Sword and Scale - Episode 205

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

On January 8th, 2007, the home of Liz Collier-Sweet was set ablaze by an unknown firebug. Little did the investigators know, finding the arsonist would be the least of law enforcement’s worries. When Liz failed to return home after the fire, Law enforcement followed a trail of bread crumbs she had left behind, which led to the capture of a lifelong pedophile and murderer. However, as one homicide investigation was closed, another was opened.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised It was like at insult to injury even in death. I'm gonna torments you Hello once again and welcome to season 9 episode 205 of Sword and Scale. I show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. Well, good evening. Or morning or afternoon, we don't know because it's a podcast and you can listen to it whenever you want. And that's the way they work, I guess.

But wherever you are, we have a story for you today that's going to knock your socks off. Now's a great time to turn to the person to your left and tell them all about it. Share the love. We'll see you on the other side. The The constant vigilance required to keep a secret can be exhausting. Not to mention, our minds tend to wander towards our secrets when we have a moment of silence. It's almost as if they have a mind of their own and want to be revealed. We've all heard of the Bible quote.

I'm actually not sure if it's in the Bible or not, but we've all heard the statement. The truth will set you free. But every once in a while, in fact, more often than not, it's the concealment of truth that'll keep you free. On January 8th, 2007, the Browns Town, Michigan Fire Department responded to a 10am 911 call at 19272 Don Shire Drive. When they arrived, heavy black smoke obscured the entire street, and the neighbors had gathered around to watch the show. The fire department made sure the homeowners, 59-year-old Roger Sweet and his wife, 49-year-old Liz, weren't home and then extinguished the fire. Being the sensitive creatures humans are, the rubber-necking onlookers started calling

Liz and her family before the ashes had even cooled. When I first heard about it, I knew something happened to Liz. This is Liz's nephew Dave, who rushed to his aunt's home in the center of the upper middle-class neighborhood. The streets were kind of like, roundabouts. It had like a big horseshoe, but then it had courts and you know, you could get different ways. It was kind of a little bit of a maze in there.

They were in the subdivision, but they were on a corner a lot so they had like a dead end street so they had parties or everything that was where the parking was and everything like that. If you're looking at their house the one to the right was relatively close and but then they had the dead end so the other house was kind of far away. There was a brownstone detective, met me in front of the house, and state police was there doing their crime scene investigation. So there's a state van in the driveway next to Liz's car, and then the brownstone detective stopped me and said, question me since I walked up.

When Dave entered the house, it wasn't what he expected to see from the massive amount of people standing around outside. There was a little bit of smoke damage, so it seems like it was a really quick fire. Besides some smoke damage, if you wipe down the walls, you probably wouldn't even know that there was a fire in there, but where the fire was, it was so concentrated. As soon as I see it, it was like, that's a cover. It was just in the one room, the one area, and it burnt right through the roof. The fire only damaged the living room, and it wasn't difficult for the fire department

to rule it an arson because whoever started it left the gas can in the house. Kind of an amateur move if you ask me. Contradictory to the gas can being on the floor, the back door was open and the garden hose was left running next to it as if someone had tried to put the fire out. In my opinion I would think the back door was open, so they had a backup plan in case things went wrong, they could use the hose. I never thought that that was the way to Liz left the house, but I thought it was either

the backup plan or the escape route, because they had woods right behind there, and you could disappear in those woods as woods were huge. Behind the sweet home was a few square miles of woods split by multiple drains that fed into the Detroit River. I don't know every inch of it, but from Liz's house, you couldn't drive. You could walk in there and you could walk a mile one direction. It's probably a half or quarter mile, so you got to the businesses behind their house, but the north and south of the woods, you could get lost really. I mean I was in the me my wife were in there at the time for four or five hours before we even found a hunting stand. So, you know, if you have a hunting stand in there, you know, there's a decent side set of

woods. Charles Walls aside, the sweet home was in disarray. Every room was filled with boxes as if someone was moving out. I mean, they had an easement when you walk up to the front door, when you walked in, it was kind of like a sitting room. To the right was a kitchen, and then if you went into the sitting room, it would be the living room. If you walked in the door to the left, it would have been the Lizard Rogers bedroom and two

other bedrooms. The one bedroom was kind of set up like an office. The other bedroom was set up pretty much for Liz's niece. Outside of the home office was something that caught the attention of the brownstown police. Unlike the rest of the house, which someone neatly packed in the boxes, sat a dresser, bench, computer tower, laptop, monitor, and camera, all of which looked smashed to pieces. It was apparent that someone intentionally broke the electronics because they cut the power cords cleanly. The police department reached out to Roger

and Liz, who were supposed to both be at work. The couple worked at the same manufacturing plant, but when they were working there, I believe it was called severed stall. Sold out from, it went from Rouge to Forge to severed stall, but they still had four divisions inside there. But it was a massive place. When Roger arrived home,

the law enforcement canine ran over to him, out of the blue, and alerted them to his shoes. If you've ever had one of those massive German shepherds come up to you and start sniffing around, that is never a good sign. That's when the police asked him where his wife was, to which he jokingly answered, let's probably start the fire and went out into the woods and killed herself. Kind of a weird response, right?

