Unheard: True Crime in Their Own Words - Jennifer Wix and Adriana Robinson: A Disappearance Without Answers

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

In 2004, Jennifer Wix and her 2-year-old daughter Adriana Robinson disappeared from Tennessee. They were never seen again. The last person to see them alive was Jennifer’s boyfriend, who told police that she left voluntarily. That explanation shaped the investigation from the very beginning and influenced how the case was handled for years.Over time, serious questions began to emerge. Jennifer had told her family she was afraid. Her relationship had become volatile, and in the days before she vanished, there were signs that something was wrong. The story about what happened that day never fully made sense, and years later, he admitted that he had lied about key details.The case was eventually reclassified as a homicide, but more than two decades later, no one has been arrested. Jennifer’s sister Casey Robinson has spent years fighting for answers, pushing law enforcement to keep the case alive, and refusing to let her sister and niece be forgotten.In this episode, Casey shares the full story of Jennifer and Adriana, the failures that defined the investigation, and what it is like to live for more than twenty years without closure. This conversation is about persistence, accountability, and a family that is still searching for the truth.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Unheard, True Crime in their own words. Today's guest is Casey Robinson. She is the sister of Jennifer Wicks and the aunt of Jennifer's daughter, Adriana, who is only two years old at the time of her disappearance. Jennifer and Adriana disappeared from Tennessee more than 20 years ago, and to this day their family is still searching for answers. Casey has spent years pushing to keep their case alive, raising awareness, and refusing to let her sister and niece be forgotten.

Her fight is about more than just memory. It's about truth, accountability, and finally finding out what happened to Jennifer and Adriana. This is Casey's story told in her words from her experience. Casey, thank you for being here. Hey, Justin. Thanks for having me. So obviously, you and I have spoken before we know each other. And so that's why I wanted to have you on because your case is one of those that it seems

like a lot of answers are kind of right in front of us. It's just a matter of getting the police to do anything. And, you know, we've talked about this before because you and I are both in Tennessee. And, you know, I have this hashtag that I made up, not really kind of proverbial hashtag, which is hashtag don't go missing in Tennessee because they struggle at finding people. And I'm not trying to dog the police in Tennessee because we appreciate what they do

and the hard work they put in. But when it comes to missing people, or maybe not but, and when it comes to missing people, there's a struggle. We have your case, which is 20 years old, Sebastian Rogers, Summer Wells,

and I think Daniel Robinson, and those are just a couple of them that are just off the top of our head that have been that way. I mean, even with Riley Strain, who was the fraternity kid who went missing here, it still wasn't police that ultimately found him. It was a person who then called the police. So a lot of this with these cases comes from us raising awareness and letting people know because there might be something out there that we don't know and we hope that one of those people will hear it. So that being said, I will shut up and just kind of turn it over to you to let you share your story.

Yeah, thank you. I don't disagree with you. And I never try to dog the police or whatever as well because in missing persons cases, you rely heavily on them. It's a very fine line to walk for families of the missing to have to upkeep that relationship with police because they're the ones who are going to solve it and they're going to bring that justice for you. But then also to be the one that's constantly annoying them and pushing them and calling them out

whenever what they're doing isn't good enough. and I actually share that sentiment with a lot of other families of the missing in Tennessee and I a lot of times like speak on their behalf and have been trying to communicate with a lot of those families like Sebastian Rogers family, Bethany Markowski. I mean, there's so many others that I'm advocating for because we're all in the same boat. Tennessee's actually number eight in our country for missing persons, active missing persons cases. And so they're number eight in our country statistically. What's number one?

I'm just curious. Do you know? If not, that's okay. I was just curious. I didn't realize we were so high up. California, but I think that's just because of the... Cheers eyes. Yeah, exactly.

But for active missing persons cases, and if you look at the numbers, which I pull off of NamUs's website, so that's where the statistics come from, if anyone wants to go look them up. I mean, that number grows every year. Of course, a lot of people are found like in the beginning, thankfully, right? But if they are missing more than those first like one or two days, then a lot of times they stay missing in Tennessee. So the numbers climb by about, I would say, like, 40 to 60 people a year.

And so I just really don't think that it's something that anyone should be ignoring. So I'm right in your same boat and just wanted to hash that out up front. So I don't know where you want me to jump in with the story. I know that we talked last time, but I can kind of cover what happened in 2004 and just talk about Jennifer and Adriana's disappearance and what happened initially. And then just kind of like move into where we're at today. That's okay. Yeah, absolutely. So for people who know, I used to have another podcast called 50 Words for Murder.

And I retired that, whatever you want to say, stop doing it. probably a year and a half, two years ago at this point. In relaunching this, I wanted to share, you know, Casey's story again or Jennifer and Adriana's story again. So for you, I would say, you know, assume this is a completely new audience because it is. And, you know, start, I guess, from the beginning. And, you know, here's the thing, guys. She's been telling this story for, I mean, there are some new developments, which is, which is one of the real important reasons to have this happening like right now.

But, you know, when you get to a point where you've been sharing a story, story for a long time, you kind of get it down to, you know, basically muscle memory. So, you know, I guess just kind of go the way you want to. There's a lot of stuff in here that's going to be uncomfortable, but people still need to hear it. But it's an important story. And you all deserve answers. It's been 20, it was, you know, it's been what 22, 21, 22 years?

Almost 22. Yeah. 21. Yeah. So it's been a long time. And, you know, going back to what you said before I turn it over fully, like, you're right. You can't dog the police because you deal with them a lot. But when you get into a couple decades later, the frustration, I think, is warranted.

You know, that's my opinion. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I'll jump in. And like you said, it does become kind of like muscle memory for us. And especially in the last couple of years, like I've tried really hard podcasting, YouTube, things like that are just, they're really big in our world right now, social media. And so I've tried really hard to keep Jennifer and Adriana's story out there. I've done as many interviews as I possibly can. And what I just want to remind everyone before I do get started is a couple years ago,

whenever we did have an interview on your other show, some things may have changed since then. And that's because in an investigation, we are, we're constantly learning new things that we didn't know or fact checking. And so we remove parts of our timeline. So that's definitely going to happen in our story. In 2004, I had just turned 16 years old, the youngest of three sisters. I have my middle sister, Heather. Jennifer is my oldest sister. And Jennifer is the one who's missing.

She was 21 at the time. And she had a two-year-old baby girl, my baby niece, Adriana. And everyone always likes to ask me, like to tell a little bit about Jennifer and Adriana. So I will. Jennifer was the oldest of six. siblings, all girls. And her mom and dad separated whenever she was little, but Jennifer lived with me and my sister Heather and my mom full time for her whole life. And so we grew up sharing bedroom together and taking each other's clothes and fighting and all the things that sisters do, right?

And then Jennifer found out that she was pregnant at a young age, which isn't super common, especially anymore, but back then it was actually pretty common for people that were like 18, 19 years old to get out of high school and settle down, even though it's not normal today. But it was normal then, but Jennifer found out that she was pregnant and had Adriana at a very young age. And at the time in 2002, whenever she had Adriana, we did not know who Adriana's dad was. but I'll share a little bit more about that in a little bit. So Adriana was two. Jennifer was 21. I'm 16 years old.

Jennifer had just started dating a new boyfriend who is not Adriana's dad. And his name is Joey Benton or William Joseph Benton is his actual legal name. She met Joey through my cousin, Jeffrey, because my mom and I lived out of state. My mom took a job out of state and Jennifer stayed here in Tennessee. So did my other sister, but she stayed with some relatives of ours who happened to live just maybe like five minutes down the road from where Joey lived. And so because my cousin Jeffrey and Joey were best friends, Jennifer happened to meet him, just hanging out and they fell in love. And the relationship was a very short one. They started Dayton in July of 2003 and had a couple of breakups between then and March of

2004 when Jennifer and Adriana ultimately disappeared. So they had their first major breakup. I have to share this because it's a little bit of backstory in October of 2003. My mom and I lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for her job. And my sister called my mom and was, really upset and they had a horrible breakup. She had just been dropped off at her grandparents' house. And my mom's like, what's wrong? You know, Jennifer's really distraught and crying and upset and said that his mom, Cindy or Cynthia Benton, her legal name, had just dropped Jennifer off at her granny's house because he had gotten violent and pulled a gun on all of them and threatened to hurt them and himself. So I know sometimes

in our, like, previous articles and podcasts, like, people say that in different ways. It shows up different ways. Like, he put a gun in their mouth or just pulled a gun on them. And it's not the case. How we understand it, which there was no police report fault, unfortunately, for this. But how we understand it is he just pulled a gun and threatened to harm himself or potentially Jennifer and Adriana. So he told his mom, like, get them out of here.

And so Jennifer ended up living with us because we moved back like maybe like two weeks after that. My mom was like, oh, no. Like I'm going back to Tennessee. She quit her job. We packed everything up. I mean, it was less than two weeks. We were back in Tennessee. So, you know, my mom being worried about, you know, her daughter and their safety and everything was like, okay, you're just going to move back in with me.

