True Crime with Kimbyr - Part1: She Let Her Killer In - Their Final Texts Exposed The Deadly Truth!

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

In this emotional episode of True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha unravels the tragic story of 24-year-old Molly Matheson, a vibrant young woman whose ordinary Sunday goodbye turned out to be her last. When Molly missed a shift at work, her mother’s unease set off a search that would expose a terrifying truth: a violent predator hiding in plain sight. Through compassionate storytelling and meticulous research, Kimbyrleigha brings Molly’s life and the chilling events of April 2017 into sharp focus. What really happened after Molly drove away that night? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a moment that happens in every family, and you've probably lived it yourself. Someone's leaving after a visit and you don't want them to go just yet. You linger in the doorway, you walk them to their car, and maybe stall with one more story. You hug and say, I love you, and then watch them drive away. And you don't think much of it. You assume that you're going to see them again in just a few days. You always do. But what if that hug was the last one? What if you could go back just for five seconds, and hold on just a little tighter, a little longer. That was the moment Tracy Matheson lived through

on the night of April 9th, 2017. A regular Sunday, a casual goodbye. Her daughter Molly pulling out of the driveway, waving and promising to text her later. Everything seemed fine, but by the next afternoon, that moment, one that they've shared a thousand times, was frozen in time. The last time Tracy would ever get to see her daughter alive.

Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel, and if you've never been here before, it's nice to finally meet you. It was Monday, April 10th, 2017, just a regular weekday in Fort Worth, Texas. At around 3.40 p.m., Molly Matheson's manager at Soma, the women's boutique where she worked, called her mom Tracy. Molly hadn't shown up for her 1 p.m. shift. She wasn't answering her phone. She hadn't texted. She hadn't called in. Nothing. And that might not sound like a big deal at first because people get caught up, they oversleep, they forget to plug in their phones. But if you knew Molly, you would know it wasn't like her. Molly wasn't just punctual.

She was the kind of person that would show up 15 minutes early, and she considered that on time every time. Her boss actually joked that Molly's idea of running late was actually arriving a full 10 minutes ahead of schedule. So when her mom, Tracy, got that call, something deep in her gut told her that this wasn't just a no-show. This was something wrong. 10 minutes later, Tracy was in her car.

heading towards her daughter's house. It was only a few blocks away and just a few minutes from her own house. She thought maybe Molly had overslept, or maybe she just wasn't feeling well. But deep down, as she drove, she just kept feeling more worried, and that feeling got louder and louder. And as she pulled up to Molly's place and saw her car still parked out front, that's when everything started to unravel. And this is the story of what happened after that. The hours, the days, and actually the years, the years, and actually the years that followed and the horrific truth that would unfold. One that not only shattered an entire family, but exposed something even darker, a violent predator hiding in plain sight. But of course, to understand how all of this happened, we need to understand who Molly Matheson really was,

before all the news reports, before the courtrooms and the headlines that turned her name into a case file. Molly Matheson was just Molly before all that. She was born on May 18th of 19, and she was the second child of David and Tracy Matheson. They already had a son, Nick, and if you ask him now, he would tell you that Molly didn't just arrive in the family she showed up like she owned the place. She had this energy about her, this light that just pulled you in. Years later, when the family adopted two little boys from Korea, Max and Ben,

it was Molly who stepped in like a second mother, not out of an obligation, but because that is who she was. She adored those boys. She was their protector. She was their playmate, their biggest fan. She helped take care of them without being asked, and she showed them off to all of her friends like a proud parent shows off baby pictures.

She didn't see them as adopted siblings. They were her brothers, period. And although Molly was born in Fairfax, Virginia, she didn't grow up there. When she was just three years old, the family moved to Winter Park, Florida, just outside Orlando, think tree-lined streets, quiet neighborhoods, the classic small-town suburb vibe.

That's where she became Molly. She went to Dommerich Elementary School, then Maitland Middle School, and Winter Park High School, where she was a goalie on the lacrosse team. LaCross was something she picked up because her older brother Nick played lacrosse. And just like most younger siblings, she wasn't about to let her brother be the only one playing a sport. She was going to challenge him. But she wasn't just out there to play. She competed and she was actually really good. And outside of school, Molly was deeply involved with the student ministry at First United Methodist Church.