Roger also speculated that Liz most likely broke the computers because she was annoyed over his online gambling problem. Dave, however, let them know that Roger didn't have a gambling problem. Then Roger made the bolden mistake of permitting the authorities to search the rest of his house and car as part of the arson investigation. A detective found Liz's diary inside the living room, which contained an in-depth recollection of beatings she took at the hands of her husband. According to the diary, Liz had resorted to sleeping on the couch with a shotgun

and a hammer, in case the shotgun wasn't enough for protection. I heard from Brown's town detective through her diary that she was sleeping with a hammer under her pillow. I don't see somebody sleeping with a shotgun under the pillow unless they have like a body pillow. And you're not sleeping with a shotgun. You're sleeping with a shotgun

is gonna be on your side, not under your pillow. Regardless of how Liz cuddled the shotgun while she slept, investigators also found her dentures in the fireplace. The diary and teeth weren't the only illuminating items found during the initial arson investigation. Inside Roger's car, the detective found a letter from Liz to her husband, confronting him for having sex with, quote, the retard down the street.

End quote. When questioned by police, Roger denied having an affair, but he brazenly offered up the woman's name from the letter. For some reason, Roger must have been under the impression that police wouldn't question the woman, because she was no woman at all. The person Liz accused Roger of having sex with was a mentally disabled teenage girl. That night when detectives spoke to the girl, she confirmed Liz's belief that she had a secret sexual relationship with Roger, but couldn't explain how long it had been going on due to her mental capacity.

Under ideal circumstances, the police could have asked Liz how long Roger had been molesting the girl, but she was still missing throughout the night. On the next day, on January 9, the detectives swindled Roger into coming down of the station under the assumption he was helping figure out who burned down his house. Roger initially denied knowing who started the fire, claiming he didn't know where his wife was and refuted the teenage girl's claims. However, by the end of the night, Roger confessed to having sex with the girl since she was 16 years old. After the confession, they arrested Roger and thoroughly searched Sweet's home, where they seized the broken computers.

Inside those computers, they found thousands of files containing child pornography. There were photos and videos that Roger had downloaded from a website that required the upload of child porn to receive more in return, and homemade pictures and videos, including a video of him raping the special needs neighbor. While Roger was in custody for three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and six counts of possessing child's sexually abusive material, the search for Liz Collier's suite began. Although Roger was the last person with her, he was at work when the fire started, presumably when Liz disappeared. Dave, who had been in and out of Liz's work plenty of times, believes Roger wasn't

there when he claimed he was. If Liz still had her past, it would be super easy, because most people who had worked there had to park in a parking lot, get on a bus, and get bused in to where they had to work. If you had a pass, Liz flirted with the security guard, even before her and Roger were together, so she had a pass. She could drive up to the gate and drive right to her job. So if she still had a pass, it had been super easy. If she didn't still have the pass, it still would have

been not too hard because the bus driver sees so many people that are not going to say, oh, you just came in 20 minutes ago. Why are you leaving or anything? You could have said, oh, I forgot something. It's not hard. It wouldn't have been very hard at all. During the largest search effort ever organized by the Browns Town Township, officers on horseback, boats, land, and helicopters looked for Liz around their home, but came up with nothing.

Soon members of the Downriver Mutual Aid, Coast Guard and Wayne County Sheriff's Dive Team joined the search. but it appeared that Liz had vanished into thin air. That's when the Browns Town Police Department received a sorrowful phone call from a man who asked to remain anonymous for this episode. I was headed up north that evening and after work, and I heard it on the news 950, that this house in Brownstown had burned to the ground,

and they had broadgers, sweet, name out there. Right away, I clicked, I put two and two together. This was not an accident. It was on my mind the whole night. So next day I called, found out that it was in Brown's town, so I called the police department. And I let them know that this was not an accident and to look into it further.

And the reason was that Roger had murdered his first wife, Marlene. It turns out that Roger was married once before to the late Marlene suite. And somehow, she was back to haunt him. When the Browns town Michigan home of Liz and Roger sweep burst into flames on January 8th, 2007, police arrested him for child pornography and rape of a mentally disabled girl. Liz, on the other hand, appeared to have vanished into thin air. That's when law enforcement learned that Roger was married once before to a woman named Marlene. So, growing up, we were children. I loved to go out and play. We had friends.

We had parties, birthday parties, Christmas. Very happy, go lucky person. Roger met Marlene when she was 14 years old and Roger's five years older than Marlene. My dad was totally 1000% against it because of Marlene's age, 14, 15 years old. He dislike Roger the more he came around for a 14 year old girl, the more he disliked them. He actually was at the point he hated them. Roger exposed himself as a child predator at a young age.

