True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 1: College Student Studied Forensics Then She was Murdered | Courtney Coco

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

She wanted to solve crimes but instead, she became one. In True Crime with Kimbyr, we dive into the haunting case of 19-year-old Courtney Coco, a driven college student from Louisiana whose body was found over 200 miles away in an abandoned building — without her ID, phone, or car. How did she end up across state lines? Why did her case go cold for years? And how was the truth hiding closer than anyone imagined? In True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha blends deep research with compassion to uncover the devastating betrayal at the heart of this mystery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Driving along a two-lane highway in Winnie, Texas, more than 200 miles away, thought that he saw a body inside an abandoned building. No one was thinking about a girl from Alexandria. But when deputies stepped closer, They realized the body had been placed, positioned, arranged in a way that was not accidental. She had no ID, no phone, no car, just a high school ring still on her finger. And inside, inscribed on the underside of the band, was their first big lead, a name.

Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name is Kimberlyla and if you have never seen me before, it is nice to finally meet you. So now let me bring you back to that Monday morning, October 4th of 2004. Detective David Rabelais pulled into the Chambers County Sheriff's Office like he did every single workday. He was there to drop off some paperwork and nothing more and nothing about that morning felt urgent and nothing even felt off. And that changed when a patrol deputy radioed in a very strange call. A farmer that was driving along Route 1406, not far from the interstate near Louisiana and the Texas border, reported seeing what he thought might be a body inside an abandoned structure. Now, the building sat along the stretch of road that people passed every day without

thinking twice. Winnie wasn't exactly known for violent crime. It actually wasn't known for anything like this. And Rabelais assumed it was just a mistake. People sometimes see shapes and shadows. Maybe it was a trash bag or debris, even an old mannequin, and I'm not going to even say it, but you know what I'm thinking. Still, the location was close to his home. So he told dispatch that he would check it out, and when he stepped out of his truck, he immediately knew that this was actually not a false alarm. Near the entrance of this concrete garage was a body of a young white woman. She was positioned on her back. She was nude from the waist down. Her legs were bent very unnaturally. Her heels were drawn in upward towards her body, and her blue LSU t-shirt

had been pulled up to her neck, exposing her abdomen. And now her bra was still in. place, but this did not look random. It did not look chaotic. It looked completely intentional. Now, at first glance, there was no visible gunshot wounds, no obvious stabbing injuries, and no signs of a struggle that jumped out. But her body showed advanced decomposition, far more than the detective would expect if she had only been there a few days. There was nothing around her that said who she was, no purse, no wallet, no phone, and whoever brought her here had taken a lot of care, to strip away anything that could identify her. But the area around the garage told its own story.

Tire tracks led straight to the entrance and then stopped abruptly, as if a vehicle had backed in, unloaded something heavy, and then pulled away. Shoe impressions were scattered near the doorway, and one stood out. A circular tread pattern that could most likely be matched to a particular athletic brand shoe. There was a beer bottle that was several feet away. It might mean nothing, but it might mean. everything in a case like this. Even ordinary objects matter. Detective Rabelais noticed that there was a ring on her finger, a class ring. And on the outside, it said Alexandria Senior High School. It also

had class of 2003 on it. Now, the ring fit the age of this victim and the region fit. You know, Alexandria, Louisiana wasn't that far away. But rings, they can be stolen. They can be borrowed. They can change hands a bunch of times. So no one at that scene was ready to say. say that they knew who this person was. But that was a big clue. Now across the state line into Louisiana, Courtney's mother, Stephanie, was going about her Monday morning with no idea that there was anything wrong with her daughter. She didn't know that investigators were already asking whether Alexandria had any missing persons reports. And she didn't know yet that a small detail from the weekend, something that she had brushed aside, was about to come back and change everything. She was

was the baby in the family, Courtney, Megan Coco. She was born on March 30th of 1985 in Alexandria, Louisiana, a town where generations lived on the same block, and people didn't just know your name. They knew your family. Courtney was the youngest of three girls, and she wore that role proudly, not just the baby, but the mascot, as her sisters used to say. The little princess, spoiled, because she could be with so many people who loved her so much. Heather and Lace, those were her sister. and they didn't just adore her. They hauled her around like a prize. Lace was seven years older.

She would help change Courtney's diapers, and it was like she had her own real-life baby doll. Courtney didn't mind either. She loved being doted on. She soaked up all the attention. She leaned into that closeness, and from the time she could talk, she was already including herself

into every game, every room, and every conversation. If Heather and Lace played house or doctor school, Courtney was at the center of it. She wasn't just a tag-along. She made herself the star. Her grandmother called her full of life. Not in that vague, polite way that people sometimes say it.

