is the material recovered so far. A lot of it is the exact debris you would expect someone to throw into a long burning bonfire.

So a lot of glass, a lot of melted glass, melted aluminum cans, firecracked rock. I just wanted you to know, I have not walked up to any of the sites that they've been working on. None. I've always stayed back. I just want you to know that. I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize anything. No, you're fine. You're fine. We still have to get a log. Then I follow Glapion around the perimeter of the dig as he seals the whole area off with yellow crime scene police tape. Want me to hold it for you? I guess you just tie it.

Pretty much kind of get used to doing this yeah Lynn asks me to take photos of the samples because I have the highest resolution camera on site and once police take official custody it could be a while until anyone sees these samples again I agree and so do police. Owen, can you get the D800 with the macro lens now? They found a fragment that looks like a bone. Can you hold this? It's okay. I'll give you guys everything I take too.

Lynn, is there one in particular that you want to, or is it just all focus on all three? There are two. Okay. Photos of all three, but two that look particularly good. With Owen holding the mic, I hunker down on the grass with the fragments in marked bags in front of us. One at a time, fragments are removed from their bags with gloved hands and placed in front of my lens. One or two in particular show spongy holes but they have obviously been through high heat and they don't look like what I'm expecting bone to look like. Could these fragments

be pieces of Donnie? We didn't imagine we'd be doing this today. Is this the side you want? It's this here. Okay. The blue white. That good for you? Oh, it's good for me. Police want me to email them all my photos, and I agree. Okay, I want you to stand up so I can grab that mic from you. Mr. Simmons, good to see you again. David, how are you? Truett thanks me for taking the photos of the samples, and I show him one to get his take. I can zoom in in a way so you can see the ports. Oh, yeah.

So you can tell that that's... I tell you what to. Oh, yeah. Those are very, based upon what I've learned on some other bones and stuff, that looks very human. What is it you look for around there? Okay, as we see, shit I can't even remember what they call it, but see the little honeycomb looking? Yeah, yeah. They're fairly circular. Of course, you're going to see some odd looking, but they're very circular in shape. And there's some others that I saw. Here, see? Here, here, here. Yep, yep, yep. Animal bones are more of oblong.

Okay, okay. And there was something about the color. And I'm told, I've never seen a comparison between a pig bone and a human bone, but they were talking about how pig bones are more human-like than any other animal. But see, you can see

that... There's a preponderance of circular. Yes, yes. So, Truett seems to be edging toward the human end of things, but isn't committing. And it doesn't take long for the local press to somehow get wind of the finding. Ernest Herndon from the Macomb paper walks up to Truett and I as we stand near Deborah's lawn chair. Hey, Ernest, how are you? I'm Ernest.

I'm David. I work with CBC. I've been working with Debra for a while on this now. So, nice to meet you. So, tell me, what's new? Well, I'll start out and just say this. I'm here because they called. We have found some items that look promising. OK?

A high probability of possibly human bone. And we don't know that for certain. And we're not going to know till it's sent off to experts. And we're going to have to wait on that. Now, could it be animal remains? I mean I don't know what to say. I don't know if I'm someone else. I don't know. Well it was described to me as high probability that it's human okay and that's based upon the shape of a particular piece and so nobody has told

me that it's human. They're not saying that but it's a high probability and won't know until they send it to the proper experts. It would be a visual microscopic examination. You're the physical anthropologist. Yes. The archaeologist. Yes. So what did you find and what do you think that it is? So we have right now three burned fragmentary osseous remains. One clearly displays trabecular or spongy bone. Okay. The other two I would like to wait to say until we have confirmation from a secondary specialist. Okay. And right now, based on what we have, and based largely on my training as a zooarchaeologist working with faunal remains,

I feel comfortable and confident saying they're very probably human. Again, that's something we're going to want a secondary confirmation on. We need someone that specializes very specifically in cremated human remains. Getting the samples tested could take a while, several months maybe. As Lynn has been speaking, someone else has arrived on the scene. District Attorney Dee Bates. He reviews the samples with Lynn. This is the largest fragment we found.