So Roger was drafted into the army. He went AWOL several times. He did not want to be in the army. Impees would come to our house because they found out that Roger, I really wouldn't call it dating, but was having whatever with Marlene. So they would come to our house several times looking for him. And finally, after several attempts of going a wall, he finally got a dishonorable discharge from the army. He didn't want to say dating because it wasn't a real relationship. Roger was praying on the impressionable young girl, trying to convince her a relationship

with him would be acceptable. When the army discharged Roger, Marlene had no one left to stop her from marrying him. Marlene had to get consent from her guardian. My dad had passed away, so after my dad had passed away, it seemed not seem, but Roger pushed his way more so into our family. Marlene really and truly wanted to get married and raise a family. Even though she was young and now that I look back at it, I could see why a guardian was needed to sign the papers for her to get married and they

put the pressure on my mother to do that and eventually she gave in. So she was married at 17 years old. After they were married, Roger gave Marlene what she wanted. Well, Marlene wanted to have a family and raised children and so they had two children, A boy and a girl actually when she was given delivery, Roger never showed up for that. She'd asked me to so I would be there with her and instead of him. On the outside their family looked happy, but the inside was hell on earth. I had found out later in years from the daughter that Roger had raped her on several occasions. It went to court. Nothing never became of it

except for a lot of money was spent on the court. Nothing really became of it because of the fact witnesses. The daughter didn't have any backup from anyone. the daughter didn't have any backup from anyone. So it was actually after a long period of time, in my opinion, thrown out a court. The court didn't throw the case out. Instead, Marlene gave in to Roger and protected him. Thankfully, their daughter went to a foster family and never returned home.

Roger was always in control, probably from the day one that they were married. She had no control because she didn't work and she felt that and I'm I'm I've heard many times that he would throw it up in her face that she didn't work, she had to okay everything through him. Whether she went to the grocery store or any major decisions, and for that, I totally believe that she gave because of the fact she was too dependent on him. Marlene loved being a stay-at-home mother, and didn't have any work experience because Roger courted her as a child. Don't get it twisted.

Roger preferred Marlene not to work because it gave him more control over her. Roger used that to control and justify beating Marlene. Yeah, Roger was abused in Marlene. She had called me on several occasions and told me about it. And I would come over there and several occasions I would stay over there. And at that point, when I did stay to keep my part, Roger never came home. So I would stay there a week's at a time. So she would tell me

that she was only, she was very short right around five foot, five foot one, very petite and and he was over six feet tall. So Marlene would tell me that Roger would pick her up and slam her against the wall and she would hit her head and you would do that several times.

Marlene's son claimed she was constantly covered in bruises and grew up hearing his mother shout, stop hurting me, stop choking me. Roger even broke Marlene's leg during one of his attacks and their son claimed he stuck a rifle in her face. Around that time Marlene started drinking, which was out of the ordinary for her. In the beginning, she didn't drink at all, but after they were married for a few years, it seemed that she was drinking. I'd ask her about that and of course she didn't work so she didn't have the money to buy it and Roger was the one buying it for. He would

buy as much as she wanted. Eventually Marlene had had enough. She wanted to leave Roger, but she couldn't do it alone. I had offered to pay for her divorce, or at least give her a down payment to get it started. The divorce proceedings, because of the fact I wanted her to get out of the marriage she was, where she was abused. So short period after that, a few days after that, matter of fact, she would let me know that her arrider were going to make up. I'm assuming that she brought it up to Roger that she was going to finally get a divorce and

he sugar coated everything and had her trust him again which we found out later was for the last time. Shortly after threatening Roger with divorce she learned that he might have been having an affair and confronted him about it. She would come out and ask him. She was bold enough to ask him a question and expect an honest answer.

So whatever was on her mind, she would ask, are you having an affair? Are you really working 12 hours every day? And what have you? And he would constantly lie. He lied about everything. After the confrontation, Roger moved Marlene to Farmington Hills, Michigan, and cut her off from the world. A few weeks after the move,

Roger called 911 and reported Marlene unconscious. It was right after roll call, so I was just starting, and I was sent to assist the Fire Department Roger called 911 and reported Marlene unconscious. It was right after roll call, so I was just starting and I was sent to assist the third apartment on a medical. So I responded, as I recall, when I arrived, the wife was already in the back of the ambulance. You know, quite a few third apartment

and a couple of paramedics on the scene. This is Chief Kane, the patrol officer at the time who responded to Roger's call. The ambulance took Marlene away before Kane could look at her, but he did take his statement from Roger. I did talk to him. He seemed pretty calm, pretty low-key, something like that that happens. You expect they'd be a little more excitable, a little more worried, and he just seemed to be talking

kind of a normal conversational tone. He had told me that she had fallen down on her own. I believe he may have said that she had been drinking and that she had fallen down that he put her in bed and couldn't wake her up. And as I recall, I went in the house, I didn't see anything really amiss. We're led to anything, you know, any obvious signs of a struggle or anything that was unusual. Marlene spent six days in critical condition at Botzford Hospital undergoing multiple brain surgeries before finally succumbing to her wounds. when they were married and together and they would make plans as far as if I die or you die,

where are we going to be buried. And the reason why she'd bring that up is because she did not want to be buried in the cemetery that she's now in, that she was through life afraid of water. He put her in the cemetery. That's right by a pond. Once Marlene was in the ground, Roger never told a soul what happened that night. This is family remember, the week's following Marlene's death. Roger was hitting on Liz, wanting to go on a date and all this.