She meant it literally that Courtney made quiet days feel much louder and bigger, more alive. She had this easy, natural energy about her. She was curious, confident, quick to ask questions, and quicker to listen to the answers. There was nothing bratty or dramatic about Courtney. She was bubbly without being over. over the top. She was excited about the world without ever needing to be the loudest person in the room. And that made people gravitate towards her. Adults liked her. Other kids wanted to be around her. She made things feel possible. And she was always in motion. Courtney didn't like

sitting around. If something was happening, anything, a conversation, a chore, a last minute errand, she wanted in. Her hands were always helping. Her voice was always chiming in, and she didn't believe in standing on the sidelines of her own life. But that bright, bouncy childhood didn't stay untouched. When Courtney was just eight years old, everything changed. Her father, Greg, Gregory Allen Warbington, he suddenly died, July 12th of 1993. He was just 31 years old. It was a shock.

It was a senseless kind of loss. And for Stephanie Courtney's mother, it was the moment the whole family's world. bent out of shape. But for Courtney, it was personal in a way that no one had ever expected, because her bond with her dad, it wasn't just special, it was rare. The kind of bond that even adults noticed, it was deep and loving and very close. And when he was gone, something shifted in her. Stephanie would later say it felt like a part of Courtney died with him, that the girl who danced through the house and asked a million questions and lived for playtime just faded. But even in her grief, Courtney did something that no one could explain.

She stepped up. At only eight years old, she helped plan her father's funeral. She chose his clothes that he would be buried in. She picked the flowers. She even chose his burial plot at Alexandria Memorial Gardens. And then, without even being asked, she pointed to the one right next to his and said she would pick that one for herself. She visited that cemetery constantly, and when the feelings got too heavy for her, her aunt, Lynn, and Michelle, they made sure that Courtney never had to carry a burden alone.

They gave her a safe place to cry, a safe lap to climb into, and safe ways to keep going. And she did. Courtney grieved, but she didn't sink into her grief. Over the next few years, she grew into herself, slowly but steadily. She was still Courtney, still lovable. still curious, but there was a weight to her now, a softness around the edges. She had learned what loss truly felt like, but she never let that turn her into a bitter person. Instead, she became more grounded and more thoughtful, more tuned in to the people around her. But she stayed busy, gymnastics, cheerleading, softball in the summer, season after season for almost 10 years. She grew up side by side with her cousin Candace, who said she admired Courtney's natural

confidence. She said that Courtney loved everybody. She was nice to everyone. And by the time she hit high school, Courtney was balancing more than most adults. She was on the cheer squad in her sophomore year. She was doing gymnastics. She was playing softball, but she still found the time to work in her senior year. Teachers described her as sweet, shy, and calm, the kind of student who didn't draw attention, but always left an impression on you. She was already thinking ahead as well. She enrolled in college, courses before she even graduated high school. She didn't want to waste any time. And that is when she found criminology. A single class sparked something deep. She started writing out full crime scene outlines, step-by-step breakdowns of how to solve a homicide. Now they weren't for a specific purpose.

She just found it fascinating. And no one could have known what kind of foreshadowing that class would turn out to be. After graduation, life started opening for her. Her older sister Lace helped her get a job as a front desk receptionist at the dentist's office where she worked. It was a new chapter, real work, real responsibility, the beginning of adulthood in a way that isn't just exciting, but it also grounded Courtney. She had always been practical and forward thinking. And moving into her very own place was exactly the next step she wanted. She found a rental home near the Red River, close enough to her mom that she could stop by whenever she wanted, but far enough away that it truly felt like hers.

It was independence without disconnection. Courtney wasn't a cut everyone off, I'm grown now kind of girl. She stayed really close to her family. She would stop by during the week for just a quick visit, sometimes to just grab something, sometimes just because she liked being around her mom. That was Courtney. She was involved. She was present.

She had a life that was woven tightly into the people who loved her, a life with through teens, familiar roads and places where she belonged. And that is what makes what happens next so impossible to think about. Because you never think something like this is going to happen to you or someone you know and love. And by the way, I don't usually like talk in my videos about other things, just the case, but someone told me in my last video, I needed to stop being so nice about the victims. And I was like, we're talking about a homicide. victim. I think they've suffered enough. I don't need to point out their flaws. I don't need to talk

ill of the dead. I'm going to bring out the very best in every person that I talk about in my cases. So if that bothers you and it seems too positive, I don't know what to say. But let me take you to Friday afternoon, October 1st of 2004. It was around 3.30. And 19-year-old Courtney Coco had stopped by her mom and stepdad's house in Alexandria. And this was nothing unusual. She did that all the time. And like I told you, sometimes it was to pick something up like extra food leftovers, sometimes just to say hello.

Her mom and her stepdad Bobby, who had been in her life since she was little, they were getting ready to leave for the weekend. They were headed out to Saline Bayou, and they had a small house there, and they were going camping for the weekend, nothing major, just a few days out in the woods. And before leaving, Stephanie asked Courtney if she wanted to come along,

but Courtney smiled and brushed it off and joked. She wasn't exactly the country girl type. She didn't do the woods, and Stephanie didn't push it. Instead, she handed Courtney $10 for gas and reminded her that she needed someone to come feed the dogs while she was gone. Courtney said she would do it without hesitation. This wasn't a big ask.