Her faith wasn't something she wore loudly, but it mattered to her. She volunteered at vacation Bible school every summer, and she loved going on mission trips. It wasn't just about service. It was about connecting with other people. She wanted to help people. She wanted them to feel seen. And Andy Cardi, Molly's youth pastor, remembered how she and a friend used to joke that they wanted to be famous, but they were too lazy to do anything about it, so they would fake it instead. They would post updates to

their fans, well, to pretend fans, of course, on Facebook, acting like they were celebrities. And it wasn't just family or church or school. Molly was one of those people who made an impression everywhere that she went. Her brother described her as hilarious, outgoing, and just plain easy to be around. She didn't try to be perfect. She was unapologetically herself, which meant she was flawed. She could laugh at her own jokes, photo bomb her friends' pictures, or belt out a ridiculous the song, mid-car ride, and have everyone cracking up. Now, being in a household full of boys, well, Molly owned it. She was proud to be the only daughter and she leaned into that status hard. There was actually a chalkboard in the Matheson kitchen where someone, David, her dad, once wrote,

Molly is my favorite and he signed it, Dad. Molly never let him live that down. She would flash a grin and point to the board and say, see, it's official, the favorite of the family. And honestly, he didn't deny it. If Molly wanted to go shopping, her dad took her. If she asked for one thing she usually got two, he just had a hard time saying no to his only daughter. And the thing is, she didn't take advantage of that. She just had a way of making people want to say yes to her. Her relationship with her mom, Tracy, was just as special. They weren't just mother and daughter. They were truly best friends. Her mom said she called her her best friend. Tracy would say that Molly gave her the best 22 years of her life. They weren't just

close in that, okay, we get a long kind of way, they enjoyed each other, genuinely. They would hang out, they would watch TV, they would go on vacation together, even just something simple as running errands, they would make it fun. And if they were just absolutely doing nothing at all, they would still make it the best day because they were together. And she was amazing with kids. She was really amazing. Molly had this natural ability to make kids feel safe and feel loved. She babysat, she became a nanny and it wasn't for the money. It was genuinely because she loved kids and they loved her right back. Parents would ask for her to come back mostly because their kids would cry when

Molly left. She wasn't just the fun babysitter with snacks and a movie. She was the one that made your kid feel like the most important person in the room. She was really goofy too. She did have a serious side but she was mostly a lot of fun. Getting a normal photo of Molly was kind of impossible because she was always trying to do something ridiculous to make you laugh. Either making a face, throwing up the peace sign, turning a family photo into a meme. She just loved being the center of attention, but not in the I need validation type of way.

It was more like, I'm going to make you smile, even if it kills me or takes all day. She would use Snapchat daily multiple times a day, back and forth with all of her friends. And speaking of her friendships, once Molly was in your life, she stayed in your life. She wasn't flaky. She didn't just disappear or not answer your calls.

And if you were going through something, you would call Molly. Not because she would give you the perfect advice, not at all, but because she would tell you the truth. But not in the way where she made you feel like you were being judged. It was because she would make people feel seen. Even when they couldn't see the good in themselves, Molly could. She was also the one with the fashion sense in the family. I mean, being a girl, I guess, that comes with the territory sometimes.

But when it came to her cousins, she was their go-to for beauty tips, outfit opinions, skincare advice, whatever they needed. But it was mostly because they liked to spend time with Molly. She could be goofy one minute and she would be your stylist the next. But Molly also had this quiet side. As a little kid, she was really shy. The type of kid that wouldn't be able to order food at a restaurant, she wouldn't answer the door, she wouldn't talk to strangers.

So it was an absolute shock to her older brother Nick, when during a visit to his college, she didn't just hang out with his friends, She was owning the room. He couldn't believe it, because his shy baby sister, the one that could hardly make out a sentence in public, was somehow out charming him now. And in 2010, the family moved again, this time to Texas. Molly was now in her late teens.

She was heading to University of Arkansas, and she was all in on being a razor back, and that's where her world would expand. It was a time for growth and independence, and that's where she met Sutton Reya, her future best friend, and instantly they clicked. Sutton said that Molly was a little weird, but in the best way. She had this sharp, funny, witty personality and a laugh that just stuck with you.

