True Crime with Kimbyr - Cops Discover Body Parts on Rural Highway & Expose Tinder Date’s Horrific Secret Plot: Part 2
Episode Date: September 14, 2025In Part 2 of True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha continues the story of Sydney Loofe, unravelling the shocking investigation that followed her disappearance. From suspicious social media posts to chi...lling interviews, the search for answers exposed a disturbing trail of lies. Who were the people behind Sydney’s tragic fate, and what secrets were they hiding? Join True Crime with Kimbyr as we dive deeper into the unravelling mystery and the shocking discoveries that revealed just how far the deception went. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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As the investigation deepened, the cops learned more about this girl, Bailey's living situation.
She wasn't alone.
She resided in a basement apartment of a house at 621 West 7th Street with her 51-year-old boyfriend, Aubrey Trail.
Let me repeat that with a little more clarity.
There's no Audrey, as far as investigators can tell.
The picture that was used on Tinder was of Bailey, the 23-year-old woman,
and she was dating a man named Aubrey with a B.
not a D, and he was nearly 30 years older than she was.
Together, this presented a picture that didn't quite sit right with investigators.
Why this fake profile? Why the age gap? It just seemed suspicious.
On November 18th, 2017, officers headed to that Wilbur address, hoping to speak with Bailey and
Aubrey. They knocked, but got nothing but silence on the other side of the door.
It was unnerving, given what was at stake here, where was something?
Sydney and who were these people? With no response from inside, the police turned to the landlord,
Alan Cole, who lived in the main portion of this home with his family. Alan told them that Bailey
was quiet, while Aubrey did most of the talking. Aubrey had introduced himself in Bailey as
antique dealers from Fall City. He'd even gifted Alan some porcelain dolls for his grandchildren.
Nothing about them ever seemed alarming. Aubrey always paid his rent on time, even covering it well
into the future, which kind of struck Allen as a bit unusual, but that was hardly a red flag.
But as the officers continued talking with Alan and his family, a different picture began to emerge.
Alan mentioned Aubrey's habit of talking so loudly in the basement that sometimes you could
hear him from upstairs.
There's nothing criminal in that, but it was just a character trait worth mentioning, I guess.
But when they spoke to Alan's adult daughter, Jennifer, she shared a story that put everyone
on edge. It was something that didn't quite fit with the benign image of a polite antique dealer,
and it was enough to make officers take notice. They might be dealing with something much darker
than anyone had imagined. Jennifer Cole relayed that late on the night of November 15th,
something strange caught her attention. Jennifer lived in the separate basement apartment on the same
property where Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail were staying. As Jennifer and her son Dayton went about their
evening, they both noticed a really sudden, sharp odor. At first, it was just a hint of something off.
But before long, it became unmistakable. It was bleach and lots of it. Now, Jennifer was allergic to this
chemical, and this was no faint with. It made her feel sick. She couldn't figure out why anyone
would need to use that much bleach, especially so late in the evening. Now, that seems like a red
flag considering the circumstances and the timing. The next morning, when Jennifer and
came home from being out for the day.
The smell, it was overpowering, it was thick in the air,
it was stinging their nose and their eyes.
And this was the middle of November,
and the temperatures were freezing.
Definitely not the kind of weather
that anyone would choose to actually open the windows and doors,
but Jennifer had no choice.
She flung open everything she could
because she was desperate to air out their apartment.
And when she descended the stairs that led down
to the part of the basement where Bailey and Aubrey lived,
the smell got even stronger.
It was as though someone who had to be able to get even stronger.
had poured bleach everywhere, soaking into the floors and the walls and who knows what else.
There was just something deeply unsettling about it.
This wasn't spring cleaning.
This felt like someone that was trying to erase something.
On November 18th, the situation escalated.
With a key provided by the landlord, Alan Cole, the police were able to actually enter
Bailey and Aubrey's basement apartment.
The officers were on high alert.
The intensity of Jennifer's story alone had raised their suspicions.
and the lingering stench confirmed something wasn't right.
When they stepped inside, though,
everything looks surprisingly normal at first glance.
Nothing obvious jumped out of them as evidence,
but the smell of bleach was no small matter.
If Jennifer had smelled it strongly on November 15th,
and here they were three days later
with the odor still heavy in the air,
it did mean that a tremendous amount of bleach must have been used.
Normal household cleaning did not leave a lasting odor like this.
The officers knew,
they needed more than a gut filling, though,
and at this point, they didn't have much to go on
except for a bleach smell,
and they didn't have a search warrant,
and without it, their hands were tied.