She basically told him, okay, give me a note from your wife saying it's okay. And then his wife dies. And it just seemed so suspicious at the time, but I was a little kid, so I didn't say anything, but it was just, as even being young, I knew there was ways to suspicious.

Whether they knew about Roger's interest in Liz or not, all of their friends questioned him about Marlene's death. One of those friends was a coworker of Liz and Roger, named Kathy. And three days after he buried her, maybe it was a week. I don't know what he took. And said that she had fallen in the bathtub and hit her head and died.

And then that was the first one. The second time we were all at a retirement party of a guy named John at work. And he said she fell down the stairs. Another time we went out, she had fallen on rocks outside, bricks something. He told me like five different ways how she died. It only took Roger one year to convince Liz to marry him. And he paid for a cruise to celebrate. Get this, using Marlene's life insurance.

When they returned from the honeymoon, Kathy had a chance to pick Liz's brain about what happened to Marlene. Finally I went to Liz and said, hey, just how did she die? I mean, Roger's saying this and this and this every time he's drunk. Well, from that time I'm Roger wasn't allowed to drink around us or he stopped drinking. I don't know what the case was. And she told me, let's just say she died. So I don't know and I still wondered does she really know what really happened to the

first wife. Liz and Roger seemed to have a happy marriage for years, or at least she pretended they did. Her nephews, who she helped raise, had no clue that Liz was anything but happy. Liz was my aunt, she was the most kindhearted person I ever met in my life, very giving, very sharing, very loving. She would do anything she could possibly do for you. Liz was quite the creative lady that wouldn't stand for any family drama. Besides Liz being a special person, she was great.

She, her aunt passed away. The family was fighting over the money, and so she went out and spent every penny on the funeral. Horse drawn carriage, top of the lion casket. As many pull bears as she could find, she went all out and none of the lion casket. As many pull bears as she could find she went all out and none of the families seen anything because she spent it all in the funeral so there wasn't a flight. Roger did an excellent job of hiding his true self from Liz but her nephew remembered that he made a mistake every now and again. She used to live right across from us and I was trying to watch a movie.

And there was a VHS, didn't say anything, so I put it in to see what it was. And it was a young girl on his motorcycle. Thank you. Being a little boy, Dave probably assumed that was a strange episode of Barney and never told anyone about the VHS tape. Hindsight is 2020, isn't it? And looking back on Roger's behavior, multiple people remember times of him being a little bit creepy that should have stood out.

We were over there one year for Christmas and my daughter, she was like maybe three or four and she was sitting on Roger's lap and he was like rubbing her leg and stuff her mom, my girlfriend at the time, said, what's he doing? And I, because of Trosten years, I was like, don't worry about it. I was like, it's a big thing. You know, he's just patting out on her leg. But then when all this came out, that moment came back in my brain. Monica felt that shit. He was being weird.

And he was taking advantage of a little kid, you know, and my trust where her mom was like, what the hell? Women seem to have a better radar for creepy shit, don't they? Roger managed to keep his pedophile tendencies from Liz up until the year before her disappearance when her niece tried to live with them. Liz spent her days working and didn't have any children, but she found happiness in helping others raise their kids. I remember Liz was so excited. Oh, my mom to my niece blah blah blah blah. And then two weeks later or a month later, oh, I sent her back

to her mom. She was saying rotten things about Roger. I think that's when she started realizing Roger wasn't Roger. What kind of rotten things do you think a teenage girl could say about a grown man that would warrant her not being able to live with him? One of Liz's best friends had an answer to that question. But I do remember Liz being really upset because her sister's kid was saying that Roger was touching her wrongly and she didn't believe it. She thought her sister was just after money from him. So they kind of put ways for a while and then come to find out. Roger was a little handsy with little kids. Liz's niece was the first person to tell her about Roger's pedophilia, but she wouldn't

be the last. His behavior flew under the radar for a few more months before another person confronted Liz about Roger's actions. That's when the neighbors knocked on Liz and Rogers door to demand action. After they discovered he was molesting their mentally disabled daughter. At that moment, Liz realized if Roger was praying upon a child outside of her home, then her niece was telling the truth months ago as well. I was told that the parents told when they caught Roger with her, that they told him to get rid of Liz, divorce her, get rid of her, but you're marrying my daughter. I don't know if that was the way of them trying to...

Alright, you took the burden off us, it's going on you. I don't know. I'm not sure about you, but if I caught an old man having sex with my mentally disabled teenager, I'd kill him. And there's probably not a jury in the world that would convict me. After that incident, Liz started to snoop around Roger's office, where she discovered what was on his computer. Yes, there was. Liz did tell us it worked. there was shit on the computer because she said it was from newborn to 14-year-olds that were on that computer that made her sick. There were images of she did tell us. After discovering one of Roger's secrets, Liz started throwing around the idea of turning

him in to the police. In the month of June, my boss sent me over to her building to pick some stuff up and I ran into Liz. And then she said, Kathy, if I come up missing, Roger did it. I go, Liz, are you in trouble again? Let us help you. She said, Kathy, just remember, Roger did it. That's all you need to know because I don't want to pull you into the mess. So I came back and I told my boss, hey, I ran into Liz, and this is what she told me. And she goes, why would she tell you that I couldn't,