And during her college years, Molly started growing into herself more, trying new things. She even got some tattoos. And not the random two o'clock in the morning kind of tattoos. These were ones that actually meant something to her. One of them was for her younger brothers. Just the word, beloved. That one she didn't even want to tell her, family about it first because it was private. It was personal. It was a reminder of who she was

and how she wanted to feel about herself. It wasn't the kind of thing that she rushed to tell her family about and one summer while swimming with her brother Nick, he noticed one of her tattoos on her rib cage and immediately called it out and teased her about it. His sweet, well-behaved little sister had a tattoo and she panicked. There was no way she wanted her parents to find out. She was an adult. That was her choice, but she thought about how her choices would affect those around her. And in 2015, she made another choice. She stepped away from school before her senior year of college. She needed a break.

Arkansas had been good in some ways, but it was really hard in others. She needed to reset. So she moved home to Fort Worth, and she started putting the pieces of her life back together. She rented a cute little guest house behind a tutor-style home on Waits Avenue, just two blocks from Texas Christian University campus, and only a few minutes from her parents' house. Though she lived close by, she wasn't actually a student at TCU.

She was still figuring things out and taking classes at Tarant Community College. She planned on transferring to Tarleton State for a degree in social work. Her little guest house was perfect. It was 600 square feet and spacious. It had its own little outdoor patio near a single French-style door that led right into the small guest space. It was private through the driveway gate right off the main house. When you walked inside and you'd enter right into a small sitting room.

Then there was a bedroom next to that through a sliding door. It had its own full kitchen and a dining room table, and of course the bathroom, it was just enough space for everything she needed. It even had a pool in the backyard and a cozy veranda. At this point, she was also working part-time at Soma Intimates and women's lingerie store in University Park Village, sort of like a Vitorious Secrets. And listen, her boss, her manager at the store, Chris Avera, straight up said that Molly was a dream employee. She was polished, personable, reliable, always early, not just on time,

but early. Like I said before, Molly's version of running late meant showing up 15 minutes ahead of her schedule, and she never needed reminding and always had a smile. Customers loved her. Her coworkers loved her. She just had that energy about her, and she found her rhythm for the time being. And by 2017, Molly was 22, living alone, but deeply rooted with her family, and she was in a great place in her life. She was happy.

She was studying what she loved, hanging out with friends on a regular basis, and she couldn't wait to become a social worker. It's something she would talk about nonstop. She had a passion for her. helping troubled teenagers. She and her mom, Tracy, were still best friends and would still watch TV, go out to eat, spending a lot of time together, and her dad was still the one with a soft spot for her. She was close with all of her brothers. She was doing all the work to become the person that she wanted to be. Molly, like other young adults in 2017, also had an active social media

presence. And her guy friend, Peyton Bailey, would talk to her all the time on Instagram and Snapchat, exchanging pictures and messages back and forth on a daily basis. Their friendship was full of laughs, going on motorcycle rides together, and in Peyton's words, just being crazy and stupid together. They would wear oversized glasses and floppy hats, strike a pose and pretend that the paparazzi was following them. They would say things like, oh, no photos, please. Respect celebrities' privacy.

And people would look at them and wonder, who are these people? Molly also tweeted a lot. A lot of things like funny memes and just silly things. She was always online. But then things went dark. Sunday, April 9th of 2017, didn't feel like a big deal. It was just another casual Sunday in Fort Worth. Molly did what she did often.

She stopped by her parents' house. Tracy and David were there, like always. They laughed, they caught up. They sat around and talked like they always did. These weren't special plans. They didn't need to be. Molly came over several times a week. That was just her rhythm, her routine.

They probably didn't even realize how much that time mattered. until later. Molly had a paper due and she had work the next day at Soma. So eventually she got up to head out and before leaving, she hugged everyone goodbye. Her usual, I love you. And then she got ready to walk out the door. Her parents actually walked her to her car, something they always did. And then she drove off. And that was it. Just another goodbye. No one thought it would be their last. For that next day, on Monday, April 10th, it started like any other until it didn't. At the 3.40 p.m., Tracy got the phone call from Carissa Vera, Molly's manager at Soma. Carissa wasn't calling to chat. She was calling because she was worried. That's because Molly

didn't show up for her 1 o'clock shift. She hadn't called in. She wasn't answering her phone. And that wasn't Molly. So when she didn't show up and no one could reach her, alarm bells started ringing. Tracy tried to brush it off at first. Maybe she was taking a nap. She did like a good afternoon nap. But something about it didn't sit well with her. It was mother's intuition. The quiet gut feeling that started to grow louder and louder, so that's when she decided she's just going to drive over to Molly's house and check to see what was going on.