They could look around,
but they couldn't tear the place apart.
They couldn't open the cabinets,
tear up the carpet,
or dig deep for any hidden evidence.
So they stepped back and approached the district attorney,
laying out what they learned so far.
Jennifer Cole's information about the intense bleach smell
back on the 15th was key.
It wasn't just an odd detail.
It was potentially a huge clue that someone had tried to clean or cover something up in that apartment.
The DA agreed.
This was suspicious enough to grant a search warrant.
With the official paperwork secured, the Lincoln Police Department brought in the experts,
the Nebraska State Patrol's crime scene investigators.
On November 19, 2017, these crime scene investigators arrived in Wilbur, Nebraska, determined to leave no stone unturned.
Now armed with the legal right to search thoroughly,
they began a careful and methodical examination
of the basement apartment that Bailey Boswell
and Aubrey Trail had called home.
What they found was both curious and unsettling.
Among the items discovered was a handwritten note
that detailed a step-by-step guide
on how to encrypt a cell phone.
Now that is weird.
That wasn't something that you would typically find
just lying around an apartment.
Why would someone need instructions for encryption
unless they were trying to hide something.
Investigators tuck this detail away in their mental files.
This could mean the people who lived there had something to conceal,
or at least to make communication harder to trace.
Next, the team uncovered a dollar general receipt dated for November 15th.
It was timestamped at 5 p.m.
You might be wondering, what items are purchased?
Well, several roasting pans and duct tape.
Now, these were not inherently incriminating on their own.
People buy all sorts of odd combinations of things,
and Thanksgiving was coming up.
But in context, it seemed odd.
Sometimes criminals will buy a few things
when they need the incriminating ones,
you know, because duct tape on its own.
It look a little odd, so they'll throw in something benign,
like something ordinary.
But even roasting pans seemed a little bit weird,
especially alongside the mysterious and powerful bleach odor.
And the timing was also suspicious.
November 15th was the,
the very night, Jennifer remembered smelling that overwhelming bleach and the night that
Sydney went on her date with a person named Audrey, who we know is really Bailey.
So this was just another puzzle piece falling into place.
As they dug deeper, they found another receipt, this time from a place called Food Mesto
at 1130am on November 16th.
This receipt showed a purchase of bleach and trash bags, so a pattern was emerging and it wasn't good.
First, roasting pans and duct tape, then bleach and trash bags.
These weren't random household items.
They sounded like tools someone might use to hide evidence or clean up a crime scene.
The bleach containers discovered on the dryer, one empty and the other half full gave more weight to that theory.
No one could say if this was just a bit of spring cleaning, not at this time yet, but it was weird that the smell was still lingering days later.
And as investigators combed through Bailey Boswell and Aubrey trails apart,
they discovered something chilling.
It was a book called The Human Body Atlas.
Now, at first glance, it seemed like a standard reference guide
on human anatomy, the type you would find maybe in a school library,
or a medical student's bookshelf.
The cover featured a head and neck,
the underlying muscles clearly visible under the skin.
In other contexts, it might have been another educational book.
But given the circumstances of Sydney Leaf's disappearance,
no one could help but wonder why.
but wonder why it was there and what these two people might have needed it for.
My guess is probably similar to what yours is,
knowing what we know about true crime cases, and it's not good.
Before wrapping up their search, investigators decided to collect the gray-fitted sheet from the bed.
It might have DNA on it or other forensic evidence, hair, fibers, bodily fluids,
anything that could point to when it transpired in this apartment.
They weren't leaving empty-handed either.
Every object, every receipt, every trace of unusual behavior would be analyzed.
It was becoming clear to investigators.
They had stumbled upon something far more disturbing than just a missing person's case.
Now they just had to piece it all together.
The bleach-soaked odors.
The suspicious receipts, the encryption instructions, and the absence of Sydney.
This was all pointing towards a crime, a violent intentional act.
The investigators left the apartment with their evidence bags,
and by Wednesday, November 20,
the Lincoln Police Department felt it had enough to make a public statement.
They identified a 51-year-old Aubrey Trail and 23-year-old Billy Boswell as persons of interest in Sydney's disappearance, and they were wanted for questioning.
The news rattled across the community. Sydney's face was everywhere on flyers, on Facebook, on everyone's mind.
And now the police were naming names and pointing fingers.
After the announcement, a local antique dealer stepped forward to share that,
Aubrey had been a regular customer for years.
Another shopkeeper mentioned that since June,
Aubrey and Bailey had even rented display cabinets in their shop
to sell vintage glassware and toys.