she didn't explain nothing, she just said, Roger did it. After Liz started threatening Roger and telling people what she had found, she started drinking heavily. The problem was was Liz never bought the alcohol for herself. You know that show my 600 pound life? Is it 600 pounds, 800 pounds I can't remember. But you know how those people are so big that they can't actually

leave their home? In fact, some of them can't even get out of bed or walk through a doorframe. You wonder how they get that big and stay that big? There's always an enabler somewhere. There's always someone behind the scenes bringing in buckets of fried chicken, pizzas by the dozen, a plethora of cheeseburgers and whatnot. There's always anenabler. In this case, Roger was enabling Liz to keep her quiet, to keep her sedated. But instead of food, it was alcohol. Because he kept her drunk and she was drunk at work and you think if he loved her, he

would have said no drinking before work or made sure there wasn't any, but he was like, I'm finding out more and more, he was feeding it to her. You would think that a man who lost his first wife to drinking wouldn't want his second wife to drink so heavily, let alone keep her constantly drunk. To her friends, it felt like Roger was trying to keep Liz from thinking clearly. In December of 2006, Liz finally decided she needed to divorce, Roger, and turn him in for what he had done. To make sure she did everything correctly, Liz first checked herself into a rehab facility.

She was released on January 2007 and stayed with a friend while she hired a lawyer. Well, put it this way, she filed for divorce. From what I'm being told it was a woman lawyer, Val argued with her not to go back, but she told her if she didn't go back, she wouldn't see it done with the money. She would, he would get her for desertion. That's why Liz went back to the house, and it's funny how can he say, you know, I don't know where she is and all that when you were the only person with her that night.

Right. And when she locked, Vowel, she was alive and healthy. Maybe she finally found enough guts to stand up to me. The morning after Liz returned home, their house burned down, and she went missing. I believe in my heart that she knew something and it was real dramatic to hang over his head, and he lost control, and he decked her and knocked her teeth out of her mouth and threw in the fireplace, and said, oh fuck, I killed her.

And I got to set something up a new man with smart. He probably got online and figured out what to do with her and set the house on fire and buried her. I know he knows where she was. My personal opinion, Liz did not put up with any crap she didn't keep her mouth quiet. Whenever there was a fight, there was a fight because I heard them fight before. And he said something she didn't like, she'd say, well I got shit on you. And he probably said, this is a bad hand at her and she hit the fireplace or cheese fell out and oops she died. It might have been an accidental thing, but he had something over him to make him get that mad to do that. After Liz went missing law enforcement arrested Roger for child pornography found on his

computer, but not for his wife's disappearance. That's when our anonymous source came forward with the information that Roger had killed Marlene. The Brownstown Police Department contacted the city of Farmington Hills, who opened an investigation. Once enough of Marlene's family members testified that Roger most likely killed her, the detectives asked the Oakland County Medical Examiner, Dr. Dragavitch, how she died. The detectives that were interviewing the suspect at the time asked all sorts of questions. He immediately answered that she died, his first wife died of a brain tumor. So that triggered the curiosity about where she passed away. They found out that she passed away about

her general hospital and then knowing that this is part of our jurisdiction, contacted our office for assistance to double check. And brain of, had the, in the case, a brain tumor, had the brain, a brain was in a mode to accept that, but the brain tumor was nowhere to find. Dr. Dragavitch wasn't the Oakland County Medical Examiner at the time, so he had to dig up Marlene's records and what the doctor found disturbed him. The original determination of Marlene's cause of death was cranial cerebral injury and the manner of death was an accident. The records were fuzzy at best because Marlene died at the hospital and the hospital staff never bothered to report it as an unnatural death. Well, you know, it should have turned on the lights because clearly the documentation, and the photographic documentation, the description of the injuries took more than just one

slip and fall in the bathroom. So with a little bit of greater indexes suspicion, it would have turned on all the lamps in the house, but it didn't. It wasn't as if the damage Marlene had taken was hard to see or difficult to diagnose. The evidence that they were lied to was clearly in front of the hospital staff. Instead of sending Marlene's body to the medical examiner, they sent her to the funeral home, where she was embalmed and prepared for the funeral. It wasn't until the funeral home finished cosmetically repairing Marlene that the more tissue decided something didn't feel right and called the medical examiner at the time. That medical examiner inspected Marlene's body carelessly and ruled her death an accident

based solely on Roger's story. After reviewing their report, Dr. Dragavitch was shocked at his predecessor's conclusion and struggled to wonder how anyone could call Marlene's death an accident. Marlene suffered multiple injuries to her head and face, her brain swelled, and her skull filled with over 150 milliliters of blood. or something like that. Or even a doorknob in the process, but because there were some significant injuries to the ear, earlobe, behind the ear on one side,

on the right side, and then impact on the left side, given all of those circumstances and the actual critical finding, not to mention the falsity of the information given that 38-year-old died of brain tumor. I mean it's a possibility but there was of course no brain tumor. After re-examining Marlene's autopsy, Dr. Dragavitch had no choice but to conclude that she didn't suffer a fall. Someone beat her to death. Well, I change the cards of death to homicide because there was evidence of purposeful act

involved in rendering these injuries up on the victim. So I indicated that death occurred as a result of the assault and at the matter of that was homicide. Dr. Dragavitch spoke nonchalantly about changing Marlene's death certificate, but don't underestimate the gravity of what he did. Proving another medical examiner made a mistake and missed a murder can be career homicide. The doctor found himself hated by many of his colleagues for finding their errors and correcting them, as if their records were more important than allowing a murderer to roam free. There's something about doing that much medical school that really makes you cocky.