While she was on the way there, she's calling over and over again and Molly is still not picking up, and now she's getting closer and closer. She's getting more and more worried. So Tracy called a friend of Molly's that lived right across the street. She asked her if she could just look outside the window and tell her, Is Molly's car parked outside? The neighbor said, yeah, it's right outside,

parked on the curb, which is where Molly usually parked. At this point, Tracy is a mix of worry, confusion, and fear. When she pulled up, she got out of her car, and she literally ran up the driveway towards the back of that house. She knocked on the glass door, and Molly didn't answer. Tracy was feeling more concerned, so she tried the door, and it was unlocked. She twisted the knob, and she opened it, and stepped in the door.

and stepped inside. Now, since this wasn't a big space, it didn't take long for Tracy to look around and realize Molly wasn't in the front room where the couch was. Her Apple Watch was still there on a side table. And one of her chargers was on the ottoman. Tracy turned to go into the kitchen, which was in order. Molly wasn't in there.

So she ran straight to the bedroom. Now, it was a bit messy, but that wasn't unusual. There were clothes everywhere, all over the twin-sized bed, the floor scattered around on the dressers, some hung on a garment rack, her curling iron and her hair. hairspray was on the vanity. There was a broken, full-sized mirror in front of the vanity on the floor. Now, that did kind of look weird, but it was one of those cheap ones you would get at like Walmart and hang on the back of your door or just prop it up. And it looked like it had been there a while,

since there was a small trash can on top of it and a towel. It was as though Molly had planned to throw it away but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. The laundry room was in order. Molly wasn't in there. And she had many purses. But the one that she normally wore recently, a gray one, was on the kitchen table, along with the key to her car, a notepad, a bag of change, some pens, her school ID, her driver's license, and her social security card. There were at least three prescription medication bottles in her house. Two were on her dresser, and one was on the kitchen table. But there was still no sign of Molly. Tracy went outside in the courtyard and she yelled her name, but then she turned back to the guest house. There was one place she realized she hadn't

looked in the bathroom. Could Molly have been in the shower and maybe she just hadn't hurt her come inside, or maybe she was hurt. Could she have slipped and fell and cracked her head open? That's a valid fear. It happened to one of my cousins and it also happened to a YouTuber that some of you may know, Mikey. She had a channel here called Glam and Gore. So Tracy ran back inside and right into that small bathroom at the back of the guest house. And as soon as she pulled open the door, she found Molly. She was on the floor of her shower. The shower wasn't on, But Molly's hair was still wet, and she was wearing a t-shirt. It was kind of odd.

Molly was just slumped over. She wasn't responsive, and Tracy was yelling her name. Tracy was in shock. She knew she needed help. But in that moment, she couldn't move, she couldn't think, and she couldn't even dial 911. She ran outside and she was yelling for someone to call the police. She needed an ambulance.

She needed help. And then she realized she needed to do that. So she finally did. And honestly, you can hardly make out a word that was coming out of her mouth and neither could the dispatcher. She was screaming, I need an ambulance. Tracy was back and forth between trying to be there for her daughter

and still trying to figure out what happened and also being calm enough to relay what she was seeing to the dispatcher. She said, my daughter is at the bottom of the shower and she's not moving. I can't tell if she's breathing. I don't know what's going on. Now, I will play a portion of this,

and I just want to be. warn you. It's heartbreaking to listen to. Let's start with your emergency. Come back to the phone. Are you still with me? Yes, I'm with it. Okay, tell me exactly what happened. My daughter is in the bottom of a shower. She's not moving. I keep up to if she's breathing. I don't know what's going on.