Just swing by a couple times a day to make sure the dogs had fresh food and water, and that was it. Stephanie also told her daughter she could take a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk that was in the fridge with her. And Stephanie left town. She assumed everything would be handled. But what she didn't know was that was the last time that she would see her daughter. When she returned, she came home late Sunday evening, which was October 3rd.

And the very first thing she noticed were the dog bulls. They were completely empty. And she had this feeling like the dogs had not been fed in a while. And at first she told herself, it's not a big deal. Courtney's 19. Maybe she had just come once that day earlier and they had already eaten. And everything in the house was intact. The dogs were okay.

So there was no need to panic. We all know how teenagers can be. They can be forgetful or possibly even place priorities on other things. But the gallon of milk was still in the fridge. And the bread was still there too. And that kind of seemed odd. She thought all the times that Stephanie would have come there, she never took them with her. And the timeline was already off.

By the next morning, while Stephanie went about her day as normal, across the state line in Winnie, Texas, over 200 miles away. A very different Monday had been unfolding. Monday, October 4th of 2004 at 8 o'clock in the morning, that is when Detective David Ravillet, with the Chambers County Sheriff's Office, was dropping off paperwork. normal routine, no hint of what was coming. And that is when dispatch relayed that message, that strange call. A local farmer driving his tractor slowly along Route 1406 near Highway 110 thought that he saw something inside an abandoned building, something at the opening of one of the garage base,

contrasting against the white concrete ground, and it looked like a body. Now, this structure was very familiar to most locals. it was easy to see from the side of the road, a large, rundown, abandoned, forgotten concrete shell of an old house that was never fully constructed. It was right near the Texas-Louisiana border. Now, Winnie wasn't a place known for major crimes and definitely not anything violent.

It's quiet, it's rural. People didn't usually get murdered around there. So Detective Robillet didn't expect to find anything. People misidentified trash bags, like I said, mannequins and shadows and windows all the time, but still, it was on his way to work. It was actually only 150 yards from his own home, so he agreed to go check it out, mostly because he was worried it could be someone he knew if it was a body, a neighbor, even a child who had wandered off and gotten hurt. And when he arrived and

stepped out of his truck, he immediately knew what he was looking at on the ground. Just inside the entrance of one of those abandoned garage bays was the body of a young Caucasian female. She was nude, as I told you, from the waist down, her body had been posed, and I'm going to try to be as respectful and gentle as possible while still being descriptive because details matter. She was lying on her back, her legs were bent, her heels were upward towards her buttocks, and they were spread apart. And they were facing the road in a way where you would clearly notice this. Like she was all on display. It's very sad. Her blue LSU t-shirt was pulled up to her neck.

Her bra was on. The placement of the body didn't feel spontaneous. It felt like someone wanted her to be seen like this, like someone wanted to send a message. But there were no obvious external injuries, no stab wounds, no gunshot wounds, no defensive wounds that jumped out, and no ID, no wallet, no phone, no purse.

Nothing at the scene said who she was, but there were clues. For one, the detective thought the person who did this must know this area pretty well, because this was sort of a local landmark, so to speak. Many people who lived there drove by all the time. Also, it appeared that she was most likely killed somewhere else and brought there afterward, especially since the other items of her clothing were missing. They were not found at the scene. Her body did show clear signs of advanced decomposition, indicating that she had been dead for several

days before being found. Now the heat and humidity of Southeast Texas had likely accelerated that process, but even accounting for the climate, the progression was significant. Given the isolated location, the state of her body and the fact that Chambers County rarely dealt with homicide cases, the sheriff's department quickly recognized they needed more experienced assistance at this point. And that is when Texas rangers Skyler-Hern was called out to the scene. He examined the building's perimeter, and that's when he spotted something. I told you there was a set of tire tracks leading right up and into the entrance, and then they just abruptly stopped.

It looked like a vehicle had reversed into the garage, onto the concrete, and had brought some dirt up there, leaving a tire mark, like someone had opened the trunk there or even the back seat, removed the body, and then took time to position it this way, and then drove off. I told you about the shoe prints, which were scattered in dirt, near the body. Most were only partial, but one stood out because it had a circular tread pattern. And nearby, about six or seven feet from the body was discarded beer bottles. Was this connected? Was it part of the scene? Or had these things just been there for weeks? He didn't know. Like

were people partying in there? Maybe these footprints had no connection with the crime. But in case they did, everything mattered and was photographed and they made sure to collect all evidence of the scene. But then came the only real identifying clue. Detective Robillet carefully examined the young woman's hands, and on one of her fingers, she was still wearing a high school class ring, which I told you about in the beginning was their biggest clue to her identity. On the Outer Edge read Alexandria Senior High School, which was not local to Winnie, Texas, and the graduation year, 2003. The investigator really believed that there could be something inscribed in the They could not remove this ring from the victim's finger without tampering with her body, so to speak.