Really boosts the ego. Dr. Dragavitch had some critical things to say about how mistakes like that can happen. And frankly, that's excellent advice for life. It's phenomenal if you have a great story and everything matches in the great story. But if even the thingsy little detail is not agreeing with it, can just set it aside. We are expected and paid by the taxpayers to serve them as best as we can. And this is the purpose of this is to elicit the truth. And of course, you can't talk about the nice truth and the bad truth, the ugly truth. Even the ugly is true, is better than the sweetest lie, because there is no way to build on anything else, but on the truth, on the facts that are in evidence.

The truth Dr. Dragovic found was that Roger took Marlene's head and slammed it into an object over and over again, to the point where her skull filled with blood, and she ultimately died from her injuries. If you sustain an injury that renders you unconscious from a single impact, yes, that's a possibility. But why are there multiple impacts? You don't just get up from unconsciousness and running to the wall or the floor and take another heavy hit to your head. This is not probable. With Roger's suite already in custody at the Brown's Town Police Department for child pornography and rape of the mentally disabled girl, they charged him with the murder of Marlene. In 2008, they convicted Roger of sexually assaulting the 16-year-old girl, for which he was serving 10-17 years in prison.

Roger also agreed to a guilty plea for the child pornography charges, for which he received a sentence of 21 years and 10 months in exchange for a concurrent stay in federal prison. On top of that, Roger pled no contest to second-degree murder for killing Marlene, which he claimed he took because he was already going to jail for a long time. For 17 years, Roger kept the secret that he murdered Marlene. And he gave it up, just like that. After Roger's conviction, Liz's friends and family showed up to support Marlene's children. I feel he took a beautiful life, not only one, two, and I feel for those two kids

he had with his first wife, they had to have a horrible upbringing because watching her father beat their mother and all that, it's disgusting. And I feel that she lived now. She might have lived because she might have found the guts to leave her. It's just, it's a sad all over. Although Rodger was in prison for killing his first wife, the search for Liz continued in the woods behind her home. If it was daylight and I wasn't working, I was out there.

I kind of try to set up a grid in my head. Probably wasn't the best thing, but I kind of went in, went one way, I worked my way back the other way, and I still don't think I covered all of it, which kind of got to me. But yeah, it was kind of a... every time my eyes were open, it was either to go to work or go there. On the fourth anniversary of Liz's disappearance the Metro Detroit Crime Stoppers held a press conference to ask the public for help. Jen said this marks the four-year anniversary. Liz made Collier's suite basically disappearing from the face of the earth. We've exhausted every lead. We haven't stopped

this investigation for the four years. It's been going and we're now at a point where we someone to come forward. I can't believe that after four years has been going and we're now at a point where we need someone to come forward. I can't believe that after four years, no one has said at least something about this case. So anybody with any information, no matter how small it might think it is, please call Crime Stoppers and let us determine it may be the breakdown we need in this case to find this and make call your suite. One of the people in attendance at the press conference was Liz's sister. Since all this has happened, we have a family we have been in the state of the state of children. My children, dearly Mr. Ron, I miss my sister, it was my only sister.

We know as a family that she has gone, I've spoken recently, spoke to my family, members as a matter of fact, and we know as a family that she's gone, well we look for a disclosure right now. I don't know how four years have happened and somebody didn't see anything. My sister was almost six feet tall, almost 600 pounds. I mean, how does a 6 foot tall 200 pound woman just vanishes up the face of the earth? Imagine how difficult it must have been to stand up in front of a room of strangers and admit

that you had given up hope and accepted the idea that your sister was dead. If you remember the story, Lizzie made Choir Sweets husband, Roger Sweets is a present probably for the rest of his life, due to this investigation. We obviously feel he has direct involvement in the disappearance of Lizzie made Choir Sweets.

We're striving, he probably didn't do it alone, he probably had to reach out for somebody. As we said, Lizzie Mae was a larger woman. I doubt if he was capable of self-adisposing of her or doing something with her if that's the end result. So somebody had to reach out to somebody. There had to be some conversations somewhere. Even four years later, Lizzie's sister couldn't wrap her head around the idea that Roger might

have done something to her sister. I went to the merch now like that anyway, because if you went to my sister's house, you spent time with them, you went to family barbecues, they traveled, and there seemed like there was a perfect couple, There's no perfect anything. That would be my first thought. What happened? Any major thing that happened in my family, Roger was there. When major trauma that happened in my family, all I had to do was call my car driver and say, Roger, this has happened. I need your shoulder to cry. Would you come to the hospital with me?