The dispatcher had Tracy pull Molly out of the shower and begin CPR, but it was during this time that Tracy realized that Molly was dead. Her daughter, was gone. She starts screaming to the dispatcher over and over again. Like it's just some kind of nightmare, saying she's dead. She's dead. She's dead. The paramedics were already on their way, and so were officers. Tracy called her husband to tell him to come to Molly's as soon as he could. He could hardly make out what she was saying, but he left work and he rushed over there, and that drive to Molly's place was a blur. David couldn't tell you if it took 30 seconds or 30 minutes, he said.

He had no memory of that drive, just the panic and the dread, the knowing that something terrible was waiting for him when he got there. To Tracy, it was unreal. She had just seen her healthy, vibrant daughter hours earlier, and now she's dead? How?

By the time Molly's dad, David arrived, emergency vehicles were already lining the streets. Their lights were flashing, officers, paramedics. It was chaos. He found Tracy standing outside. She had already gotten confirmation. A medic had come outside and told her that Molly was deceased. And now, she had to relay that news to her husband.

These parents were in total shock. They spent the rest of the night trying to understand how this could have happened. Did she have some kind of underlying health condition that they didn't know about? They even considered that it could possibly have been self-harm. But that didn't line up with who Molly was. So they had to think of something else. If she did somehow do this, it was unintentional. It had to be.

They were just running every scenario through their minds that they could think of. I mean, there were prescription bottles in her house. They didn't want to believe she could do something like this to herself, but they also had to be realistic. However, the truth would be way worse. Her friend Sutton was also finding out that something happened to her best friend,

but not in the way they would want or expect to. She had reached out to Molly that morning just a quick, hey, how are you, text? But she didn't get an answer. And then someone on Facebook actually messaged Sutton out of nowhere. And they just said, I just heard what happened to Molly and I am so incredibly sorry for your loss. Let me know if you need anything at all. And that is so heartbreaking. Sutton had no idea. But since the scene was so chaotic on that street outside the guest house, neighbors asked officers and paramedics. And of course it was relayed to them. somebody had died.

People knew that Molly was the only one living in that guest house, so Word traveled fast. I would wait to tell somebody like that. If they haven't posted anything, wait. You never want someone to find out that way, and you certainly don't want to let them know through a DM. It was the worst news that someone could get. Peyton didn't want to be alone, so he called over all their mutual friends,

and it was more than a grieving session. It was actually a brainstorming session. They wanted answers. So they were putting their heads together to make it make sense. They went down a list of possibilities and none of them added up. She wouldn't have harmed herself because she would have let someone know how she was feeling. Molly wasn't the type to keep things inside.

So they thought. She must have fell and hit her head. At the same time, authorities were on the scene and they were trying to answer that same question. What happened? When officers first arrived at Molly's house, they didn't walk into a clear-cut crime scene. There was no broken window.

No kicked indoors, no overturned furniture or blood on the walls. This place looked lived in, but not as though a fatal struggle had occurred. However, the front door was unlocked, so you could file that under odd, unusual, not typical of Molly. But her television was still there, electronics untouched, her purse was right on the table, her phone charger was plugged in by the bed. Nothing appeared stolen. No obvious signs of force entry, no visible trauma. But something wasn't right. The responding officer Taylor Rogers entered

after getting a pretty nondescriptive call. It said a young woman was found unresponsive by her mother. It could have been anything. A medical emergency, a freak accident, a drug reaction. So at first, they didn't rush to conclusions. They did call in homicide detectives, but not because they thought this was a murder, but because they needed to rule it out if it could be.

Detective's Matt Anderson and Kyle Sullivan were the ones who picked up this case. And like everybody else, their first questions leaned towards the possible and the tragic. Could Molly have suffered a sudden medical issue? Or maybe something self-inflicted. But her parents, Tracy, and David, were clear.

Molly didn't do illicit substances, and she'd been in a very good place emotionally. She had just had dinner with them the night before. She was making plans, living her life, laughing, so that didn't add up. The entire place was dusted for fingerprints, the entire bathroom, the shower everywhere, as investigators combed through the small guest house.