So she did. She and Adriana moved into like a basement apartment thing in our house. in Cross Plains, Tennessee, which is in Robertson County where Jennifer and Adriana disappeared. So Jennifer and Joey stopped talking for a little bit, and in December of 2003, just a couple days before Christmas, things seemed to be going well, but I guess they started talking again without anyone knowing, you know, they didn't really like, I guess, end things completely and started talking without my mom knowing, even though he wasn't allowed like around our house

or they weren't supposed to be talking. But he ended up showing up at our house on, it was December 21st, 2003. And he was there to take Jennifer and Adriana with him as she was going willingly. So she had decided to pack all of her things and they were going to get back together. They were going to get married.

but she was leaving with him that day. And this is like one of the other things I like to talk about in our backstory because I was 15 at the time. And I just, this is like a very vivid memory of one of the last times that I remember seeing Jennifer and Adrianna. Because I guess of like trauma memory, I don't have a lot of memory. But this is one of my only memories of Joey. her then boyfriend. So we're following Jennifer around the house. The baby is upset because there's a lot of fighting going on, us basically begging and pleading her not to go with him. The environment wasn't safe. There were drugs, weapons, and things like that that Jennifer had told us that he and his family had just within arms reach anywhere in their home.

And so my mom was like, the environment's not safe, like you shouldn't go. you know this isn't the right thing to do and Jennifer's not listening so she turns to Joey and she says you know this isn't the best place for for my granddaughter and it's it's really it's not good for my daughter anymore or either and he just looks right at her just the scariest look in his eyes and just says you don't have a daughter anymore bitch and just I just remember like everything just kind of like stopping in that moment just being like whoa like you can talk to someone's mom like that first of all. And just the look in his eyes was just, I don't know. It was just something I had never seen. You know, me just being like a young, 15-year-old girl, not familiar with

any of this. Like, we don't have this kind of stuff happen in our life. This isn't it normal. So things start getting more heated. And Joey takes all of their stuff out to the car. And my mom and my other sister, Heather, continue, like, pleading with her. like don't go, don't go. We shut the door behind Joey after he took stuff out to the truck and lock it. And my sister, Jennifer, kind of like shoved my mom and was like, you know, like, get off of me. She was trying to be like, hold her. Like, please don't go.

Please don't go. She just kind of shoved her. And my other sister was like, no, you're not going to touch my mom. So things started to get heated. And I took the baby and ran to the back room called the police. So just overall, very traumatic day, Joey and Jennifer ended up leaving, and Jennifer came back later to get later, like very shortly later, to get Adriana. But just very traumatic day, we knew they, that was kind of like the moment that, like, I remember anyway losing them. And I'm sure my mom and my other sister feel the same.

Like, I wish we could have done more. I wish we did do more, but didn't. So anyways, that was in December of 2003. And then Adriana had a birthday in January of 2004. She turned two. And that was held at the Benton home. We were not there. So we missed out on that.

We miss out on Christmas and New Year's and all of that. But Jennifer started coming around and talking to us and my mom again in February, which is when my mom and my birthday is. we share a birthday and she came over that day to celebrate with us and brought the baby but Joey wasn't allowed so he like dropped them off on the curb of our house and that is probably the last time

that I remember seeing Jennifer and Adriana and I may have seen them but again like I just I can't remember because everything like during this time just was a lot and then a few weeks later later were in March of 2004, Jennifer and Joey had been dating like nine months at the time.

Again, a very short, volatile relationship with all of these things that I just talked about. But my mom and her had started to like mend their relationship, letting my mom babysit if Jennifer needed to go out on a date night with him or whatever, just needed some time alone. So they were back to normal pretty much, like talking every day. And it was, I always like to share with everyone. Like it was very common for Jennifer to talk to somebody in our family every day, if not multiple people. I mean, she was a single mom. She was not working at the time.

She did not have her own vehicle. She did not have a phone at the time. So all of these things are a reason for her to be on the phone constantly if it was using Joey's cell phone or using his family's home phone to talk to people just like to pass time and just stay up to date and socialize pretty much. So in March of 2004, Adriana was feeling sick. And this was always get my, it's hard for me. just let me get it on track again because I like to say the dates. I think it's really important at 24th. So on Monday, March 21st, 2004, Adriana wasn't feeling well.

Jennifer called my mom. I don't know. She kind of had like cold symptoms, right? But it was like very fussy. Two-year-olds can't tell you what's wrong with them. So she calls my mom and is like, I don't know what to do. My mom's like, take her to the ER. My sister had said, like, every time she, like, went potty or whatever in her diapers, like, she would cry and she would fuss and she would, you know, say owl and, like, say it hurt.

But then she also had, like, all of her, like, cold symptoms and everything. So she didn't know what it was. My mom's, like, take her to the ER. And Jennifer's, like, no one here will take me. She was at Joey's parents home. Joey's parents are already said his mom, Cynthia Benton. or Cindy, and then his dad is Joseph, Frank Benton, or he goes by Joe, if you hear me talk about him. But no one would take Jennifer and Adriana to the ER.

And my mom's like, okay, well, if you want, I'll come get you. And my sister's like, no, you're not welcome here. They don't want you here. I don't want anything to start up after what happened at our house at the end of December. We had filed a police report and everything, and there was like a pending court case for that at the time. Jennifer and Adriana disappeared. So because of all of that drama and everything, like, he wasn't welcome over to our house and we weren't welcome over there.

So my mom's like, okay, well, call your aunt Lisa. She lived like five minutes down the road where Jennifer lived whenever Joey and her first met, like just around the corner. And Jennifer called my Aunt Lisa and she took her to the ER at Northcrest Hospital in Springfield. And they run a bunch of tests on Adriana. it was like 11 o'clock at night whenever they got there and ended up staying into like the early hours of the morning before she was released. But they run a bunch of tests and ultimately diagnosed Adriana with vaginitis.

So which is an infection, which would explain all of her, you know, cold symptoms and everything. But no further testing was ever done after that visit to the hospital after they left. So Jennifer and Adriana leave the hospital, go back to the Benton home, and they discuss vaginitis being something that's not common on the way home, not common in two-year-old little girls, which it's not. It's not super common. If you do research on it, they can get vaginitis, but it's going to be from things like wearing a diaper too long or certain diaper creams causing irritation. Like there's things that cause it. But it can also be calls from other things. And I don't know if you're okay with me talking about that. This isn't TikTok or Instagram so you can say. Okay.

Go on and filtered. Oh, yes. Okay. I just want to make sure. One of the other causes, if you do research on it for children that young, can be sexual abuse. So my sister did discuss that with. my aunt on the way home from the hospital. And so it was just something that she was kind of like, could that be happening, you know,

but anyways, the next day on Tuesday, she follows up at her pediatrician's office. Her granny takes her and Adriana just to follow up and see what her pediatrician says, because, again, it's like what's causing it, you know? Her pediatrician says it can be calls from wearing the wet diaper too long, sends her home. And then my mom meets Jennifer and Joey Tuesday evening. This is the last time my mom ever saw Jennifer and Adriena was that Tuesday evening. She met them at the Dollar General and Cross Plains to give her like some homemade like diaper rash cream. And my mom just remembers Jennifer and Joey were fighting on the way over there whenever they were on the phone together because Jennifer was using.

his minutes on his phone. This is back whenever you had to buy minutes. I forgot about minutes and free nights and weekends. Yes, yes. That's exactly what it was. So, like, he was upset about her being on the phone too long. You know, like, we're going to see her in a minute. Yeah.

Yeah. So my mom remembers that. And then she remembers, like, just how pitiful the baby looked. And Adriana saying, you know, I want to come with you, Mimi. You know, and mom being like, no, baby, like I'll see you this weekend. You got to go with mama, you know. But yeah, that's just a heartbreaking memory, like, for my mom.

That's the last time anyone in my family saw Jennifer and Adriana, not just my mom, but she was the last one to see them. So Wednesday, March 24th, that makes me think that I had the dates wrong. So it was the 23rd and Monday, the 22nd, Tuesday, the 23rd. in March 24th, 2004, is the last time that anyone in my family, on Jennifer's mom's side of the family, so my family, her dad's side is a separate side. But anyone in my family talked to her, and this is whenever things start to get kind of alarming. Not that they weren't enough already with their like volatile relationship and the baby being sick,

but like we had kind of moved past like the relationship part and mom being like, okay, like I guess I'm going to accept this guy. Like my daughter, you know, like, whatever. And we had seen Jennifer and Joey and the baby together, like at McDonald's is where me and my other sister, Heather, worked. And they would bring Adriana to the play place. That way we're like in this neutral location. And I don't know.

Like he just had like this like softer side with Adriana. And so my mom's like reasoning with herself, right? Like maybe I'm being too much. Like they're going to be together kind of thing. But March 24th, 2004 was the last time mom ever talked to Jennifer. There was a lot of fighting going on in the house. We're not super sure of the reason for the fighting, but I can, I guess they speculate or just give, like, my opinion and tell the facts of what were happening in the house. I mean, the baby was upset.

She was sick. there were just thoughts in my sister's head about potential sexual abuse that could have been causing her to be short and snippy, you know, with anyone in the house who could have been causing that and her just feeling uneasy and not safe and just kind of like on guard with everything. My sister was also asking Joey to move back into like this barn shed thing that was on the Benton property. that was kind of like a makeshift apartment that they lived in before it had gotten cold in the winter. So in March, they were living in his parents' home, like this little three-bedroom, either one or two bathroom, like ranch style, like a little small house. And so they were all under one roof together. And she was asking him to move back into this barn.

And he didn't want to move back into the barn. according to him in my conversations with him, which I had last year in 2024, that was because there was no running water in the barn. It sounds to me like he was making like a reasonable, like giving a reason for why they shouldn't. Like there was no running water. There was no heat. Like it wasn't a good environment. Like the house was better for the baby, right?