So they actually had to get a court order from a judge who agreed that they could cut the ring off of her finger. And this was for a couple of reasons. One, to look if there was anything etched on the interior, but also because they needed to photograph it and distribute it far and wide to see if anyone recognized it. Inside the band was a name. Courtney Coco. And they did quick math. quick math, and they figured out that with a graduation year being a year ago, the owner of that

ring would have been about 19, which matched their victim's age range. It was a lead, but it wasn't confirmation because rings, they can be stolen. They can be pawned, borrowed, passed between friends. The investigators thought this might be Courtney Coco, or she might just have ended up with her ring. So Texas Ranger Herne contacted the Alexandria Police Department. out in Louisiana. And he asked, do you have a missing person for a woman named Courtney? And this call landed with Sergeant Cedric Green. He pulled the files and there was no missing persons, no alert, no bolos. Her name was in the system, though. Because interestingly, just a few weeks earlier, someone named Courtney Coco had reported multiple burglaries at their

house, jewelry, electronics, personal items, all stolen. And not, Not everything had been recovered. So if the ring had been taken during one of these break-ins, then the woman in that garage might not be Courtney at all. But it didn't seem like a coincidence. Still, Sergeant Green knew there was only one way to find out. So he looked up the contact info listed in Courtney Coco's file and he called the number. It turned out to be Courtney's childhood home and her mother, Stephanie Bellegarde, answered. Sergeant Green asked to speak with Courtney.

Stephanie said she wasn't there, but that she was her mother. And what was this in regard to? Is she okay? When someone gets a call from a police station, they're going to assume it's not good news, either their child's in jail or worse. And that's when Green told her that a body had been found in Texas, a deceased female that was wearing a ring engraved

with Courtney's name. Stephanie said no. She rejected it instantly. This was not her daughter. She reminded Sergeant Green about the burglaries. That ring had to have been stolen. It was a mistake. Courtney lived nearby.

She was probably with friends. She wasn't missing. She was fine. But after she hung up, that certainty began to slip because Stephanie started replaying everything in her head. She started thinking, when was the exact last time she spoke to her daughter?

And why didn't it feel recent? And then she remembered the dog. the untouched food bowls. Courtney had promised to stop by, but her two little Pomeranians didn't seem like they had been fed. They were digging through the trash for food when she got home. That's when Stephanie picked up the phone. She called Courtney, no answer.

Straight to voicemail. So she called again, still nothing. She tried her daughter, Lace. She was working at the dental office, and Stephanie asked if she had seen or heard from Courtney at any point over the weekend. And Lace said no. She asked her mom why she was asking that.

And that's when Stephanie told her, a body was found in Texas, wearing Courtney's class ring. Lace couldn't contain her fear. She was frantic. And Stephanie couldn't stop crying. And at this point, Lace called her fiance Anthony, and she was begging him, please come pick me up from work, take me to my mom's house.

But when she realized he couldn't get there fast enough, she didn't wait. She had a coworker drive her straight to her moms. And that evening, when Sergeant Green arrived, He sat down with the whole family. They were sitting at the kitchen table, and he opened up his notepad, and he started asking questions. What did Courtney look like? When was the last time anyone saw Courtney?

Had she mentioned going anywhere for the weekend? Did she have any connections to Texas? Stephanie explained her daughter had short, golden brown hair, green eyes, was slender, tan, about 110 pounds, and 5'4, and she had braces on her teeth and a large butterfly tattoo on a large butterfly tattoo on her. her lower back. It was colorful and had a flower on both sides of the butterfly. She also said that the last time she saw her daughter was a few days ago that Friday afternoon, October 1st, when Courtney stopped by at her house before she and her husband left for a camping trip. Courtney had been in a good mood. She was joking and there was nothing off about her. But she also had no reason to be in Winnie, Texas. She had no job there. She had no friends there and no connections.

So Stephanie clung to that fact. It gave her something to hold on to. If Courtney had no reason to be in that area, then maybe the body wasn't her. Maybe the ring had been sold to the victim, like I mentioned, and maybe this whole thing was a huge misunderstanding and a mistake. Maybe Courtney was about to walk through that door. Now, the body had already been transferred

to the Jefferson County Medical Examiner's Office, and the next step was clear. Somebody had to come. identify her. However, unfortunately, due to the condition of the body, it could not be done by photograph. Someone had to go in person. And it needed to be someone close enough to this family and to Courtney that they were able to recognize personal characteristics and details that stood out and made her who she was. Stephanie knew she couldn't do it. There was no way that she could look at a human that way, especially if this could be her daughter. Not like that.