Something, finally caught their eye. The washing machine. Inside was a soaking wet load of laundry. Not just wet, it was soaked. The clothes were still stuck to the sides of the basin, like the cycle had been stopped midway through, or just recently finished. Okay, another odd detail. That alone wouldn't have been suspicious except for the fact that it was because there with the towels, a washcloth, a pair of her shorts, and a pair of her underwear, and a fitted bedsheet. There was a pair of men's underwear. That last part is a major red flag because there were no other men's clothing anywhere in her house. None. No guy lived with Molly and as far as anyone else knew, she wasn't

exclusively dating anyone. So whose underwear were these? Now the fitted sheet and the washer also caught their attention because the matching flat sheet and pillowcases were still on Molly's bed. But the fitted one, the one that would have been around the mattress, it had been gone, and now they found it wet and bundled in the rest of the items in the laundry. So it didn't take long for them to realize this wasn't random laundry. This was evidence. This was a cleanup of some kind. That's the only way it made sense of them.

Why only wash one fitted cheat? Towels and a random pair of underwear? Investigators started thinking that someone might have used that washing machine after Molly's death, maybe to get rid of bodily fluids, maybe to destroy evidence. But either way, this wasn't just an unexplained death. They were looking at a potential crime scene. And then came the biggest shift. When the medical examiner arrived on scene

and began preparing Molly's body for transport, they noticed something subtle but significant. Patee eye. Tiny red dots around her eyes and face. And all of you are your own detectives. You're into forensics. You know what it means. It's a sign of exfixiation, of strangulation, the kind of pressure,

of pressure that cuts off your oxygen. And just like that, everything changed. The guest house was now officially a crime scene. Officers secured it. They placed someone there by the door overnight. Nothing was going to be touched. Nothing was going to be missed. They were going to figure out who did this.

Because Molly was murdered. At the autopsy, the picture got even clearer and more horrifying. Molly Matheson had indeed been strangled. The medical examiner looked. elicited as her official cause of death. There was also evidence of blunt force trauma, injuries to her head, and her body that suggested that she had been physically attacked.

And there was something else. The bottom half of her body was unclothed when she was found, and that opened up the possibility of her being forced into something. Detective Sullivan asked the medical examiner directly, was Molly violated? He used the R word, the one that YouTube doesn't like. They performed an essay forensics exam, and at that point, they did.

They didn't have conclusive results. No yes and no no, just we'll have to wait and see if the DNA comes back and we get a hit. But one thing was no longer a question. Someone had done this to Molly. Someone had been inside her home and they had killed her. But who and why? On April 11, 2017, just one day after Molly had been found, detectives told Molly's father, David, what they learned. That she didn't die of natural causes.

She didn't take her own life. She was murdered. David then had to do the impossible. He had to sit down with Tracy and the rest of his family and tell them. He took her and their oldest son into a room and delivered the news that no one should ever have to give. Tracy would later say that she screamed and she may have even collapsed in that moment. She doesn't even remember. She can only remember the pain.

The fact that this was a homicide, it changed everything. It wasn't just the grief of losing their daughter. early in life, it was the trauma of knowing someone had chosen to hurt her, that she should have been alive, that someone had done this to her and that hurts. Something I really admire about Molly's loved ones, especially her friends, was how diligent they were in fact-finding. They were detectives. They got together, they formed a group, they were chatting on their phones and group chat, in a group together brainstorming. They were scouring social media, making all kinds of connections and deductions.

Trying to find out who Molly corresponded with, who she hung out with beyond their friend group, and whether there were any potential suspects just lurking in her midst. They made lists, they checked people off, they provided these to police, and I give them so much credit and praise for doing that. With modern technology, we can start looking into things

just like detectives would, and sure, they're gonna go deeper with subpoenas and things like that. But in just a couple days, her friends already had a name for the police to look in touch. to David Walton, one of the guys Molly had been hanging out with in the last few months. They reconnected recently and they were friends since high school. Her friends also knew about David. She'd been seeing him in the last few days leading up to her murder.

So detectives looked into him. They asked him, who was Molly to you? And he explained they were close. It wasn't anything serious. They were just having fun, casually hooking up. But he said that he spent April 9th with Molly. That's the same day she died. Once he told officers, where he was.

they had been, they pulled up all the CCTV footage, and it showed the two of them at a grocery store earlier that day. Afterward, they played pool together, and then David said he left for work. He told the detectives that Molly had texted him on his way there, and he showed them the text. It read, have a good day at work. Love you. I mean, it could sound a little more serious than just fun, but maybe Molly tells people close to her that she loved them. They asked David what he did after work, and he said he went straight home and played video games online with his friends. But he still came down to the station and did a formal interview. And that's where he remembered something.