And so that was his reasoning. But for my sister to want to move out of a more comfortable, better environment for her and the baby means there was a reason she wanted to move out. And she was asking him to move out. So there was fighting between she and Joey going on. But there wasn't just fighting between them. There was also fighting between Jennifer and his parents that night. And that fighting was because of the baby crying, being fussy. And Joey, I guess, like, playing the role of dad for a kid that's not his.

And his parents just kind of looking at that situation from the outside being like, like, the baby is her responsibility. Like, you shouldn't have to be, like, you know, changing diapers and soothing her and helping her go to sleep and everything. So there was a lot of that. and just from what my sister said on her last phone call with my mom, she called her like, I don't know, just after dinner on that Wednesday and was upset. She had herself like in hers and Joey's bedroom with the door shut on their phone. And my mom could hear the baby crying in the background and hear yelling in the background. And my mom's like, where's Adriana?

And Jennifer said she's in the bedroom next door, which was a little kind of makeshift room. set up for Adriana. They were trying to teach her to sleep in her own bed. And Joey was in there with the baby trying to get her to go to sleep because he could withstand her crying where Jennifer would bring the baby back in bed with them and just they were trying to get her away from that and sleep train her. But my mom's like, okay, well, who's out there yelling then? And it was Joe, his dad, and Cindy, his mom. She's like, what are they going on about? And Jennifer told my mom that Cindy was talking about about her, like, questioning her character and the way that she mothered saying she wasn't a very good mom. She wasn't fit to be a mom that Joey shouldn't be

taken care of the baby and acting like the baby's dad, that she had thrown their dinner out the back door on the ground saying they could go out, eat it off the ground like dogs do, so they didn't eat that night. And my mom's like, well, where's Joe? Like, where's he at and all this and Jennifer said, well, it's weird because he's normally really nice to me, but even tonight, he's been in my face being awful, being mean. And so my mom's like, okay, Jennifer, this isn't a good situation. Like, do you want me to come get you? And my sister's like, no, again, like, you're not welcome here. They don't want you here. I can handle this myself. My mom's like, okay, well, at least go get the baby, break her in the room with you. So Jennifer did. Joey had passed

out in there. I already went to sleep. And Jennifer brought her in the room with her and the baby fell asleep. And my mom said, okay, well, y'all just get a good night rest. Let's talk again tomorrow. And my sister said, okay, like, I love you, mom. I'll call you tomorrow. And that was the last phone conversation that they had. So that was the last time that my family, my side of the family talked to her. And then on Thursday, March 25th, to... 2004 is the day that I believe in my whole family believes that whatever potentially happened to Jennifer and Adriana happened. So the next day, Jennifer and Adriana, we're at the Benton home. And we know that because she made two phone calls from their home phone.

One of them was around like 11 o'clock to her dad. it wasn't really super common for her to call her dad in the middle of the day. But because of all of the fighting that had happened the night before, I guess she called him and just wanted to talk with him about everything. She and her dad were really close. She was a daddy's girl, looked just like him. And so they talked for quite a while. And he remembers hearing the baby playing in like cartoons on the TV in the background.

And he also remembered. someone approaching Jennifer, like during that phone call. So someone was home with them. And he remembers it to be a woman's voice. And Cindy was the only woman who lived there. But someone approached Jennifer and she was like, stop. I'm talking to my dad. And then I guess like after that person went away, like she told him like, I'm scared, dad.

And he said of what? And she said of Joe. Joey's mom, she's acting weird. And he was like, okay, well, why don't you have someone come get you? Like, have your granny or your mom come get you. And she said, no, that's okay. Joey's on his way home. We're going to go on a picnic, talk about everything.

And so that was her dad's last conversation with her. And then a little bit of time, I guess, passed. So that call was at 11. The last phone call that she made to anyone in our family was to my aunt, Lisa. and that call came in at 1 o'clock. And my aunt had an interview so she couldn't talk long, but Jennifer tried to go into everything that was happening the night before and said she was going to ask Joey to leave with her.

She didn't want to be there in the house with his parents anymore. She's going to ask him to leave with her. And if he didn't leave, then she and Adriana were coming to my aunt's house. And my aunt was like, okay, well, I got this job interview. We're going to put out a key for you on the back porch. So she did, and then no one ever heard from Jennifer again. And so I like to tell it like that. There is something kind of simultaneously happening on this day.

Cindy and Joe, his parents, we don't really know their whereabouts that day. They're unconfirmed by my family. when you and I first talked, I might have said that Cindy was confirmed to be at work that day, but I've since discovered that that's not the case. That has not been confirmed. So we don't know where either one of them were, though one can speculate. She was the only woman living in the house that day. That person that her dad heard approached her on the call very well could have been her.

But Joey has a sister too, and her name is Amy. But she didn't live there in the house. She lived like maybe like 45 minutes away. Potentially, she could have been there that day. So simultaneously, while these phone calls are happening, kind of in between the phone calls, there's a phone call made from the Benton home to Joey's cell phone at his work site. He's working in Franklin, Kentucky on that Thursday. My cousin drove him to work.

My cousin Jeffrey, they worked together for a friend of Joey's dad. And they were in Franklin, Kentucky, which is like 35, 40 minutes away. And they're there. And Joey gets this phone call. Sorry. And Joey then, after he gets this phone call, walks up to my cousin Jeffrey and the foreman on the job, their boss or supervisor, whatever, and says, I got to go. Family matter at home. And he tells my cousin, I need you to take me home.

So he does. they drive back. I've talked to my cousin in like the past couple of years. And though I don't have any of the original police reports or statements from anyone other than my family, Jeffrey doesn't remember what or if they talked about anything on the way home. He just remembers him very abruptly saying, we got to go. He doesn't even remember dropping him off if it was at his home where Jennifer and Adrianna lived and where they were. or if they went to Jeffrey's house and someone else drove him back to Joey's house.

He doesn't remember. And it's been like 20 years at this point. And so there's a lot of like memory coming into play. It's not really fair in a 20-year-old case, you know, where missing persons families don't have access to reports and things because it's active and open. So that happened. He got this call about a family matter. we still to this day don't know who made that phone call and what the family matter was.

Through my investigation, I think that it's very possible that my sister made the phone call. There's a lot of people who speculate, and in the past couple years when I've done interviews, they say that something had already happened to Jennifer and Adriana, and they were calling him home. that could be the case, but from what I understand and what I've been told by law enforcement, the call was made between the call she made to her dad and to my aunt, so it very well could have been her saying, like, come home, like, your mom's acting crazy. You know, I don't know, like, I'm leaving now if you don't come home, whatever. And he could have been just like, I got to go.

Now, what happens after he gets home, everything is 100% told from his point of view and his family's point of view. And this is where I'll speed things up a little bit because what he told is not true. Originally, he told that whenever he got home that day, Jennifer and Adrienne and I were locked in their bedroom. And what I took that to mean is not that someone else had locked them in their bedroom, Jennifer had the door locked, you know, keeping whoever else was home with them out and to stay away until he got home. And then he says that they went for a drive and that on said drive that they decided to break up. They talked about things, decided to break up. And then Jennifer just, whenever they got back to his parents' house, she refused to go in the house, which would line up because she doesn't want to be around his parents and everything.

but she refused to go in according to him. And then she just looked at him and said, take me to cross planes. And where the Benton houses is kind of like right in between Springfield, which is the main city in Robertson County and Cross Plains, which is where we lived and where he says Jennifer took or said, take me. So he said,

she just randomly said, take me to cross planes. And he said, okay. And they left without Jennifer and Adrian. and as belongings to go to cross planes, which is about a 10-minute drive. They drive past my aunt's house on the route into cross-plains, where Jennifer had already previously set up an escape plan or a plan to leave and put the key out.

But they drove past her house into the heart of cross planes. He says they stopped at a food value grocery store, which was around the time of closing. There were three people working that night, none of which I do have these police reports. saw Jennifer, Adriana, or Joey in the store. But he says he thinks she went in there to use the phone because then she came out and said, take me to the Exxon at the interstate. And so on the way to the Exxon from the grocery store

would have passed our home, my mom's home, where my mom had talked to her the night before and said, I'll talk to you the next day. You would think she would say, just drop me off at my mom's house. but they drove right past, according to him at Jennifer's request, and went to this Exxon gas station at the interstate. It's off of I-65 North, almost to Kentucky, Tennessee state line, exit 112.

There's one Exxon gas station, but they pull up, and this gas station attendant knew my sister personally. There was only one person working at the gas station also did not see Jennifer, Adriana, or Joey. But he says he let them out of the car. His story changes a few times. At first, he says he let them out of the car and they waited until someone pulled up next to them. And he didn't see the people and they got in the car and went away. But in the same police report, it says he drove across the street to a church parking lot and waited for about 10 minutes until a white car pulled up. And he describes the car.

A lot of people get hung up on this one. And I will talk about it because. he was changing his story in the moment and hadn't had time to refine it, my opinion. But it's in the original police report. He first names the car that pulled up to the gas station as a white four-door Camaro. No, that's not right. A white four-door Mustang. No, that's not right.

And then eventually it turns into just a white four-door sedan. So all of this is in one police report. And he says that Jennifer and Adriana get into the car. He doesn't see the person or people in the car. And then he leaves before he sees which way the car goes. I have a lot of opinion about this that I'll share. I have a lot of opinion about it too. That's one of the things I get hung up on is the white Camero and white Mustang.