And suddenly, these two weren't just two names on the news.
They were people woven into the community's everyday life,
calmly just selling antiques while something much deeper seemed to be going on behind the scenes.
That very same day, a video surfaced online.
one that would be removed from Facebook later,
and then it would pop back up on YouTube.
It ran about nine minutes and looked hastily filmed.
It was shot inside of a car.
In it, there was a woman dressed head to toe in black,
sporting dark sunglasses,
and she sat beside a man who looked kind of rough around the edges
and older with these piercing blue eyes.
The couple introduced themselves as Bailey and Aubrey.
And this was their really bizarre address, public address,
to a worried one.
worried world. They insisted they had nothing to do with Sydney's disappearance. Bailey started
speaking first, claiming that she and Sydney had gone out on a few dates in the days before
Sydney had vanished. She said that on November 15th, the night that Sydney was last known to be seen,
she supposedly dropped her out to friend's house after hanging out together. Hi, good morning. I'm Bailey,
Audrey on Tinder and a few other names because I have warrants, but this really is.
isn't about me. This is about Sydney. And I'm just kind of want to tell you what I've already
told the Lincoln Police more than one time. I met her on a Tuesday. We drove around Lincoln,
smoked weed, had a great time. We hit it off. I dropped her off at home. Picked it up the
next night at her house. We drove around smoked weed again, made our way to my house.
where we smoked wax and shatter,
and I gave her a quarter ounce of some really good weed.
I went to take her home,
and she asked me to drop her off at a friend's house,
so I did so.
I gave her my number.
We were planning to go to the casino that weekend.
I mean, I haven't heard from her since.
I really don't even know what else to say.
and seeing all this stuff on the news presses and the magazines and the news.
And I just, I guess I just want the family to know that I'm truly sorry.
And I didn't have anything to do with this.
And I hope that Sydney has found very soon.
She is a sweet, amazing girl.
Bailey painted a picture of a normal evening.
They drove around, they smoked pot, and then they just parted ways.
Then Aubrey chimed in, backing up Bailey's story, and adding,
they'd taken Sydney back to her apartment in Wilbur before heading off to this mysterious friend's place.
According to them, that was the last time they saw her.
They acted as though they were genuinely puzzled by all the suspicion.
Like, why were the police wanting to talk to them, they wondered.
But we spent the last few days watching ourselves being slammed and crucified in the newspapers
and the news and everything else.
So we thought it was time we had our say.
The Lincoln Police Department apparently wants everyone to believe that we're hiding,
that we haven't talked to them, that we're avoiding them.
Actually, we've spoken to the Lincoln Police Department a couple of times.
We both wrote long statements and sent to the Lincoln Police Department,
telling them everything we know.
They're telling you that they have all these leads that,
Sydney was last seen
and Wilbur
and such, what they're not
telling you, is that
we are the two people who gave them
all these leads. They even said they already
gave a statement to the police, but they hadn't heard
anything back, and they weren't going to be turning themselves in
because
Aubrey admitted that he had
an outstanding warrant. But he
claimed it was an unrelated
crime. You've heard all of this
stuff about my criminal history.
All true.
Been convicted of bad checks and forgery and all that good stuff.
But never been convicted of anything like, I guess I'm a person of interest on now.
And oh yeah, the Lincoln Police Department failed to tell you that me and Bailey do about $100,000 a year of business and antiques on eBay, the antique malls in Lincoln, Omaha, all this stuff.
they will have you believe that I'm still just a criminal running around.
And I assume that I have a warrant out of state somewhere now.
So that kind of cancels that out.
So this is pretty much cost me my life.
And I appreciate that from the Lincoln Police Department and the FBI and all those other agencies.
In reality, those warrants were for serious charges, a felon in possession of a firearm
and habitual criminal counts,
plus a history of felony convictions in Nebraska
for forgery and bad checks
when he lived in South Dakota.
Aubrey ended the video on an unsettling note,
saying that he was praying for Sydney
and hoping for her safe return.
He mentioned how terrible it was
that she wasn't home with her family at Thanksgiving.
I pray for Sydney.
I hope she's found soon.
I wish the family the best.
I'm sorry that she wasn't.
with you on Thanksgiving.
And that's pretty much all I can say for now.
He said these things as though he was some distant acquaintance
who was worried about this tragedy, this missing person.
The whole performance just felt off.
It was like it was rehearsed and just way too casual.
And it was pretty alarming how defiant they were being
that seemed to be turning into something more sinister.