Actually, someone that Molly had recently mentioned, a guy who was visiting from Arkansas. She met him when she was in college out there, and it was a guy named Ryan Peacock. David tells detectives that he thinks Ryan has a romantic interest in Molly. And now they're thinking, is this some kind of love triangle? Because that's a common theme when things go south and a person ends up losing their life.

So now they need to look into this Ryan guy. When detectives finally got a hold of him and explained that Molly had been murdered, they expected him to be shocked or even sad. There wasn't even a sense of urgency. Ryan's response to them was, I might be available to talk in about a month or two months. He couldn't talk to them right then?

What did that mean? That's not the type of response detectives were looking for or used to. Two months? No. Detective Kyle Sullivan was like, like, wait a minute, what? Someone you know is just been found dead under mysterious, violent circumstances, and you're penciling in a police interview like it's something like a dental cleaning. That was a red flag. Ryan eventually did agree to a phone interview. He told detectives

that he and Molly had dated casually and it was nothing serious. He said he hadn't even been in touch with her recently and claimed that he had not been to her house in months. He did admit that they'd spoken on the phone that day. But he insisted he never saw her. And he had an explanation for the delay in responding. He was training for a management position at a restaurant. His new job was more important than the death of someone close to him, I guess. But the detectives took it all in. And by this time, detectives shifted into high gear. Every detail of Molly's life, the who, what, where, when, was now potential evidence. They needed to find her phone. And they looked and looked and they finally located it, tucked underneath her mattress. So they pulled it out, and that alone was strange

because Molly wasn't the type to have to stash her phone like that. She lived on it. She would be texting, tweeting, snapping her best friend, Peyton. So detectives wondered, was it hidden there on purpose? And by who? Could Molly have hidden it in some kind of struggle so she could come back and dial 911 without the perpetrator knowing? When they got on that phone, it immediately gave them something to work with. Because on the night of April 9th, the same night of the same night that Molly was last seen alive. She had been texting with someone. Well, she'd been texting with a number of people,

but there was a number that wasn't saved in her contacts, just a string of digits. But the messages were very clear. She invited this person over to her house. First, they asked, are you around tonight? And she responded with, I'll be home later, check back then. Later it came around, and Molly texted this person back. She said, I'm home.

You can come by now. They asked for her address, and she sent it. And later that night, they texted, be there soon. Then around 10.30 p.m., they said here, and she responded, I'll come get you. That tells us that Molly was awake, expecting someone, and willingly opening her door. The person then texted, lazy ass, I'm outside. Sounds like a casual text, not really flirtatious or romantic. The lazy ass text seems too casual, maybe even like an acquaintance who jokes around a lot. Molly was known to be the kind of person who others could confide in,

whether that was a coworker or a schoolmate. So it wasn't shocking that she would have somebody over even if it was close to 11 p.m. Even someone knew that she wasn't that close with. She was nice to everyone. Then later that night at 1137 p.m., Molly responded to a group text from one of her friends. They were setting up a day to meet up together, and they picked Thursday, to which Molly responded absolutely when they asked her if that date was good with her. So we know that she was still active on her phone, still talking, still alive.

But then, at 259 a.m., that same unknown number that was not saved in her phone, sent one last message, and it was never read. That was the last digital footprint on Molly's phone. So the next step was for detectives to figure out who this number belonged to. It wasn't Ryan Peacock because they cross-checked it and his number was saved. It wasn't David because he was also in Molly's contacts. Now, numbers that aren't saved are usually new. So that was another red flag.

Had she met someone new and had they come by that night, someone she didn't know that well that had plans to harm her? At this point, they used GPS data to find out where both Ryan and David's phones were. And they cross-checked that information with the text Molly sent and her phone GPS, which was at the guest house. And both David and Ryan were not nearby. So they were cleared for the time being. But Molly's friends,

had not stopped swapping theories, digging through Molly's social media, her old text messages, her old flings, trying to figure out who she'd been talking to. Who might have been with her that night? Peyton described these moments as literal hell, scrolling and scrolling, desperate to find just the smallest clue that would lead them somewhere. With some unknown number, they wouldn't have much to go on. And police were back to that unsaved number, the one that texted Molly here, the one that had never been named, the one that texted again at two, 259 a.m. and whose text message was never read because Molly was dead. It said, hey, thanks again for the advice. It's nice seeing how far you've come. I'm proud of you, B.R. E.J. I mean, it was like B.R.E.J.