A lot of being Ford. Or because for people who aren't car people, Chevy and Ford never made four-door versions of those vehicles. No, especially not 2004. Yeah. Yeah. The closest thing you have now is the electric Mustang, if you want to even call it. And that's about it because it's really like an SUV.

But yeah, you didn't have that that was 2004. That would have been the style right after the Fox body still. Yeah. I like those old Mustangs. Yeah, it still looked like the 90-style Mustangs. Like they, you know, they all looked the same then. Everyone had one. And matter of fact, he had two.

So you think he would know? He would know. So, yes, I have a lot of opinions about all of this, but I'll save it because originally, whenever people interviewed us talked about our case, they left it there. They left it at he told this, you know, inconsistent story. But that's not where Joey Lassel, Jennifer. It is where he says he last saw Adriana. He then goes on to tell police, law enforcement, the original officer, that Jennifer came back to his house on Friday, March 26th.

He says that he went home after they got into that car and then I guess went to bed, and then he got up and went to work on Friday. And he said that he came home early. They finished their job earlier and he was just sitting on the couch in the living room and Jennifer pulls. up to his house in the same white four-door car without Adriana, but she's driving it. There's no one with her. She comes in to get a few of her things and the baby's car seat and asks for her tax refund money. She had like a small $500 tax refund check from a job she had worked the year before that she had auto deposited to his parents account. A lot of people get hung up on that one too in the comments and stuff. They're like, why did she have? She did it.

because it's quicker to get your money than waiting on a check. So she asked for that. He said, my parents aren't home to give it to you. You have to come back. She said, okay, I'll come back tomorrow. So the last time that he saw my sister was at his home. He recognized the car so much as to say that it was the same car. But again, he doesn't know what maker model of the car.

Just it was the same one. And then he alleges she took some things. in the car seat. Do you believe that that story is true, though, that he ever, she ever showed up on that day? No. Okay. No. I believe what happened to Jennifer and Adriana, which I believe they were murdered.

But I believe that happened on Thursday. Okay. And I'll tell you why I believe it. At first, I just want to poke holes in his story about the gas station a little bit. I already talked about her exit plan. Like my aunt had left out a key. There are no records to our knowledge of Jennifer calling anyone else that day to set up an exit plan for someone to even be able to meet her at said Exxon.

None of the food value people, the grocery store people even saw any of them. And it was around closing time. This is a very, very small town. Everybody knows everyone. I think the population owned 2004, and this is just me without going to look it up, but it was under 2,000 people. I mean, we grew up going in and out of that grocery store. And the supervisor who was on store that night, he sat behind a desk. And if you were to use the phone, like I had done it before in the past.

And my boyfriend's family owned this store. If you wanted to use the phone, he set it up on the counter because he kind of sat down. And he would set it up on the counter and he would dial for you. So no one saw Jennifer or Adrianum. To my knowledge, I don't think there was any surveillance footage or cameras at the grocery store. But the gas station, other than the fact that he drove past two of our family members' homes, which my sister was in contact with the day before and the day of, that's a big red flag to me. The other red flag is that when you're going through a breakup,

especially someone who previously, like in their short nine-month history, had reached out to you after your breakups and continued the relationship, and y'all didn't really cut ties, even after these, like, things you would think you would cut ties from. You just randomly break up. I don't think you're going to let your girlfriend get into the, into a car with someone that you don't see. Especially if it was like a breakup that happened just in the heat of the moment, it would have been still emotional. There would have been like a lot of adrenaline.

I don't think that any man, woman, would drop off their significant other and just be like, okay, they're getting in the car with someone not want to know who that person was. It potentially could have been another man, which I don't think that he would have been okay with. And so that's a huge red flag to me, super out of character for literally any person on the planet, including him. And then just the timing of his story of leaving the gas station, you leave before you see which way the car goes. I don't know. He just sort of like painted himself in a light that he cared enough to sit there to make sure that they were okay, that someone actually came to get them because it was dark and late.

But he didn't care to see who they went with or which direction. And I just think that was real convenient. So not only all the inconsistencies in his original police statement, but all of those things, it all seems very calculated to me. And that's my opinion, but it does. And then here we are 21 years later. So in 2013, our case was reclassified as a homicide. So originally, we reported Jennifer and Adrianna missing on the 27th, so Saturday.

if what I believe happened happened to Jennifer and Adriana on Thursday, then you've got Friday and Saturday. We're two days later before we report Jennifer and Adriana missing. And so there's a lot of regret for our family in that choice. But it wasn't uncommon for Jennifer to go a day or so without talking to my mom. And then she had talked to someone on the day of. So it being Friday, that's whenever we started to become alarmed and start looking for Jennifer and Adriana and all of our families started calling around. So that's how common it was for someone to talk to her every day on Friday when no one had heard from her after this fighting was going on. Everyone started to be like something's wrong.

Can I interject something real quick? And it doesn't matter. I guess that I'm going to say it. But I'm going to say it anyways because I think it's important to say. From what I've heard with this story, and this is not the first time I've heard. Now, there is definitely some new stuff that you're telling me today that I didn't know. But every time I hear this story, everyone try to help her and get her out of this situation. I don't know about her dad, but I'm guessing her dad probably did as well.

You know, aunts, your mom, everybody. So I know that me saying that you shouldn't live with this regret, regret, it's because you're just saying that's not going to stop you from living with the regret, right? I mean, if it was that easy. But, you know, just know that, I mean, based on from a total outsider's point of view, You guys did everything, but at some point, you know, she's an adult. She's in a situation. And to be quite frank with what we know about abusive relationships now,

it's not easy to just leave because there's the retaliation aspect that they have or, you know, that he won't do it again, the manipulation and all the stuff that goes along with that. So I just wanted to kind of interject that like try, even though it's not going to change anything, don't beat yourself. you don't beat yourself up too much over it. You know, you did what you could. Well, I appreciate that. And I'm actually really glad that you brought that up because that's actually something that I have to battle in the comments after I do literally any podcast or interview is people literally that people talk about victim shaming a lot. And well, here's just what I have to say to all of those people is that my sister was young. She was trying to start a life with this person.

regardless of what we see from the outside, you're not on the inside and you don't know what he's telling her, what he's saying, like, that just happened in the heat of the moment. Like, that's not normal for me. You know, we've had all of these good times. Like, don't look at the few bad times. Like, there's so many things that no one else is a part of. And even though, yes, we all tried to be like, these are red flags to someone who sees the good in someone and maybe, like, doesn't fault him for being the bad person.

Maybe it's the other people in his life that have raised him or they're the ones who are the problem. And she told my aunt she was trying to leave with him. And it's my belief that she was trying to also get him out of a bad situation. And that would make sense based on what we know about them. And we'll talk more about it as you get through the story. We can talk about him a little bit more in depth. But just to kind of go into a little bit more depth, this is a conversation that happens a lot when it comes to abuse victim. You know, we're going to, I don't know what order this episode is going to come out in regard to like, you know, how I do.

Because I'm recording a bunch right now. So we'll have like a whole season, basically. But one of the episodes that we're doing that hasn't been recorded as the time that you and I are recording is going to be one with Gabby Petito's family, Jim and Jim and Jim and has become a walking encyclopedia on domestic violence. Really all of them have, but especially Jim, because we talk about, you know, what their daughter, what Gabby Petito went through was domestic violence. and now they've dedicated their life to trying to help others. And, you know, people sit there even with that case. Like, well, why didn't she just leave when this happened? Well, you can't, you know, a little one that's got a little more controversy,

the Menendez brothers. Well, they were adults. Why didn't they just leave? You know, they didn't have to murder them. No, they didn't have to murder them. But still, it's not that simple when you're dealing with people like this because it becomes, you know, you got to think what Jennifer, you know, just from hearing the story, what she had to, she relied on him for where to live, for transportation, for,

for income, for help taking care of her daughter. And then you have all of that. So you had all that emotional support, the financial support, the fact that she didn't even have her own car or her own phone. And then you couple that with the fact that, you know, we don't know what's going on in that household. We know that his parents, at least his mom, is treating her like shit. We know that there's, and I know you're going to talk about this more, we know that

there's the possibility of sexual abuse going on with Adriana. We know all this. And so we don't know what all is going on there. You know, for her, that's keeping her, keeping her there. But it takes personally, I think, an average of seven times a domestic abuse victim to seven times. And oftentimes, they don't make it that far, unfortunately. So, so let's, so for those people who are victim shaming, I wanted to go a little bit further because this is at the end of the day, she's no longer here. Casey's got good reason, which we'll get into why she believes that she was murdered.

And so no matter how you want to cut it, no matter. what you want to say, she was not the one in the wrong here because she's the one that's no longer here. And that baby sure is hell wasn't. Yeah, thank you. And I'll say because I welcome discussion about about that because I think it's important for everyone to talk about it and God forbid anyone is ever in that situation. And so if I can talk about it and help someone else from Jennifer's story, then I absolutely will. But I'll just go ahead and put it out there. Do we wish Jennifer would have left? Or we absolutely do.

We absolutely wish that we would have done more. But to your point, like, she didn't. And it takes however many times, and she just wasn't there yet. And it's my belief she was in the process of doing just what we all wanted her to do, but didn't get the chance to do it because someone stopped them. And so very serious conversations, and I think a lot of people can learn from my sister's story. So I'm open to it. Yeah.