And the people at the center of it were putting on a show for the cameras,
leaving everyone to wonder what they were.
were really hiding behind all of their carefully chosen words. That very night, firefighters descended
upon a pond in Wilbur, a body of water located between Aubrey Trail's apartment and Sydney's apartment,
determined to find something, anything that might lead them to Sydney. And it was grueling,
backbreaking work. They trudged in the cold, dark water shovels in hand, tearing at the muddy bottom,
using skid loaders, and they scooped piles of dirt and sediment along the bay.
But despite their best efforts, by the time Dawn approached,
they came up empty-handed.
No trace of Sydney was found in that murky water.
As word of Sydney's disappearance spread,
her story gripped not just Lincoln or Nebraska,
but the entire nation.
Suddenly, the name Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail
weren't just local suspects.
They were names recognized across the country,
whispered in coffee shops and living rooms
as people tried to make sense of what was unfolding.
The Lincoln Police Department was flooded with tips.
Some were plausible leads.
Others were so bizarre, they sounded like they were urban legends.
The department was overwhelmed, so much so.
They had to actually hire an intern just to sword
through all of this information.
And meanwhile, the FBI also dedicated a hotline solely
for Cindy's case.
Their agents were listening to every single caller,
hoping that somewhere in all the noise,
a critical piece of evidence would service.
Among the sea of tips, one,
caught investigators' attention.
It came from a days in in Spencer, Nebraska,
almost a four-hour drive away,
where the general manager, Hunter Bardsall,
recognized the faces of Bailey and Aubrey from that Facebook post.
She recalled that back on November 23rd,
the day before Thanksgiving,
Bailey and Aubrey had checked into her hotel.
They paid in cash, and during their stay,
Aubrey had made a really offhanded joke
about his wife Bailey, never cooking for him,
as they ate simple bowls of soup prepared by the hotel manager.
And then on November 26, they just checked out of the hotel
and there was nothing too out of the ordinary at the time.
But by the time Hunter called in the tip line on November 28th,
Bailey and Aubrey were long gone.
This pattern where the couple arrives, the couple leaves,
always seemingly on the move, was becoming more and more clear
because that same day, November 28th.
Jenny Bloom, a front desk clerk at Grant,
stay hotel in Iowa also saw their faces on a news report after finishing her shift.
And it sent a chill through her because she recognized them immediately.
They had been staying at her hotel as well. Earlier that very morning, the couple had even requested
to extend their stay. Jenny promptly contacted the tip line, knowing that she could be holding
a vital piece of this puzzle. By the time the local police arrived at Grand Stay, Bailey and Aubrey
had vanished yet again.
They left in such a hurry, they left behind Aubrey's walking cane
and a couple of bags.
Those bags contain maps of Iowa and even Mexico.
This was a find that raised attention to a new level.
According to FBI agent Jackie Han,
it looked like someone had literally woken up and disappeared without a trace.
No goodbyes, no checkout, just gone, leaving suspicion and fear in their wake.
I mean, clearly when they have maps of Mexico and they keep
Moving from one state to the other, it really looked like they were going to leave the country.
And as the FBI dug deeper, their agents followed the digital trail left behind by Bailey and Aubrey.
According to phone records, on the night of November 15th, Sydney was about to meet up with Audrey again.
Or I should say Bailey, so I'll just say Bailey.
Right before their date, Sydney sent Bailey a careful, almost nervous text.
She wanted to be absolutely sure it would just be the two of them hanging out together.
no hidden partners, no unexpected third parties,
trying to rope her into something that she wasn't interested in.
Bailey said it would just be the two of them, no tricks.
Then at 6.54 p.m., Bailey let Sydney know she was there.
She just texted her here, meaning that she had arrived
at Sydney's apartment to pick her up.
The FBI then turned to the couple's odd Facebook video,
denying involvement in Cindy's disappearance.
Behind the scenes, FBI agents poured over thousands of
IP addresses and phone numbers linked to the device that uploaded that video.
It was meticulous, painstaking work.
Cyber-sleuthing at its most intense.
And eventually, they zeroed in on a track phone, a burner device with no subscriber information available.
Aside from posting that now infamous video, the mystery phone had made a single call at 1127 a.m.
The same day the video was posted on November 28th.
The call went out to Windmill Inn in Branson,
Missouri, six hours and a whole state away. Now, this lead was significant because they found out
that Aubrey and Bailey had previously stayed at the Windmill Inn over the summer before Sydney
had disappeared. An FBI special agent reached out to the local authorities in Branson asking for their help.