It looked like a misspelling. I don't know. You tell me. I didn't know what that word meant. And then it said, hit me up when you get up. Detective Sullivan did what any investigator would do. He ran a reverse phone lookup through their law enforcement database and instantly, A name came back. 23-year-old Reginald Kimbrough. Who was this guy? Why was he not saved as a contact in Molly's phone? They needed to dig deeper.

But they needed to pause because Molly's family had to say their last goodbyes to Molly. A celebration of life was held at McKinney Memorial Bible Church. Her obituary read, her infectious smile, and wicked sense of humor brought immeasurable joy to each person she knew. She was a massacious. at photo bombing all of her families and friends, and likely many strangers' photos. It made it quite difficult to get a proper family photo because of her goofy expressions.

Molly loved music and entertained her family on road trips with her interpretations of her favorite songs, complete with choreography. Molly was a devoted friend and remained in close contact with nearly every friend she ever had. She loved unconditionally and always saw the very best in people. She was authentic and not afraid to speak her mind. She was the person that people came to her mind.

when they needed advice, a listening ear, or a birthday cake. And as a young girl, Molly might have been described as stubborn with more than a little sass. Her relationship with her parents was especially close, and they appreciated both her sass and her quirky sense of humor. She and her father competed to see who could be funnier, and often Molly was the one who laughed at his jokes. Molly's mother counted her as her best friend and often referred to Molly as her right hand. Molly was always willing to provide any and all assistance whenever it was needed. Yet she never took herself too seriously, and spending any time at all with Molly was sure to brighten your day. Now that she was gone, it was all so unreal for those who loved her.

But they also had information the investigators needed. Reggie Kimbrough. Who was he? Friends quickly told detectives that Reggie was just a guy Molly had matched with on Tinder back when she lived out in Arkansas for college. He actually graduated from Plano Senior High School in 2011 and joined the Navy shortly afterward. He didn't attend the University of Arkansas, but he was always over there visiting Fayetteville because one of his former high school friends was enrolled there.

That friend happened to live in the same apartment complex as Molly and her roommate Megan Lewis at the time, just a building diagonally across from theirs. You know how Tinder works? If you're in the same proximity, you're gonna match with the people nearby. And it was convenient because he was close to where Molly lived, so they connected. Anytime Reggie visited his friends, he and Molly would hang out.

And soon they began seeing more and more of each other, and then they became more than friends. Things move kind of quickly, as relationships do when you're young. And Molly and Reggie were spending a lot of time together and they just clicked. Megan later recalled coming back from spring break one year to find that Reggie had more or less taken over the downstairs level of their three-story townhouse that she was. and Molly shared. He was living with them. But the thing is, as many college relationships go, Molly and Reggie were more off than on. And in 2015, Molly and Reggie had recently ended whatever relationship they had. And Megan and Molly weren't close anymore because Molly moved back to Texas,

and the two roommates were no longer in regular contact. Now, I'm mentioning that part for your reason, because this is what investigators were being told. Friends were coming forward. People who knew them were telling them the whole story. And if you're months later in December of 2015, Megan Lewis, Molly's former roommate, who used to be close friends with her, well, she ran into Reggie while working a job in Fayetteville. She was going through a difficult breakup at the time, and although she had kind of been acquainted with Reggie through Molly, she never really got to know him because he was always with her friend. There wasn't really an interest there, but at this point, she felt like she was meeting him for the very first time,

meeting someone entirely new. Up until then, he had been, more of like a background presence in Megan's life. During that chance encounter, Reggie offered to take Megan out for dinner and ice cream to help get her mind off her breakup. Megan was hesitant because she knew that her former roommate, Molly, had dated him, but it had been a while. Molly and Reggie had both moved on. So eventually Megan agreed. And that night, she vented about her recent breakup and Reggie listened. After that, the two were spending more time together and eventually turned into a relationship.