Could you come to Georgia with us to be my mother? Whatever trauma was born on Roger was there. He was always the shoulder you could cry on. First thing, you know, if you're going to fall apart, Roger was the one who was going to be the strong person. Where my sister, she would get upset by anything. You know, just fall to the power of Raja, he was a strong one, and he was a one man. When the chips went down, he was a one man who kind of got us through.

Raja was always resilient, and he stayed that way while in prison. No matter how law enforcement pressured Raja to confess, he stood firm and kept his secrets. Has there been any incorporation at all from us? No, not at all. From the onset of this investigation, he simply states that he doesn't know where she is. He had nothing to do with it. In fact, Louise and I, probably in the next couple weeks are going to go to

the prison where he's incarcerated and reach out to him, the Louise wants to speak with him directly. His own children have reached out to him to tell them where Lizzy is and he refuses even to tell his own children that he's had any involvement at all in this. You do think he's perfect? He definitely is. Yes, there is. From the investigation, he definitely is a suspect involved. In the disappearance of her evidence at the fire scene, the leads knew to definitely believe that it was his work that she's missing today.

After the press conference, law enforcement left finding the list suite up to the public. Two more years went by, without any progress in the case, until 2013, when their worst fears materialized. The authorities discovered that Roger Sweet murdered his first wife Marlene 17 years later because his second wife Liz went missing in 2007, while Roger was serving prison time for Marlene's murder, along with child pornography and rape of a mentally disabled girl, law enforcement began begging the public for help in finding Liz. That was until February 15th, 2013, when a hunter was looking for antlers in the woods behind Liz and Rogers old home.

That hunter noticed what he believed was the white color of an antler sticking out of the dirt and dug up a human skull instead. He brought the skull to the Brownstown Police Department and they identified it as Liz using dental records. Although police found no other bones with the skull, they recovered Liz's jacket and inside it was her license. The area was searched on foot with canines without success for weeks until the Wayne County Sheriff brought the dive team to probe the rivers around the woods. Finally, on March 28, 2013, the search came to an end. After years of searching for the body of Lizzie-Mate Collier's suite, her remains were found today, buried in a shallow grave in a wooded marshy area

behind her home in Browns Township, and not far from where her skull was found weeks ago. 200 yards from where the hunter found Lizzie's skull, the dive team surfaced more of her remains between the Blakely, Clark Marsh, and Goodeth drains. Liz's remains had been submerged in six feet of water for six years, which stripped everything from the bones.

Due to the age and condition of Liz's body, there was no way for medical examiners to determine a cause of death, and it was ruled and determined it. I mean, how she died, that bothers me, but the good part is that I know what happened, not as closure. It's before you know, you hope on the onsite that maybe she's around somewhere. You know, that was always my thought, maybe she's just around and she's going to come back, but just always my thought. Maybe she's just around and she's gonna come back.

But just not the case. When Liz's family learned that her remains were hidden in the water all along, it confirmed that Roger was responsible because everyone knew she hated water more than anything on Earth. There was no secret all. Liz was very, very, very scared of water. We went on a cruise, everybody had a cabin on the back of the boat so we could look at the water. Liz paid extra

to have a cabin on the side of the boat so she could look at land when we came into port. She was terrified of water. She didn't swim. None of that. It took everything in her to get on the biggest boat at the time for her curves. The way she was found seemed a hundred percent person. It was like at insult to injury. I'm going to even in death, I'm going to torment you. I mean, I'd already, in my heart, I already believe Roger did it, but after they found her bodies, the way they did, there was no doubt at all. As if to give one more fuck you to Liz after killing her,

they believed Roger put her in the one place she would have never wanted to be. In the perfect world, I would have told you that Roger served prison time for Liz's murder, but we don't live in a perfect world. Law enforcement never charged Roger for the second murder, and whoever helped him burn down the house never came forward. At this point, you might be thinking, at least Rogers in prison, and you can't hurt anyone else, can't he? So who cares?

Well, you're wrong. And here's where we get into a little bit of politics. Just for shits and giggles. This is what happens when liberalism invades the criminal justice system. On Friday, April 2021, Judge Victoria Roberts decided to release Roger Sweet from prison seven years early, despite being a convicted killer and child molester. The judge believed that because Roger was 73 years old, smoked and suffered from kidney disease,

he would die from COVID. Oh no, scary COVID's gonna kill all these poor prisoners that can't be helped. You ready for the kicker? The judge made that decision despite Roger surviving COVID after contracting it in 2020 and being vaccinated. So, according to Judge Roberts in her grand wisdom, and this is a quote, without a single disciplinary infraction in 14 years of incarceration,

Sweet's behavior demonstrates respect for law and indicates hope he may perform unsupervised release." I shouldn't have to explain this. There aren't any little girls to rape or women to kill in prison. How would you like Mr. Roger Sweet moving in next door to you and your family? How would you feel about that? Little side note here, just in case you want it. On July 31, 1997, Judge Victoria A. Roberts was nominated by President Bill Clinton

to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. He was unanimously confirmed by the then United States Senate. You may want to look into a few of this activist judges additional despicable actions, but... Alas, this story isn't about her. It's about a murdering pedophile that was released from prison for good behavior, a man that should have died in prison miserably. Don't need to worry though, the judge did put some restrictions on Roger to protect the general public.