They needed eyes on the ground. And when the Branson sheriff checked the Windmill Inn in the parking
lot, he immediately spotted the Silver Chrysler Seabring registered to Aubrey.
and Bailey. And just like that, the chase took a new turn. In less than a day, authorities had
pulled eyewitness testimonies from across state lines. They found leads from hotel clerks and managers
and connected the dots between a suspicious phone call and a parked car in a distant lot. Every new
piece of information tightened the net around Bailey and Aubrey, and each clue carried with it
even more dread. Sydney was still missing. The clock was taking and her family held on to hope,
praying that these frantic moves by law enforcement
would lead to answers.
It was a nationwide manhunt,
and the stakes, loved ones longing for closure
the public craving justice could not have been higher.
By the early morning hours of November 30th,
the tide seemed to be turning in the search for Sydney Loof.
U.S. Marshals acting on unrelated warrants tracked down
and arrested Aubrey Trail and Bailey Boswell.
It wasn't directly for Sydney's disappearance,
but their sudden capture
sparked a fresh wave of media coverage
and fueled a glimmer of hope among those who loved her.
Everyone knew who these two people were by now,
and they were holding their breath to see what this development would mean.
Sydney's father, George, stepped forward again,
pleading for anyone with information to please come forward.
In his eyes, there was no doubt that somebody out there knew something.
If they had any knowledge of where Sydney was,
now was the time to speak up.
On behalf of our family, I would like to thank all of you,
you, all of the people that have made the pins, made the flyers, gotten the word out on social media,
all the support that our family has received.
Continue that and thank you for all of your prayers.
and in my opinion someone knows something,
please do the right thing.
Thank you.
Aubrey and Bailey now in custody
were taken to the Tanny County Jail Enforce of Mississippi
just a short drive from Branson.
Their arrest sparked a huge surge of cautious optimism.
Lincoln, Police Department chief, Jeff Blymeister,
addressed reporters openly holding on to hope
that Sydney might still be alive.
When asked if there was a reason to believe that she could be found safe, he didn't hesitate.
He said, yes, absolutely.
Behind the scenes, investigators were working around the clock.
Officer Bob Hurley of the Lincoln Police Department meticulously analyzed cell phone records,
plotting points on a map to see where Aubrey and Billy's phones had traveled.
He was looking for patterns, places they might have dumped evidence, or worse, a body.
The bleach smell at the couple's apartment and the silence stretching on without any word from Sydney.
made it hard to stay optimistic.
Officer Hurley dug deeper into the cell records,
discovering that on November 16th, one day,
after Cindy vanished, Aubrey and Bailey left
their Wilbur apartment and returned around 5.45 p.m.
after a strange 151 mile trip to a rural area near Clay County.
Why go there, of all places?
What was so important they had to make this journey
into the middle of nowhere?
Focusing on these phone signals, Hurley noticed that at certain points along this isolated gravel road,
the couple's phones had slowed down and even stopped for a significant stretch of time.
This was no random detour. Something must have happened at these coordinates.
Armed with this unsettling clue, on December 4th, around 50 law enforcement officers fanned out into Clay County.
This was the countryside, and they searched systematically.
trekking through fields, ditches, anywhere else a criminal might hide evidence.
The area narrowed to a spot north of County Road 308 and Road S near Edgar, Nebraska, based
on this phone data.
Aubrey and Bailey's devices had lingered in this exact location, and one of the officers
involved in the search, Nebraska's state patrol officer Corey Townsend carefully pushed
through the cat tails and all the brush.
The day was cold.
The atmosphere was tense.
They knew what they might find.
No one wanted it to be true.
Then came the call.
They made everyone's stomachs drop.
The Clay County Sheriff signaled that something had been discovered.
And lying there were multiple garbage bags.
This is unreal.
It didn't take long for a forensic expert to sense
they had stumbled upon something absolutely horrific.
Inside those bags, officers found human remains,
parts of them anyway.
No one needed to say anything out loud because everyone knew what it meant.
For Sydney's family and friends who had prayed and pleaded for a different ending,
this was confirmation of their worst nightmare.
Her life so full of promise and warmth had come to a tragic end because it had to be her.
The officers who stood there in that bleak rural landscape were trained professionals,
but they're also human beings.
Their hearts were heavy with the knowledge that this was someone's daughter,
someone's sister, a friend, had been so callously harmed. And in that moment, all the hope and
desperate optimism were replaced with a solemn vow to get justice for Sydney Loof. If love and community
support couldn't bring her back, then at least truth and accountability would ensure her life
was never forgotten and that those responsible would face the full measure of the law.