And I think that a lot of people forget to. If you have the privilege to be able to sit in a comment section and say all, and I'm going to call it exactly what that is. It's privilege because you weren't in a situation like that. Or let's say you were, Survivor's bias does not equate to victim shaming. And of all people, you should know that sometimes people don't get out of this.

But yeah, if you're privileged enough to have not had to live through a situation like that, then that's great. I'm sure, you know, Casey's happy for you. I'm happy for you. but don't sit, but you know, maybe come down

off your high horse. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So I'll just like, 2004 to 2013, I know is a really big jump. But originally when we filed

the missing persons report, they did a bowlow be on the lookout for Jennifer and Adriana that Saturday. But there was not a lot of urgency from the police department. My mom remembers the original deputy going over to Joey's house, his parents' house, knocking on the door.

His parents weren't there, which we find very odd because it wasn't typical for them to leave like their baby boy alone. But he answers the door alone. And the officer's like, okay, we're getting, you know, a missing person's report. We need to check on Jennifer and Adriana. And he says, can I come in? And Joey's like, if you want to come in here, you need to come back with a warrant. And so huge, huge, huge red flag.

Not that we haven't already had a ton to this point in his story, but just a huge red flag. If you have nothing to hide, which, okay, maybe they had other stuff, drugs, guns, things like that. But I don't know. I think our laws protect people. They can't just come in there and like, see, I don't, I don't know. But anyways, he said you got to come back with a warrant. And it was sat as a missing person's case. with no person of interest name, no arrests, people were interviewed and everything.

Everyone was brought in for questioning, you know, and there was a detective that was assigned to the case. But it just kind of, like, leads that had come in. Like, there were no confirmed sightings ever of Jennifer and Adriana. There are social security numbers, no public benefits. Like, she used WIC, you know, like the food stamps and things like that. She used all of that. no hits on any of that ever again.

And she even had like doctor's appointments and things scheduled. Do they think about the baby and the pediatrician and her infection? There were never any follow-ups. So all of those like in an investigation, that's all evidence, circumstantial evidence. And so I like to point that out. My mom did a lot of investigating my mom and other members of my family like on our own. because as someone of a family of the missing, law enforcement is doing their investigation, but you have no idea what they're doing.

If it's active and it's open, they can't tell you what's going on. You don't get like a summary of the job that they've done testing that they sent for interviews that people they've taught. You don't get any of those things. And so we're kind of like side investigating, right? So my mom did that for years and years and years. And then in 2013, like my mom continued to push, continue to push. I even remember, like, as like a young girl right after they reported missing, like sitting in a, in a DA meeting with the DA at the time, John Carney.

And just the way that we were addressed, we are the victim's family. We're, again, like we talked in the beginning of the interview, like we want to be mindful of, yes, you're the one helping us. but also like we're grieving, but we can't even like fully grieve. So we're hurting and sitting across the table from people like the district attorney and our detectives and everything. And my mom is like tapping a pencil on the table and she's like, I need you to do more. And she taps it so hard that it goes across the table at the DA. And he just gets so upset. And he's like, don't you tell me how to do my job and throw things at me.

and my mom's like, and as a 16-year-old girl, just remember standing up, pointing at him in his face, just saying, do not talk to my mom like that. So the things that, like, people, families of the missing, like experience, like, I shouldn't have been experiencing that at 16, you know, but like, that just, there's so many things that we were fighting so hard for then. We were asking people, like, like, please go there and search for them. And there, there was an original walkthrough done, like, right after the girl. disappeared on it was either Sunday or Monday after we reported them missing. There was a scent dog, which, like, they used those in Sebastian and Summerwell's case, you know, to see if they, like, walk off into the woods or something. And I'm like, they walked in the woods constantly.

Like, it just didn't make sense. I don't know if it was a lack of resources, a lack of training, like this kind of thing doesn't happen a lot in rural towns. And so at the time, we're relying. on Robertson County and they did that initial walk through and there was nothing found. And again, you have to keep in mind that this is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, so three or four days after whatever happened happened. So in my opinion, if we're talking about opinions, like that's enough time to clean something up. They were looking for signs of foul play,

like signs of a crime scene like holes in a wall or tables knocked over, like signs of a struggle. Like you're not going to find any. It's been three or four. days later, right? So that was really like the only search done in the beginning was a walkthrough. We had no foot searches. Like if you think about Sebastian Rogers, like we've got one coming up for Bethany Markowski, Summer Wells. I mean, they had one like a couple years ago for her. We had zero foot searches done. In our community, it being like such a small town, there was a lot of, like I produced the podcast with Jules Missing in Hushtown. We call it that because that's what it felt like in 2004.

Everybody knew everybody. No one wanted to get involved. And again, like these people are just if they can do that to these people, maybe, maybe they can also do it to me. So no one was coming forward with information at the time. And so it just kind of, it was very isolating. It wasn't what you would expect from a small town. And there's just so much conflict of interest.

You know, the police are best friends with so-and-so's mom who knows the people may be responsible. You know, the judges, you know, I've been judges for years. The district attorney has been in the same position for years and years. It's just way too much conflict of interest. You just call it what it is, which is corruption. I'll say, you don't have to say it, I'll say it. It needs to be addressed. And it is something that, that, I mean,

We can talk about if you want to, but I have already written legislation and I have like meetings with our senator. I've held meetings with the TBI and everything. There's got to be something else done, especially in these small towns and the smaller jurisdictions, low population. There can't be conflict of interest in our cases because they're not going to get solved. So it sat like that and there were searches done, foot searches by law enforcement in 2006. There was a pond drained on the grandparents of Joey's, which all of his family members, his aunts and uncles and his grandparents, they had about like, I don't know, probably like 100 acres back there that all kind of backed up to the six acres where Joey and his parents lived.

So not only did Joey and his parents have that little brick house that they lived in at the time right around the time that Jennifer and Adriana disappeared, they started construction on the house that they live in today, which is right next door, which is sitting on five acres, a huge cabin. They built everything themselves, poured their own foundation, right after the girls disappeared, started digging for septic. So a lot of just really alarming things for me and my family and my mom, like, driving past there all the time, being like, what are they doing?

They're not even using a company. They're doing it themselves. Just suspicious things, especially when your daughter and granddaughter are missing. from that property. So the foot search by law enforcement happened in like 2006 and the draining of the pond. How do I say? I never really had details about that search other than I know that like THP, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, Springfield Police Department, Robertson County, TBI, they were all involved in that.

They say, I say they, law enforcement says there was like 70, something people and that they did search the land behind the Bentons. I believe they also said that there was a cadaver dog on site from Tennessee Highway Patrol because Robertson County doesn't have that resource. Nothing was found. The pond that was drained. I didn't have this information until recently, but it was drained because something was found during a search that ultimately. turned into not being anything. Without me sharing too much, there's a lot about that search. I was able to obtain a search warrant and the affidavit for that search.

And there's a lot wrong with how that search was handled, as in the time frame of when you find something that's alarming and when you actually send someone out there to check it. It was a like a two-week period. So there was a lot wrong with that search. And then I know that the barn shed thing that Jennifer wanted to move back into, it was eventually like completely deconstructed, everything gutted out of it and moved to one of their family members' property.

Like that was adjoining to theirs. And I know that TBI searched that, but that was after it was moved. So to my knowledge, there were never any like forensic testing done inside the home, inside the vehicles, inside the barn shed thing. There just was not, again, any urgency in our case. It was almost like, and my mom was told us a couple of times that she'll be back. She's just a scorned lover. We have no evidence. even though everything was kind of pointing to that property and to that family with all their

inconsistencies and their suspicious behaviors, there just was never anything physical for law enforcement to go off of. So in 2013, we held a press conference with the sheriff. and we stood next to him. They brought everyone in for questioning again and reclassified the case as homicide. And to our knowledge, there was no real reason for that

other than it was just a way to get people talking again about the case and see if they could get more information with everyone coming back in they did polygraph Joey. He passed his first polygraph. I was told by law enforcement in the last couple of years that their opinion, one of our detectives that have been on the case since the beginning is the one who told us us.

It's his opinion that the reason he may have passed the polygraph is because of the way in which the questions were I think he referred to it as like a what who win, you know, anyways, he passed it. He was set up to take a voice stress polygraph. I know the person who was set up to administer the voice polygraph. He's actually part of our private investigators team. He had Joey all hooked up to the polygraph. and Joey's dad was also there, started becoming belligerent, and Joey heard him on the other side of the police station, and Joey just ripped everything off of him and walked out. But we were told that they had already started.

That stress the questions for that and how it had begun was that there were things he was saying that were not truthful. So potentially the result of that would have been different than the first one, but we don't get to know that. To my knowledge, Joe and Cindy have never been polygraphed. I want to go back. Sorry, and if it looked like I was distracted, I was doing, I was looking something up because I wanted to ask. You go back to the construction real quick for a minute. I have decided in my mind they're under the septic tank.