I'm with you. Yeah. You wanna see more? You good? I'm good. Okay. Because it gets smaller from here. I believe you.

It gets smaller from there. I firmly believe you. The only thing that I am, no offense to y'all, is I have to confirm with someone that can testify that that is a human being without a shadow of a doubt. I don't think anyone's going to tamper with it, but I do need the good GPS location of that location. All right, we can do that. I want to know, my question to you is... need the good GPS locations of that location. Sure. Alright, we can do that. I want to know, my question to you is, please be straightforward, okay? I think I have been from the very beginning, even things that you don't like, but yes.

I have to, not to be disrespectful in any way, but I have to disagree with that. Okay. My question is for now, what is your next step? What are you gonna do as far as this goes? The items that were already taken have to be sent to an investigative agency, which would be Pike County. Then it will be turned over either to Quantico, if I can actually get the FBI and their crime lab to assist me

in who they have to confirm see if we can get any DNA which I'm afraid is probably gonna be very difficult because I would like to confirm that it is your son I mean I would I would love to. I mean, just be honest with you there. If I can't get through the quantum code, then I have to find another agency that can confirm that it is in fact human bone and that would be an expert witness that can testify in our court system here in Mississippi that they've testified because I've had experts that have... They can't, you won't let it go to Alabama to the expert person they have there? If that's the best I have then that't let it go to alabama to the expert person they have there if that's

the best i have then that's where it needs to go my if i have any say at all at this point i request to go with them because i don't know where that's working there's no reason it can't go to more than one two there's nothing prevents it from going from one location to another besides a chain of custody and no offense to them i would like it would go through a chain of custody through law enforcement. I don't think you're going to tamper with it or modify it. It's just the procedure that actually goes. And going through five or six people, and don't get me wrong here, I could end up with three different opinions. Oh, yes.

And if I end up with three different opinions then I'm in in bad shape. My witness says that it would be here. It's consistent with what he is saying. The witness DA Bates is talking about is Kyle Barnes. But I will say this, this is all going to be picked apart in the middle of a jury trial. It will all come up because apart in the middle of a jury trial. It will all come up, because I can't prevent any of the conflict. But I feel that you have been against us all along.

I've told you from the very beginning, I will do everything that I possibly can. I just need the best expert that I can put on the stand, that I have full faith. I need to find the best expert that we can possibly get because when I put them on the stand and they take a cross-examination they're absolutely the best. And when you brought up the FBI they were real professional weren't they? They've done shit for this case shit nothing. I'm not I understand your frustrations there. I totally understand.

I'll tell you what we can do. I can contact Cassandra Hill, who is an expert in cremated remains. And I can send y'all. It's all right. It's all right. It's all right. Just depress. Take some depress. Take some depress. Get other people. You all right? Just take some depress.

And I will say this. Try a couple. One reason I would like to go through Quantico is jurors are actually impressed with the name Quantico. Not saying that they're the best in the world, but they carry name recognition. Debra, do you have any other questions for me? She said no. Just try some deep breathing. It really helps.

It's okay. So there's no way a person like you tells a family member without being really sure, right? There is no way. I would never put her through that. And it's very common for family members to be on site, and they're usually women. You talk about women's work and the emotional burdens that they carry for the family and that extends well into death. It's usually a mother or a sister or a daughter that's pushing and pushing and pushing to get a crime scene worked or to have investigators come out.

And so they're usually on the site as a consequence. Would never ever tell them if I wasn't sure. People draw away and the energy in the air begins to ebb. Can I get some help? Yep, what would you like? Just hold that like that. The next day, the findings are all bagged up by Detective Glapion. Lynn Funkhauser and I watch every carefully labeled fragment as it is placed into

the paper police evidence bag. Another fragment catches my eye, a bullet casing labeled as a 22. I had heard about it but not seen it. Glapion instantly recognizes it as a different caliber. So this, I did want to show this to you. We found this, like, in final cleanup when we were getting ready for a photo. So it was in the test unit? No, this is not a.22 caliber. Oh, what is it? It's a.380.