And there was this little sliver of hope that it wasn't Courtney so she couldn't bring herself to do it. So one of Courtney's uncles, Greg, who was a federal marshal and also her godfather, he volunteered to make that trip. But Stephanie still had to tell him everything she could about any physical identifiers, small details that only the family would know. She mentioned Courtney had that butterfly tattoo that she had recently gotten on her lower back, and she just got her braces put back on her teeth. It was the little things. And while he made that drive, her whole family and friends gathered at Stephanie's home. Nobody wanted to be alone.

They waited in silence. They stared at Stephanie's phone. They called Courtney again and again, hoping that she would pick up. But still, there was no answer. What a lot of people don't think about, because they're not put in a moment like this. If that isn't Courtney,

then it's someone else's love. one. So it's a tragedy no matter who this person is. But Stephanie didn't want it to be her daughter. But if it wasn't, it meant that it was someone else's daughter and that was very heartbreaking. Why that's so difficult is you know that if it's not your child, you're shifting that heartache onto somebody else. And when that call came from Courtney's uncle Greg, it was Courtney's Aunt Lynn that answered. She didn't scream. She didn't fall down. She didn't fall down. her face just went emotionless. Her eyes just went to a distant place. She moved closer to her sister. She looked her in the eyes and she said the words that no mother would ever want to hear.

She said we need to start planning for a funeral. Stephanie collapsed. She fainted. It was Courtney. It was her daughter. She was gone. But how could this be real? So let's shift for from this very intense emotional moment, and let me pick up at the autopsy, which was conducted on October 5th, a day after the body had been recovered. Courtney's body was transported to the Jefferson County Medical Examiner's Office, and the autopsy was assigned to Dr. Charles Brown. And from the start, it was very challenging. The heat and humidity of Southeast Texas had rapidly accelerated decomposition. She had likely been dead for several days. But what stood up out is what wasn't there. No bullet wounds, no ligature marks, no bruises, or scrapes. Nothing that could

easily point to how Courtney died. He did conclude that it was a homicide, but by undetermined means, he wanted to do toxicology testing to rule out or conclude that it was substance-related, which would take some time, possibly a month or more. They also swabbed her body for any evidence of male bodily fluids, which needed to be analyzed as well. And meanwhile, the doctor made sure to document every aspect of her body, especially during the internal exam. These thorough records could be used to make a conclusion once they had the toxicology and all the testing back.

But for now, her cause of death was a mystery. However, one thing that I do want to point out that was very important was the severity of her decomposition. It was more severe than a mystery. it should have been because listen, we're talking about her being last seen on October 1st, and we're going to get more into when and who saw her. But if she was out in the open like that, the way that they found her, whether it was in Texas or even back in Louisiana, she wouldn't have been this decomposed.

So they believed she had been stored somewhere and then moved. And while her body was hidden, it became very hot. So as they're waiting for the test results, they do obtain a search warrant for Courtney's rental home on Sandy BioDrive in Louisiana, which was only 10 minutes from her mother's house. They made their way there on October 7th, three days after her body was found. There were no signs of force entry, no broken windows, no tampered locks, no kicked indoors, and it was organized. It showed evidence of life, recent, casual, familiar, just things that we would all do

and use in the kitchen. There were three chairs. They were pulled up to a table. And there was a game of domino still sitting on top like it was left there mid-play. There were also a couple ashtrays with cigarette butts in them,

a cup, as well as a beer can on the table, in front of two areas where someone would have been sitting. It was the kind of scene you would expect to see when people hung out late and didn't clean up right away. Next to the cup and one of the ashtrays was a spiral notebook. with Courtney's name.

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Drawn on one of the pages and a photo of her best friend Jackie. On another piece of paper were three names, Courtney, Jackie, and Lewis. And they were keeping score of their Domino's game. So now these investigators knew who was probably there that night. Courtney, her best friend, Jackie, and Jackie's boyfriend, Lewis. Now, one thing they took note of was the garbage can. It looked like it had just fallen over and the contents were tumbled out of it, beer cans, food from Sonic fast food restaurant, and other trash items. There was also a pair

of sandals nearby. Could this have been a struggle? Could Courtney have been wearing those sandals and someone shoved her and pushed her into the garbage can? And that's why everything fell over because she lost her balance? They didn't know, but they photographed everything. When they went to her bedroom, they noticed it was tidy. It actually makes me sad when I look at people's things that they left behind. Her vanity, filled with everyday items, lots of things that you would find in one of our rooms or bathrooms, hair ties, nail polish, deodorant, lotion, and then they moved her clothing. It was scattered around the room, but they noticed a pair of pants with a belt still attached and a few pairs of sneakers close by, which is all consistent with a young woman living in her own house,

maybe not cleaning up everything. But they did wonder whether the pants close to the The bed could have been a pair she took off before the homicide. Maybe she had been in bed, just wearing her shirt and bra when she was possibly kidnapped or harmed. The bed wasn't made. There were a few pillows scattered at the top, and the sheets that were on were kind of wrinkled, and something was missing. There was no comforter on top. And Courtney had a leopard print comforter that she always used, and it was gone. And that stood out.