My mom believes that heavily also, or at least that it's a possibility. And I'll touch on a septic tank for a second because in my investigation, I got all the original reports and everything for the septic. So whenever you build something, if anyone is not familiar with building, you have to do it the right way. You have to go to the city and get all of your permits and everything. Well, my mom checked into that whenever she saw that they were digging for the septic. It's one of the first things you do. And to her surprise or probably not so much, there were no permits.

so they had not gotten any of their permits for anything, and I have all of those records. And it shows where the original septic was, which they had already installed. And the person that performed the inspection, I have spoken with them. And they gave me a copy of all, the report's all public anyways. But you can see where the original septic was, and then they hired a company. They installed the original one themselves. and then they hired a company to install the one that they used today. There are two septic systems on that property, one not being used,

and the other one is being used for the cabin that they built. So just a lot of suspicious stuff going on. Septic systems, because of, like, if you take a cadaver dog and a search over a septic system, they're going to pick up on like the human scent. And can put on organic material, yeah. Matter. And so it's a possibility. Depending on how, like, depending on how deep the septic is,

it's usually what, one to four feet below the surface. Plus, depending on how big it is, takes you down another four plus feet. So you're looking at five at a minimum. And you dig another two or three feet down to put two people in it, the tank on top of it, compact, you know, we're in Tennessee, so, you know, we kind of have that thicker clay-type soil when you get that deep. And yeah, I just, I didn't, I originally when you told me this

story the first time I was thinking, oh, it's got to be on the foundation, the concrete, but now I think the septic system. Which we can talk about the foundation under the cabin, too, which they poured themselves and mixed themselves. And this is a big house, a big cabin. They're, This family comes from a family of loggers. So they had a sawmill on their property. There's a lot of speculation about that sawmill, but they cut all of their own lumber and everything for the house. It's an actual true log cabin.

We've also been told that there's a bunker underneath the house by someone very close with them that helped build it. Law enforcement has checked. I believe that this is like one of maybe three, search warrants that actually have been issued in our case. One for the barn that was checked way after the fact. One for the pond that was drained. And then this one for underneath the house. Or they could be included in one.

I don't know how it works. But I do know that law enforcement has checked with ground penetrating radar or some kind of x-ray equipment. The foundation of the cabin is columns. There's different types of foundation. And this one, there's like footer columns holding up the house, you know. Those columns have been checked. Now, whenever I ask were the footer walls checked, I can't get an answer on that.

I myself have set up a search in the last two years for footer walls under another property for Jennifer and Adriana. It is impossible to check footer walls unless you dig underneath the footer walls, which the fitter walls are the perimeter. Yeah. Of the house, right? No ground penetrating radar can get over a footer wall. So you have to be able to put it up against the surface to read that way. And you can't do it without digging. I don't believe that's ever been done.

There's a possibility that they're in the foundation of the home, the footer walls. Also the septic. There's also other structures built on their house that were built just 2004, 2005, like a very, very, very, very large about the size of their house barn that you can see that has a concrete foundation. There's just a lot. The properties, the original one acre that the brick house sits on and the five acres that the cabinet sits on, they've never been thoroughly searched. Search warrants are very specific.

They give you a specific area in a certain way that you can look for things. and that's a real big problem in missing person's cases unless you know exactly where to look for someone they can be overlooked. So we don't believe that Jennifer and Adriana have ever been thoroughly searched for on that property. The one vehicle that was there at the time that Joey claims that they would have taken to the gas station and went for a drive-in and everything, I've theorized many different ways that whatever happened could have happened, it potentially could have happened in the vehicle. Because the car seat situation, which I can touch on just real quick, but that car, no forensics

were ever ran on it. That car was given to a family member, a cousin of Joey's, who then drove it shortly after the girls disappeared and then wrecked it and it was totaled by insurance. I don't, I've tried finding it. I've never been able to. But that was the only vehicle that he and his parents had to use at the time. So it would have been a possibility of a location. And I talk about the car seat because Joey says that Jennifer came to pick up the car seat that Saturday, or that Friday when she came back to his house in the same car to get a few things in the car seat and the baby's diaper bag, all of which none of that was returned to us. The original reporting officer that took his statement on Saturday evening when we reported

them missing, says he saw the car seat sitting in the living room, like, while the door was open and Joey was talking to him through the door. So if Joey says that she came and pick it up on Friday, she, in fact, did not because the police officer saw it and says so. He saw it on Saturday. So to me, there's some kind of something going on weird with the car seat there. Why would there be a need to get rid of it? Other than, yeah. He's lying. I mean, obviously, I mean, I know that kind of goes without saying, but he's lying. The question is, why.

To me, like, I hate to give them credit, but it obviously worked for 20 years. The story that they made up obviously worked for 20 years. It worked in Tennessee for 20 years. Yeah. You know, because if you were to put this, you know, with the NYPD or LAPD or or, you know, any Atlanta or Chicago, Miami, any major city, this, this would have, they would have been taken in a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah, we definitely have some work to do in Tennessee. As far as our laws are concerned, especially around missing persons cases, like it's almost like the people that may potentially be involved in someone's disappearance have more rights than the victim.

It's very sad. it needs to change. And I've been told whenever I tell people that I'm going to fight for that, that I'm going up against the United States Constitution and our search warrant laws. But there are amendments to the Constitution. To the Constitution. So I think that missing persons, if they're not, no one's taking it seriously enough.

It's obviously the numbers are continuing to grow and someone has to get in front of. of it. There's got to be a way to get in front of it. And we can't give rights and privacy concerns. We can't give that to someone who may be responsible and not care about the well-being of someone, you know, more so than it just doesn't seem right to me. Something's wrong. It's not right. It's not right. Yeah, it's not right. Okay, so over the years, our case became cold. And I mean, maybe every now and then there would be like a random lead, like if mom did like a podcast interview or a news interview on the on the girl's anniversary of their disappearance or something. But it's almost like it was just believed the gas station story that,

I mean, up until a couple years ago, which is why I really got started heavy investigating our case because I didn't want people to believe that story anymore. It was being told by the person who last saw them. And I just don't think you should believe that person ever until you can prove their story, but there was no part of his story that could be corroborated. So just to believe the reason for Jennifer and Adriana's disappearance and, you know, see it at face value for what he says, it didn't make sense to me. So I wanted everyone to hear the truth. So I started investigating, talking to everyone again, including him. Was a little bit nervous at first. I was a little bit nervous at first to do that and was able to make contact with him last year in 2024.

And a few years before that, I had started to like reestablish relationships with our TBI agent and with Robertson County. We had had a change into detectives a few times. So I just wanted to reestablish that, work together as a team. And I don't know, like different people have moved in the area of not. you know, and having new detectives fresh set of eyes on cases is super important. And sometimes you get the right person. And that's what I basically was begging for. And so I held meetings and stuff. And I think that we did a really good job like fixing where those relationships may have

like fallen apart a little bit over the years. And we'd lost a little bit of faith in our law enforcement team. I think that we don't have that now. I think that our team right now is actually a really good team. And also, I think there's just a little bit more accountability. And I think that comes from, so if anyone else who has a missing loved one needs to hear anything, it just needs to be that like, you just don't stop holding anyone accountable or accountable for investigating your case, because there are newer cases that are happening every single day. And so it's easy in a way for detectives and agents to put yours down and work on something else because maybe it has more evidence. Maybe that evidence hasn't been hidden or washed away after 20 years, right? Like in our

case. So I get it. Like our case is harder, but you still have to hold them accountable. So last year I ended up talking to Joey for the first time. And my first phone call with him was in April of last year. And March was our 20 year. That's whenever you and I first talked, Justin, there was a big raid at his family's home, at the Benton home, the new cabin, because his dad had gotten into trouble

and was a convicted felon because they kidnapped his great-granddaughter. They, he and his daughter, Amy, Joey's sister, kidnapped her grandchild. her granddaughter, her two-year-old granddaughter. So that was a lot for us, very traumatic for us, seeing that on the TBI's website and everything. But he ended up pulling a gun on a law enforcement officer and was a convicted felon,

aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer. So he had that domestic assault during the raid of which, after you and I talked, we were hoping and thought that it could potentially be something for Jennifer and Adriana. We found out that it was not. But it was to the day on our 20 year anniversary of reporting the girls missing. So March 24th.

The timing was uncanny. It was definitely eerie. Yeah. We were already like our senses heightened and everything right. It's the 20 year like trying to like revamp our case and stuff. And then this happens. So it was definitely weird. But then Joe, Joey's dad end up getting like 40 something charge.

for illegal weapons because he's not supposed to have any in possession being a convicted felon. Bomb making materials. There was speculation that there were actual bombs. We're told that there were not, just the materials and I guess plans to make them. And then also, the biggest one, in our opinion, was that there had been photographs found. only one photograph from the actual court document that we were able to get of a 20-year-old, it was a 20-year-old photograph of a minor family member of Joe's engaged in sexually explicit behavior.

So he received a charge for sexual exploitation of a minor as well. All of those charges were dropped. dismissed. He served one year, Joe did, a time served because he was already in jail and everything they had already arrested him for domestic in February. But he served one year and got let out in March of this year, March 2025. But all those were dismissed. I could also go into the corruption side of it. I'll call it conflict of interest, but the judge on the case and the attorney that was appointed to Joe were previous law partners. Convenient.

Yeah, super convenient. Again, just huge conflict of interest. It just should not be allowed. But all of those charges were dropped except one year for the bomb making materials. And the domestic assault charge, which if a victim in Tennessee doesn't want to press charges for the domestic assault, the state of Tennessee always picks it up. And they did. But it was dismissed.

and then the sexual exploitation of a minor charge, the family member who would have been there to testify against him did not show up, that charge was dismissed. Did they need a family member when they have the photograph? That is the golden question. I don't know. Because there's a lot, because I do stories every day, and I can tell you the answer to that is no.