.380 is larger than a.22. Okay, gotcha. And it's not melted. Well, we thought it? It's 380. 380 is larger than 822. Okay, gotcha. And it's not melted. Well, we thought it might be of interest. And then these are all the possible bone samples that we have. There is a big one in the pile. Oh. Now you're gonna do what you and I talked about at the same time. Yep, yep, yep.

We're on the same page, all of us on that. Okay, good deal. Yeah. Just wanna be sure. What I'm gonna do is get some little mason jars here, 500 milliliters each, and divide each sample in two. And I put the duct tape on top and seal it in front of the police. The dig has come to an end,

and I'm just maneuvering a soil sampler into position at spots where Lynn Funkhauser and her team of diggers extracted their samples, and in places where they didn't have time to excavate more thoroughly. I'm not even sure how this thing works. Just turn it. Is yours ratchet? All I can tell you is go for it. It's working. There you go.

The sampler is a heavy, hollow steel tube about five feet long with a screw on the end that draws soil into it as I turn a handle at the top. I want to eventually share the samples with two different cadaver dog specialists, Kim Cooper from Canada and another team from Nevada headed by a woman named Mary Cable that specializes in burnt remains. So dividing it in two because two different dog teams, if that comes about, right? That's where there's two jars. Where do you think?

Good spot right there? Yeah. Wendy, do you think I should go? Deeper? Why not? Okay. Yeah, let's get you a good dark spot. A dark is burned.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's get you a good dark spot. A dark is burn. I would say anywhere in here. It will take some time for these samples to be assessed by the dogs, but if they hit on any one of them, it could help determine if Donnie might be here. You hung in there? You did good. You did good. I have to keep in touch with everybody. Oh, yeah, no, I want to keep in touch. You know, give me a call if you're stressing or need to talk or want an opinion on something.

Give me a call. I will. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Take care of you, too. All right. Be careful. Take care. Nice to see you.

All right. All right. All right, Deb, let's hope your friggin' jalopy gets home now, eh? I am like beyond, beyond drenched, beyond soaked, beyond everything. Getting soaked and drenched is the same thing now. I always hate to leave when I'm here. Your son was such a sweetheart. He walked up to me a while ago and asked me if I was okay and that he was so sorry and

he really hoped that we can find the answers. And I thanked him and told him that I really appreciated him being here and you and he said he enjoyed being with you and helping and I just thought that was so cool. He's a good kid. Yeah. I mean you could see in his eyes, you could see in his eyes if you see his pain. I get worried just letting him walk around on this property here.

Oh yeah. I don't think I can imagine being as worried about anybody as him, actually. So I feel every inch of every part of your pain on this. Probably all victims' family members will tell you that all they want to know is where their loved one is. Where they finally came to rest. They want their remains in sight and in hand. And if they can have that perpetual painful unknown removed from their minds, many will say that the hows and the whys and the delivering of courtroom justice almost don't matter.

Deborah has to wait to know for sure if the fragments are Donnie, but the discovery has already changed her posture, her mood, as you would relax after throwing down heavy bags from a long, dark trip. While we wait, there's some unpacking to do. The police file offers some other directions, and for now, as we drive off the noble's farm, Deborah doesn't look back. But she's not done. You've been listening to Episode 4, Fragments.

Visit cbc.ca slash sks to learn more about the Donnie Izzett case. You can also join our Facebook group and follow us on Twitter at skscbc to discuss episodes with others and discover exclusive content. Someone Knows Something is hosted, written, and produced by me, David Ridgen. The series is produced by Eunice Kim, Chris Oak, and Cecil Fernandez, with help from Makala Rana and Emily Cannell. Tanya Springer is our senior producer, and the executive producer of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani.

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