Roger Sweet is on house arrest for one year, which will be over right around the time that we release this episode. And although he is a free man, Roger is still the prime suspect in Liz's murder. I have a drive to get to the truth and I get it from Marlene. She was a strong woman. There is no closure because as family we suffer all these years for it. What I want is for him to be charged for Elizabeth's murder and

throw him in jail for the rest of his natural life. So nobody else has to go through what we've gone through. Because everybody he comes in contact with gets hurt one way or another. Those who have been affected by Roger most all had something to say about his release. Even though he is not in jail for Liz, he's in jail for Marlene, and he killed her and he should stay there until he dies. And the second area reason he shouldn't get out is because he likes handicapped little children, and he fondled one that I know for sure and two now for sure.

And those habits don't go away. It makes me disgusted that he's home. And my name is John. He does not deserve to be free. Well, I'm a firm believer, and I don't think I was like this when I was a younger officer, but I'm a firm believer people make mistakes and should be given a second chance. But there's some mistakes you can't get a second chance for. Killing somebody, especially a family member and then hiding it for

years. I just I don't think he should be out of prison. I think he should still be in prison. I learned that he was out and about it discussed me to know when we're still suffering. I'm still hurting like it was yesterday and this is 31 years later. Personally, I'm disgusted. It's a failure on so many different levels, police, judicial, and my head, I feel like I've failed that he even made it to you. For the time being, it appears as though Roger won't be charged for Liz's murder unless whoever may have helped him comes forward.

Or if for some reason he gets dementia and chooses to confess. I believe there's a huge possibility that there's somebody else there, but that's a hell of a secret and I didn't know if he has friends like that. But if it's very possible, like we've talked before, you can easily set a time of fire to start transporting the body and that might have been a two person job. But you know, it's kind of, I'm kind of 50-50 on that because there's things you could do to pull it off by yourself, but it would go a lot smoother if you had somebody else. We might have took a vice on how to cover things up

or what to do, but when it comes to where she was found, the way she was found, that's 100% Roger, and I believe 100. Nobody's gonna come up to you and say, hey, you want me to kill your wife today? It was, he searched out, if he had help. He searched out his help, and it was probably a lifelong friend or a life-hugging acquaintance, but nobody's just going to come up to you and say, hey, let's kill your wife today.

Regardless, Liz didn't die in vain. Without Liz, Roger would have gotten away with killing Marlene and could have continued molesting innocent children. Liz is actually a hero, whether or not Roger is still in prison. In the meantime, Marlene and Liz's families are working together to pressure this activist judge regarding Roger' release. I'm known Roger or known of him for over 50 years.

I think people should open their eyes in their ears and listen and look hard at what he has done to ruin many lives. These women have children, they have families, they have grandchildren, their sisters, their mothers, and they're gone. I want him to spend the rest of his natural life in prison. And again, I think years that he was in jail or prison for Marlene's death was not long enough. I need the judges and prosecutors to extend the years. Take a minute to think about that. If you live in the metro Detroit area, there's a possibility that the man standing behind you in line at the

grocery store is a convicted killer and child predator. What a great place to live that is. To make things even worse, he isn't even free because he apologized for his trespasses or because he found God or some shit. Roder sweet as free because a judge felt he was at risk of catching a horrible disease from China, one which he had already survived and been vaccinated for. We've been firing unvaccinated citizens of this country, law abiding tax paying citizens of this country

from their jobs and separating them from their livelihoods, their ability to take care of their own families, pay their mortgages, all of that. Because of COVID-19, yet we are setting murderers and rapists free. I've said this before, but those who try to act like they're the moral authority, those who pretend like they're morally superior to everyone else are the ones you have to watch out for. Because good intentions or pretending like you have good intentions, do not equate a good result.

And the entire concept of justice is based around the scale to weigh out those two sides and the sword to inflict actual justice on those that deserve it. Don episode of Sword and Scale. Thank you for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed it. If you have, please consider joining plus. Sword and Scale dot com slash plus is the place where you can enjoyed it. If you have, please consider joining plus. Sword and scale.com slash plus is the place where you can get it and for just 5 bucks a month, you can get all kinds of goodies, including store discounts, bonus episodes, or special plus episodes which are only available on our subscription service, and all kinds of

other stuff. If you want to help support the show that you love, that's the place to do it. Sorenscale.com slash plus. You want to call in. The number is 95488-968-54, and put a plus one if you're international. Once again, thank you so much for being with us.

We really truly appreciate each and every one of you. We appreciate when you tell all your friends about us and how much you love the show and why that is. You wouldn't be here without you. Plain and simple, so thank you once again and until next time, stay safe. You know Mike, this is Danny Quillin ordered in Dimas and you've sent like, February 20th, I just want to look into these collar 2G people calling in about, you know, what you need to do differently. Don't do anything different. But you already know that because you're going to do it.

You're on damn thing because that's why you're sure to ask them. It is the, where they are for, father of true crime crime casting. And, you know, I love you for you and what you do and God damn it, keep it company. Let's go. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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