Yeah, I don't understand. I don't know. I don't know. They have the photograph. I know that the photograph was turned in because of speaking to the Benton, other Benton family members. So I know that they, as a family, turned it in to turn him in. But then they didn't show up. So I don't know.

I wouldn't think that they would need anything more than the photographs since they literally have proof. But it got dismissed. So in April, I ended up talking to Joey. I had an appointment set previously before all of this happened with our new district attorney. Being that there was a new district attorney in office, I wanted to meet face to face with him, see if there's anything that we can get going on our case. I had this meeting set up for early May. I talked to Joey for the first time in late April.

On this phone call, Justin, he told me everything about the gas station story was true. and this is my first time talking to him. So I'm open to what he has to say. At this point, I have no idea what he's going to say. But he tells me all of it's true. I ask him about the picnic that Jennifer says. He was on his way home. They were going to go on a picnic to talk about things.

He's like, well, I wouldn't call it a picnic. We were just going to talk. She had made some sandwiches. So I got confirmation about the picnic, which I always had questions about. I asked, you know, did you love them? Yes, I loved them very much. We were going to get married, he said. We talked about getting married, but his dad talked them out of it.

And just to tell people that they were married. So they had future plans. They had plans to have another baby. So they were talking about the future and everything, he said. And then he said, he just did what Jennifer told him to do, which was take him or take them to the gas station. and he said, I never asked. I just took them where she asked me to take them.

And I said, okay, I got off of that phone call with us being very cordial to each other. And me coming at it from like the point of view, like, you were the one who really knew my sister at that time. I was only 16. She was older than me. Like, tell me about her. Tell me about y'all. Like, I want to know about y'all, you know. And he was open to that.

He said, call me anytime. I said, okay. We got off that phone call. And I just remember thinking to myself like, are we wrong? Like, do we have it wrong? Did she get into a white car? And he just, no one can just prove it because the surveillance camera, I didn't cover that earlier. There was a videotape at the gas station, but it had been recorded over because of whatever happening happening on Thursday.

We reported it every 24 hours. Yeah. Oh, it was gone by the time anyone went there to get it. And so I was like, am I wrong? Are we wrong? And like I battled with that for for a bit. On the day of our DA meeting, which was like early May, I want to say like May 9th. I can't remember, but of last year, Joey calls me.

And I don't answer, but it's before our meeting. And he's like, what time are you going in to the DA meeting? There's something I want to tell you. I'm ready to tell you all everything, but I want to tell you and the DA at the same time. And we're like, okay. So I just text him, you know, was like, okay, we're going in now. Like, I'll follow up with you, whatever, after the meeting. And I let everyone know TBI was there, Robertson County, and the DA's office were there.

And we were in there for like a couple of hours. And I had like made all of these questions, like, just trying to prepare for the meeting. And I let him know, like, Joey wants to talk to us all. Well, Joey ended up calling up. to the DA's office to talk to them. Well, he ends up showing up to our DA meeting. And our meeting got cut short, and they were like, we're going to ask you all to leave because we don't think y'all need to be here at the same time.

So we're going to ask y'all to leave. They end up interviewing him for hours. And we just waited. And we waited and waited. And then everyone came walking out. He left. And then the DA and law enforcement team told us, like, we've got a lot of work. to do. And we're like, that's it. And they're, of course, they're not going to share with us

anything that he just said. Like, that's the worst part about missing person's cases. It's not our investigation. It's their investigation. So they're not going to tell us what he said. And so that night, Joey and his sister reached out to us and told us themselves what they had told law enforcement and the DA. And we shared a little bit. about this in the podcast, but missing in Hushtown. But where I left off is that his story ends that whenever he got home from work that day, Thursday, when I got the phone call to come home for a family matter, whenever he arrived home, he said that Jennifer and Adriano were already dead.

And so. So wouldn't that put a hole in the gas station story? It does. So I had another phone call. Yes, it does. So Joey ultimately ended up meeting with my mom. He said he had to tell her everything face to face. And so he ended up meeting with my mom.

And I was on speakerphone in Springfield. And they sat for like a good two hours. And I don't share a lot of what Joey says other than whenever he got home. He says they were dead. but he does say all of that gas station story completely made up. That they made it up, that that did not happen. It's all a lie. And that they thought that no one would care about Jennifer and Adriana,

that all this would just blow over. And they made up this story. And everyone believed it for 20 years. And here he is coming forward 20 years later saying, it's all a lie. When I got home, they were dead. Now, on this phone call, well, I'm on speakerphone, mom's face to face with him.

He does go into detail about what happened. We don't believe him. I think that it's another story made up. And he's had plenty of time to make up that story. He doesn't have a good track record with the truth. He doesn't. And some could say, I guess, well, then why do you believe what he's saying about Jennifer and Adriana being dead?

And I'll say to that, there's always a little bit of truth. truth and every lie. And I think in that moment, what he was trying to do was tell just enough, but not out himself. And so I think he was trying to get it to all go away. Because he did not give enough to actually prove anything. He just gave enough to say they're already dead and him not have anything to do with that. Now, I will also share, because I've shared publicly on Facebook and on social media, that there's been an admission to disposing of their remains. They did not report Jennifer and Adriana's deaths,

even though he's saying to us that they were deceased. No one reported it. He, his dad, and his mom were all there, but no one reported it. And so that in itself is a crime. And then there has been an admission of disposal of their remains. The only thing that I'll say as far as who he's admitting did that, I will never just say it's just one of them because I believe they were all three there in the moment, and I believe they're all three responsible and culpable.

But he did admit to taking place in it himself being one of the people. So sitting across from my mom 20 years later tells her everything that he's ever said in a police report to her, to the news stations and the few little clips interviews that he's done over the years. Anything they've ever done is all a lie. They actually died at their house that day, that they disposed of their remains. And he took place in that, but he won't tell us where. they did get admission enough to like take him in because then you have you have all right so we you knew they were dead you didn't report it you've just admitted to lying in police reports so lying to officers and and now you're saying that you know they were just like it seems like that's enough

to take somebody in maybe you're going to get to that but yeah um so you would think there was a lot going on then yeah uh we think i still think That's enough. At the very least, I think that it's enough to go there and look for Jennifer and Adriana thoroughly like you haven't done for the last 20 years. If someone today in any of the other missing person's cases or say you and I turn up deceased and someone says, yeah, they died at my house, but they're not here. You know, no matter where they say they are, it doesn't make sense that no one would go there looking for them to at least prove. that part of your story. Yeah.

So that's what I've been pushing for lately is them to actually go there based on what he has said. And he did tell law enforcement that directly and us. And so you would think that it would be enough for them to get a search warrant and go there and look for Jennifer and Adriana.

Yeah. You think a judge would sign us on that pretty easily. You would think, but we're told no. Okay. I mean, it's, I'm shaking. like it makes me so angry. I'm angry for you. It's absurd.

I get so heated about this. Like, I don't. Search warrant laws are like so crazy that you have to have new information, which I believe this is new information. And you also have to have what they say is called. Yeah. You also have to have what's called a nexus to the property or wherever you're searching, right? So what we were talking about earlier with the septic system or the foundation, like someone has to give you a tip or a lead that says those words, septic or foundation.

And they have to have heard it. Do what? No. I'll call it an anonymous tip right now. We'll do it on this podcast. I'll be like, hey, I got an anonymous tip. In this case, go check under the septic tank. You, okay, well, here's the nexus to the location.

And this is what I've been arguing is you have the location. He says they died here at my home. Like, turn that property upside down. Like, I just don't get it. So we're told that even though we have new information, we don't have that nexus to the property because his family did give a location of where we could find Jennifer and Adriana,

and it is local in Robertson County, but it's not their property. So during all of this talk that he's, like, given these new details about what happened, he gives a location that's not their property of where their remains are. Not where they died, but where their remains are. Law enforcement goes there last year, searches, they say, at least 10 times. And I did witness them search there at least two days because I was there watching.

And Joey himself was even there. They made him go out there and nothing. They just come back out and nothing. They just all leave one by one. And it was like one of the worst days of my life. Watching that was just awful. But, yeah, I've been pushing for the search warrant because he said that. It doesn't, this dude obviously, like you said, as a track record of lying.

And so, I don't know. For some reason, Justin, like, law enforcement is like, well, if he lied about this, then he could lie about that. And I'm like, yeah, but. And now we know why they don't find anybody in Tennessee. But I don't understand. Like you're... Like people don't arbitrarily admit to murder or taking part of a murder. Right.

And fighting bodies. Like that's, even if he's lying, then at least, you know, what would be his benefit to lying? I can't take on. I can't. Now, I can tell you that with everything going on at that time, with all of the turmoil in his family, right? his family turned in his dad for things that they had found. And so there's a lot of like stuff going on. Like we had phone calls from like people who were in jail with his dad that people were

saying like his dad was going to tell law enforcement that Joey was responsible for Jennifer and Adrianas. So there was like a lot of like they were going to tell on each other and they were going to. And so I believe maybe he was trying to do what was best for him, but did. didn't implicate himself, only implicated other people. Now, I believe- And yourself by saying I took, I took, you know, part of this. You know, like, yeah, I was there.