Soon, crime scene investigators were called in and they began to kill.
carefully sift through the contents of those black trash bags.
The tone of this entire operation shifted when they found a right arm marked with a familiar
tattoo. The quote, everything will be wonderful someday. It was the same powerful message that
Sidney had carried so proudly on her body, a symbol of hope that she had for her future.
But now that hopeful phrase was an agonizing confirmation of this woman's identity. And by that night,
the tragic news was shared online by her heartbroken family.
Sydney's body had been recovered.
The world that loved her was shattered when they learned
she was never coming home.
Within those bags, investigators discovered more clues.
There was a fragment of a map, a sheet,
and a shower curtain smeared with blood.
It was a collection of evidence that hinted
at a horrifying final chapter.
As darkness settled in and the wind whipped across the scene,
it became almost impossible for them to work effectively.
So the investigators had to protect this crime scene at all costs.
So they made the painful decision to halt their work until the next morning.
They secured this whole area aware that the truth was hidden in there somewhere,
in this lonely stretch of Nebraska farmland.
And on Tuesday, December 5th, the team returned.
And this time, they brought in even more resources.
A Nebraska State Patrol helicopter hovered above low.
As officers systematically searched every inch of ground,
for additional evidence.
Their efforts were not in vain.
Hundreds of pieces of evidence emerged
as they painstakingly combed through the fields.
Among the newly discovered items were a discarded sauna suit,
latex gloves, kitchen gloves, an adult toy, and duct tape.
Equally chilling was the white fleece Columbia brand jacket,
just like the one that Sidney had been wearing
in her Snapchat story that she posted on November 15th,
the night that she disappeared.
Three days after Sydney's remains were initially found,
crime scene investigators uncovered more evidence scattered
along Nebraska's Highway 41.
It was as though someone had just thrown these things
from a moving car's passenger window.
They found pieces of what once was Sydney's driver's license.
It was cut into fragments.
As they pieced it back together,
the investigators were greeted by her smiling face in the photograph.
Alongside that were pieces of broken parts of her cell phone
and more shards of her life that was cruelly discarded.
In that same area, investigators came across a pair of men's underwear,
a green 4xel tall shirt spattered with strange white stains,
a single size 7 left bare paw boot, a green dish glove, and two men's socks.
All these items appeared to have been tossed aside in haste.
And you could guess what the white stains were on the clothing.
They definitely raised immediate suspicion.
They were not chemically tested, but the detective strongly suggested it was probably bleach,
recalling the overpowering odor that neighbor Jennifer Cole had reported back in Wilbur.
With each and every one of these findings, investigators were forced to confront the reality
of what may have happened to Sydney Loof.
Disturbingly, one portion of her upper left arm, specifically the section above the elbow
and below the shoulder, was never found.
To determine how Sydney died,
Forensic experts got involved.
Dr. Michelle Ellif, a seasoned medical examiner,
performed Sydney's autopsy.
And during this investigation,
the doctor noted several key details.
There was a small bump on the top of Sydney's head
and marks on the top of her wrist.
This suggested that she may have been bound or restrained.
There were scrapes on her back and elbows,
and that hinted that Sydney may have struggled or fought back.
One of the most alarming discoveries, though,
was a torn earlobe.
An injury inflicted short.
shortly before she died.
Even with the fact that some of Cindy's neck area,
including the crucial hyoid bone, was still missing,
the doctor concluded that strangulation played a role in her death.
With that, she ruled Cindy's death a homicide.
And I'm not trying to be sarcastic or funny.
It isn't funny.
But I was just thinking, wouldn't it be obvious
when someone's been so viciously maimed and discarded like this?
And you might be wondering the same thing,
but people can die of something natural
and then be dismembered or harmed in this way.
So they have to be specific because you know how defense attorneys can be,
they'd be like, no, she died from natural causes and then, you know, these people got scared,
so they just got rid of her body. The doctor's findings were just one piece of this puzzle.
Forensic anthropologist Steve Sims had come in. He was an expert in knife and saw marks.
He was brought in to examine Sydney's skeletal remains. His specialty was analyzing cuts left on bones
in dismemberment cases. I swear there's an expert for everything.
Through his careful analysis, he determined that a hacksaw with roughly 25 teeth
had been used in this horrific act. However, he couldn't say how much force it would have taken
or whether a man or a woman carried out the dismemberment. These were such brutal
details, but they were necessary to solve this case.