What also stood out was that her shower curtain was missing. Now, her grandmother had been inside of her house three weeks earlier, and she used the bathroom. And she remembered a shower curtain with fish and seashells on it, and it was missing. Under the bed, police found an open but empty small Brinks security cash box. The kind you keep private money in or important documents in. The only thing left inside was an empty box of cigarettes. So it raised questions. Was the killer looking for cash?

Had someone come here to rob her? Had there been money inside and now it was gone? Maybe. But it didn't quite line up because there was no sign of a break-in. And Courtney had already reported multiple burglaries at this very home just weeks earlier, and that was important.

Jewelry, personal items, they were taken and she had filed multiple reports with Alexandria PD. But all of those incidents included forced entry, into the house, and this one didn't. And that's not all. Her wallet and her cell phone weren't inside the house either, and they noticed her car wasn't there.

She owned in 1999, four-door green Pontiac Bonneville, but even with all the items gone, this house didn't even look ransacked. It's like someone knew where to find things, which led the investigators to a chilling conclusion. Courtney could have let her kill her inside. She could have known them. She could have trusted them.

And whoever it was, they betrayed that trust. This really did seem like the most likely scenario. Since Courtney's best friend Jackie had been with her recently at that house, possibly the end of the murder, they want to speak to her and her boyfriend, Lewis. Now for context, Jackie's also the sister. Don't let this get confusing. Jackie, her best friend, is also the sister of Courtney's boyfriend, Jiddy. Now, don't worry about names.

That is not important right now. But Jackie provided information to detectives that was important. So let's go over it. Jackie told investigators that she and Courtney hung out on the evening of Friday, October 1st, which was a few hours after Courtney said goodbye to her mother. Jackie agreed to talk. She wasn't evasive. She wasn't defensive.

She was helpful. She gave them a full timeline of the last time she saw Courtney. She said Courtney picked her up at 7 p.m. And they drove around town doing some errands just to kill time until, Jackie's boyfriend Lewis got off work. Jackie said nothing seemed off. There was no tension. Courtney was fine. Later that night, they drive to Sonic where Lewis was finishing up his shift. And now the Sonic drink cups and food packages make sense in Courtney's trash. Jackie said at 10 o'clock, when Lewis got off work, they picked him up. Then they ordered food.

And then the three of them made a quick stop at a gas station for beer and return to Courtney's house where they drank, they smoked, they talked, and they played dominoes. A totally not normal night, something they had done a number of times before. There was nothing strange, no arguments, nothing like that. As a matter of fact, this is just a small detail. It's not going to matter in the grand scheme of things, but Jackie's children were there as well. This wasn't like a wild party or anything like that. It was just a normal casual night with friends. But she did mention one detail. A little after midnight, a friend of Courtney's name Mel stopped by. She said he didn't stay long. He was only there five minutes, maybe less. He just came over and

Courtney went outside to talk to him, and then she came back in and said, Mel was going to take a shower and he might come back over to hang out. But he never did. At least not while Jackie and Lewis were there. Courtney drove them back home around 2, 2.30 in the morning. So then detectives bring Lewis in. He told them the exact same story. Same timeline, same stop, same people. His version matched Jackie's completely without hesitation or any contradiction. So investigators take it one step further. They pull the CCTV footage from the gas station, and there's Courtney. She's on camera at 1125, wearing the same shirt that she had on when she was found. She also was wearing a white belt and white sneakers and a pair of jeans. These articles of clothing were found in her house. So the theory

that she left there without pants on is lining up with more of the truth than speculation. The fact her comforter was gone. It really suggests the killer was there while she was in bed, while she was sleeping, or maybe right after she got into bed. This would have been after she dropped Jackie and Lewis off. Now, she was supposed to drive Lewis to work the next morning, and she never showed up. So because Jackie and Lewis's stories lined so well in the video back them up, they were rolled out, mostly because they had no access to Courtney's car after they were dropped off that night and seemingly no motive to hurt her.

No one has ever completely ruled out, though. But as far as them becoming actual suspects, they did not move any further up the list in that direction. So now they move on to Mel, the guy who supposedly stopped by that night and never came back. At least not when Jackie and Lewis were there. Mel confirms he was at Courtney's. He stayed for a few minutes, nothing major. He said he left on foot and didn't go back. He never saw Courtney again according to him.

Now they were able to confirm his alibi. So he did not make it to the suspect list. And I'm just going fast because I don't think it's important to go through too much of these individuals when they're completely rolled out. And I know what you may be thinking. Can any of them really be ruled out, though? Because all they did is go home. Like, where's the proof? And that's how Courtney's family felt as well.

They had no choice but to let law enforcement work the case. However, they had their own suspicions. And their focus at the moment was to lay Courtney to rest. because on October 8th, her funeral was held at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral. This is the largest church in their town, but it wasn't big enough. Long before the service even started, this building was packed. Every seat was taken. People lined the aisles shoulder to shoulder.

Hundreds of people came out. And mixed in the crowd were police officers and federal marshals. Some were coming to pay respects, but others came to observe. Because what if her killer was there? What if they were standing in this church, watching, pretending to mourn? For the family, it was absolutely unbearable. Lace had wanted a final moment with her sister, one chance to see her face and to touch her hand

and to whisper something to her. Something meant only for her. But because of the condition of Courtney's body, the casket had to remain closed. They brought her to Alexandra Memorial Garden Cemetery, the same place Courtney had chosen for her father's burial a decade earlier. And there it was, right beside her daddy Greg's grave. That's where she was laid to rest.

And just before the casket was lowered into the ground, Stephanie knelt beside her daughter. She wasn't thinking about anyone watching, but she said something to her. She told her, I'm going to find out who put you here. If the Lord lets me live long enough, I'm going to do it. But that heartbreak and that tragedy, didn't stop at the cemetery, because as the casket was being put into the ground, Nelson, Courtney's grandpa had a stroke. Now, he survived, but something in him never fully came back. Courtney's grandma explained that he could not bear that one of his grandchildren had been killed like this.

And I just kept thinking this poor family. They had already been through so much. And now more than ever, they wanted to solve Courtney's case. Investigators were working on a new lead. Courtney's phone records and they were about to ask the family about a person who called her around 4 a.m., which was after the last time she was seen. It came from a name the family already knew, a man most of them only knew by his nickname, Jiddy. Remember, this was her best friend's brother and that's how they met. Now she and Jiddy were on and off. And my first thought was, well, we know that a male guy came over after midnight so wondered if Jiddy got word of it, he got upset, he confronted Courtney, and something happened.

Now, Courtney's mom had met Jiddy, and her first impression was he's polite, he's respectful. Courtney brought him over Lace's house, and she talked about him as someone she could see a future with. But over time, things changed. Lace found out that Jiddy was selling drugs and the family didn't know that part, and they were not happy.

Lace told investigators, she ended up seeing bruises on Courtney's arms, and she asked about them, and Courtney, she didn't deny it, but she didn't explain it. explain it, she just changed the subject. But later, Courtney said something to her sister, Lace, that she said she could never forget.

She said, Lace, if anything ever happens to me, Floyd Lee Williams, Jr. did it. Lace had never heard the name before. She was like, who? And Courtney's like, J.D., that's J.D. So that statement and that phone call pulled Jiddy straight into the center of this investigation. And as I'm sure you could have guessed,

The significant author or the ex is usually the main focus in the beginning of investigation. And Detective Cedric Green sat across from Jiddy. And this man wasn't nervous. He didn't ask for a lawyer. But he also didn't have a solid alibi. He said he was just around that night. He could not be more specific. But he said he had nothing to do with what happened to Courtney.

She was his ex according to him. And yes, they would hook up from time to time. But he said he had no reason. to hurt her. Detective Green had actually already done a background check on him, and he wanted to be ready to question him about his criminal record, but there was nothing violent. There was small drug arrest and possession and distribution, but nothing domestic in nature, no physical altercations, and there was something else that stood out to the detective. Jiddy's stature. He was only 5'6. He had a very small frame. He wasn't the kind of man that, Green,

could imagine carrying a woman's body, putting her in a car, transporting her, dragging her into that abandoned building all by himself. If he did have anything to do with it. And there was nothing on his body. He didn't have any cuts or scrapes. Nothing that would show that there was any kind of struggle. And there was nothing tying him to the crime. No fingerprints, no DNA evidence. Just Courtney's words months before this.

But this system isn't built for gut feelings or ominous statements. You need proof. And right now, there was none. Besides, as they're checking Courtney's phone, they make a shocking discovery. Her phone's pinging all the way in Houston, Texas. So that shifted their focus from the X right away. Someone's using her cell phone in the same state

that her body was found. All of a sudden, whereas a bunch of outgoing calls being placed in a very short window of time. And they were all Houston area codes. And coming specifically from Houston's fourth ward, which is a high crime area. Now, this was approximately 80 miles away from that abandoned building where she had been found. So investigators moved quickly. They traced the phone's activity to a government housing complex off of Allen Parkway. And his officers are knocking on the front door.

They see a young man frantically trying to make his way out the back of the house. And they were able to catch him before he get away. He's only 15 years old and he is terrified. He had no idea why they were there. They told him the phone he was holding belonged to a murdered 19-year-old girl, and they wanted to know why he had it. This boy was shocked. He said he had no idea whose phone that was. He bought it for $10 a few days ago from two guys in a green car. A green car. Investigators think it was probably Courtney's missing Pontiac. So they asked this boy, who were the guys? He goes, I don't know. I think they're just called Trey and Red.

That is not much to go on, but they already have a bolow out for this vehicle, and only five days later on October 13th, a tip comes in. Someone had seen a green Bonneville parked at another apartment complex in the same high crime area, fourth ward. When officers get there, there it was. It's Courtney's car. The license plate matches. It turns out, Courtney's car was pretty much free game, for anyone in this area who wanted to use it. It's called a rent-a-rock. Okay, I had never heard this before.

It's where a car is loaned out or traded for substances. It's really hard to trace with deals like this because the car can be passed to so many different people in just one day. They'll be like, here, you want to use my car? I'll trade you for this much crack. And that's the first deal. And then that person goes, gets what they need,

and then they trade it and then so on and so forth. The only thing the investigators can do is let it happen as they sit back and watch, hoping to catch this tree and red guy in the act and confront them about where they got Courtney's cell phone and her vehicle. But in situations like these in areas like this, even Courtney's cell phone could have been passed through so many people's hands. And these two guys, they could have just needed some quick cash. If they're already doing rent or rock deals, that's probably to be explained.

But finally, two men get in the car, they start driving it away and they're pulled over. They're identified as 24-year-old Shetak Thomas and 21-year-old Joseph Lawrence. They're not tree in red. And this is confirmed by the 15-year-old. He purchased his cell phone. He remembered what they looked like. And the tree and red guy, they were known in that area. So this wasn't them.

They were just guys borrowing the car from other people like I told you. But here's what's interesting. They do have some information. They said they remember the tree and red guy. They expected them to come back and get the car, but they never did. They pretty much abandoned it. Almost like they meant to mislead the residence

as passing it off as a rent-a-wrought car, but it was stolen. And maybe they left it there to contaminate it because it's a vehicle involved in a murder. So investigators did what they could to try to track down these guys, but either they were completely fake identities or people were covering for them.

But now, at least they have Courtney's car, which was then transported to the Texas DPS crime lab and they do a full forensic examination. And you could have guessed, I already alluded to this, contaminated. No usable fingerprints. There were way too many people that used that car.

It was hard to tell what was evidence or what wasn't. However, they did find, I think a few cigarette butts, which they collected, and then they moved inside the trunk. And it looked like there was blood droplets there. They sprayed it with luminal, and it lit up in several places. Now, this wasn't a lot of blood, but it was enough droplets to be collected and tested. And I think this is probably a good time to talk about not only the DNA evidence from the trunk,

but also the toxicology report and the results from the cell. swabs that were taken from Courtney's body, because all of that does come back within the next few weeks of the investigation. There's no alcohol or substances in Courtney's blood. This was not a no-d, and there was no evidence of sexual assault. So Dr. Brown, the medical examiner, goes back to all of those extensive notes and photographs that he took in the beginning to preserve the evidence as he was waiting for those results. And he concluded that Courtney died from exfixiation by smothering.

There's no visible trauma to her head or her torso, and a lack of external bruising around her neck and mouth tells him something important. This wasn't manual strangulation or choking. There was no ligature, no forcible contact. Instead, it looked like something had been pressed tightly over Courtney's mouth and nose, cutting off her airflow until she died. Something soft, something controlled like a pillow,

a blanket, even a hand. But whatever it was, it didn't leave the kind of marks that you would see in a violent struggle. but the results the same. Courtney was unable to breathe, and someone made that happen on purpose. And then there was the problem of timing. I told you that Courtney had been seen alive

in the early morning hours around 3 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, October 2nd. But her body was discovered two days later, and it showed severe decomposition. It looked like it was more consistent with being at least a week or more, and that discrepancy immediately stood out. Dr. Brown believed

he had the explanation that I briefly mentioned earlier, heat, extreme heat. Specifically, the inside of a car sealed up and parked under the sun in Southeast Texas, where internal temperatures can hit over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Now the blood in the trunk made even more sense, because it's not uncommon for someone who is smothered to bleed from their mouth or nose or both, or postmortem fluid can be tinged with blood, and leave blood and DNA mixtures behind. So the doctor suspected that Courtney had been smothered

on her own bed, wrapped in her comforter, and placed in the trunk of a car. Then it was driven out in Texas and sat in the sun, which supercharged the rate of decomposition. And apparently, when they were ready, the killer moved the vehicle to the abandoned building to stage the scene and to suggest the motive was sexual in nature. But detectives didn't believe it was.

The positioning of this blood was, of this body was almost too intentional. From the beginning, they thought that someone did this on purpose to throw them off, to mock and to embarrass Courtney. That was a humiliating display. And after the family heard all of this, they were saying they're trying to think of anyone who could have access to her home

and a reason to want to harm her and stage the scene like that. And one person comes to mind again, not the boyfriend, but a former roommate. a girl named Alexandra. She had a key and she could have made extra keys and given it to someone else

because they had an argument. Courtney kicked her out just a few weeks before this and that was really concerning because she told Courtney she would cut her. Her exact words were I'll cut your guts out.