I didn't report it. You're still, you lied to police. You know, those are all, I mean, those are felony charges. That's excessive, even if it's accessory after the fact. They are, but, and here's what you said earlier, I know you'll get to this later. In Tennessee, um, statutes of limitation apply for all crimes.

except murder. So even after the fact? All of them. Anything. Anything he admitted to he cannot be charged for. Right. So the only thing that you can be charged for is first degree and second degree. And in Tennessee, there is something called felony murder, which is if you took part in it, regardless if you were the one who actually did it, but you had any.

part in it, you can be charged for the same degree. So he would want proof more than like, hey, I knew this happened. They were dead when I got there alleviates him from felony murder. So they were proof. Yeah. So they basically had to have like that physical,

I guess, but no one's going there looking for it. Yeah. So to me, like if someone is saying they died here, that's your crime scene. It doesn't matter where they are to this day. There are cases. I watch a lot of different crime shows and listen to different podcasts and try to

research other cases. There's cars that are literally taken apart and they find blood on like bolts on the inside of a car. It's been re-apholstered and everything, but they find that evidence. No one's going there looking for it, though. It's like they don't even care that there's a potential murder scene there. They don't care. It's, it's, it's, it's, crazy. It's absurd. So yeah, we've been pushing for the search warrant thing. And then we can talk about, which is probably, I won't say it's a development in our case, but it involves.

I think it's a big development that indirectly involves your. Are you talking about the leg? Yeah. Yeah, I've been wanting to talk about the leg. Yeah, so let's talk about it. So I'll say it is a separate investigation, but Joey's dad's leg, just his leg, was found at the Springfield Greenway on July 4th earlier this year. And we were notified by the district attorney's office and Roberts County Sheriff's Department

before the general public was. They were trying to, I guess, do the right thing. But just his leg was found, and I guess, like, he's likely deceased. There's speculation, like, could he still be alive out there? You know, did he amputate his own leg? probably not the case. He was in very bad health. He was old.

There were a lot of factors that would say he probably didn't survive whatever happened to him. But just his leg was found and they've done multiple searches for him. Okay. At least they're trying for him. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, right? Yeah, they've done multiple foot searches out there. Yeah.

And on that call, whenever they notified us, we asked like, are you invest, like, is this just a natural death or is it being investigated foul play? And we were told by the sheriff's department, they're investigating this like they do all cases, which is a homicide backwards. And so that was kind of like... I don't know what that means, but okay. Yeah. Homicide until it's not a homicide?

Is that basically what they're saying? Yeah. So basically they investigate it as if there could be foul play until they can prove there wasn't, which is unfortunate word choice. for him considering that our case was not investigated that way. Yeah. I guess that's a little bit different for a missing person whenever you have an actual body part, but just poor word choice. But anyways, that investigation is still open.

I will tell you that Joe, his dad, was listed on Robertson County's Most Wanted on their website. He's no longer there. They've taken him down. His warrant that they had out for his arrest for failure to appear, because he got left. out of jail in March early this year for his one year time served. And whenever he got let out, this is very convenient, but whenever he got let out, his wife had filed for divorce just a month before at the advice of their attorney, their joint attorney, the same attorney that Joe used to get all his charges dismissed, another conflict of interest, helping her. But advised her

to get a divorce, so she filed for divorce. She also had an order protection filed against him. So he wasn't allowed there at their house. So his actual address location was listed as homeless. So I guess it was just assumed he wouldn't go back there to their property, although that's not the kind of person he is and didn't really make any sense. But just the leg being found, no foul play, no cause of death can be determined. determined by a leg being found.

You have to find, like, someone's head. You know, you have to have evidence of it in the body parts where you can actually murder someone and death can be caused. And so they've done multiple searches. And to my knowledge, no other parts of him have been found. Now, it did happen like, very weird. It did happen alongside of like the creek, which is like a little runoff of the Red River, I guess, it's all part of the Red River, whatever you.

Yeah. I don't know that. But anyways. So they believe maybe that it's possible that like the water, you know, like could have washed and maybe like animals. But I believe you would have found more than just one part. Yeah. So it's my opinion that the leg was placed there and that there's foul play involved in his death as well. And I don't know who would have done that, but I believe that with all of the turmoil in their family over the past couple of years and with his anger of being turned in, everything that was happening just makes me believe that law enforcement needs to go to their home to look for the rest of him.

Yeah. And so as odd as it is, after we found out about the identification of his leg, like I also pushed for law enforcement to go there. and look for him. Because I believe, like, if they went there, now so much time has passed, just like in our case, that there could have been things covered up. But they may not have been involved in his death. It could have been a natural death. Did he get found?

Does the leg get found in Davidson? No, it happened right there in Springfield. Okay. Downtown Springfield. And oddly, we had a 5K race, a fundraiser for. for Jennifer and Adriana this year it was supposed to be downtown and end at the courthouse stairs and we were going to run downtown on the streets of downtown. But it got moved like a week and a half, two weeks before our race to the Greenway.

And so it's just it's just very weird to think like we were running in the exact spot, like where that was found. There's just like a lot of like weird things going on right now. And right now we're kind of like in like this waiting. period, the same place that we've been for 20-something, 21 years, which is probably the most awful feeling for family of missing persons. It's just the waiting, waiting on someone to call you one day and say, hey, we got a little bit more.

We got a little bit further where we're working on this. It sounds like, you know, despite my better judgment, it sounds like whenever that conversation occurred where he came in and they were like, we have a lot of work to do, maybe what they're trying to do is with this information, you know, dot their eyes, crossed their teeth. But it also almost is like, when was that? When did, when did he come in and speak to them and you guys? That was last year. That would have been like early May.

He went in to talk to the DA. He talked to us in July. That's how long it took him to meet with us in person. So his dad's already in jail at that point. Maybe there's a plan going on or they're concocting a plan. You know, I don't know. See how that plays out. Maybe they're playing to pin it all on the dad.

Potentially. And when he's gone, who's going to argue? Yep. And then their family does like a lot of really weird stuff, like move, like deed properties and different names. It's been happening for years. And I believe that there's suspicion around that, too, just as far as like. Some kind of fraud. Yeah, but also, like, you can't search here because you're not the one responsible.

Like, if they try to come after one of them, do you know what I'm? saying like the little brick house is owned by Joe still to this day. The cabin is owned only by Cindy. And then, even though they're married. And then they got 27 acres whenever Joey's grandparents died, which we had a search in 2021 that we put on privately, where we had a cadaver dog team there from the Q center.

And we had cadaver dogs hit on human remains alert to human remains. in the woods back behind their property. And, of course, we reported it to law enforcement, and they wouldn't come. They just said because it wasn't a police-sanctioned search, so because it was a private search, they weren't going to come, I guess, like the chain of evidence or something like that just makes no sense. There are a ton of private searches done in different investigations, and if something's found, law enforcement comes.

We've never understood it and still don't. but Joe, Cindy, and Joey are all on that property now. They were awarded that after his grandparents died. Just a lot of weird, suspicious things that they do, that just normal, innocent people that have nothing to hide would not do. Like, just coming out and making a public statement. You know, Joey's been on the news a couple times, and Joe's been in the news one time, like, right after the girls disappeared.

Cindy has never made any public statement ever. And although I continued to talk to Joey all throughout last year, the last time that I talked to him was, I think, in April of this year. But I just felt there was nothing really more for us to talk about right now and just let law enforcement do their thing and investigate. But I had asked him, like, will your mom speak to us? And he just avoids it every time I ask him. He just avoids it.

It moves on to something else. But yeah, just find it really strange. Just as a mother, like if my children were accused of something. Yeah, you'd be trying to help. Think of anything. Think about, I mean, you're talking about the potatoes earlier. Like what happened with the parents like Brian Laundry's family. Now he was guilty.

This day they've never said a word to this day. He was guilty. but in the beginning, like they were helping him and stuff. And I mean, it was very clear, you know, I don't know. I would speak out publicly if it was my child. And if I 100% knew that they didn't have anything to do with it, I would definitely. And then there's just the, if your husband is deceased now or likely deceased. And she has herself listed as widowed on social media.

So she believes he's deceased. Then if he was the last. problem, then you should come forward now and say something and they're just not. And so, I don't know, there's just a lot of suspicious things that have went on in the last couple of years. And I'm just hoping that at some point, they go there looking for Jennifer and Adriana because that's there. Well, it sounds like it's getting closer and at least, you know, you have.

I mean, I know that you've known for, you know, thought, known whatever for years that they were gone, but at least you now have like confirmation of that. So that's, that's something. It would be nice to have, um, bodies or any parts of remains left so you could have a proper service and give them a proper burial, of course. Right. But it's, you know, maybe we're costly optimistic. Maybe after 25 years, Tennessee, and I'm saying, I know it's only been like 21 or 20, but I'm giving them to 25 years. Maybe they'll, they'll actually solve it and, and figure it out. Because how old, how old is Cindy at this point in time? I don't know how old she is.

I think she was born in the 50s. Okay, so she's in her 70s likely then, if she was born before 15. She's late 60s, early 70s. I didn't know if she was going to be like 80s, you know, so, you know, there could be a time. You know, time could help solve some of this, especially if Joey's not, if he's truly not that involved, he's not complicit in it, which, I mean, I'm highly unlikely that he wasn't. then maybe once she's gone, like, hey, come on, you guys can look. Here's where I know they were. I was threatened, whatever the case is.

You know, my parents did it. And yeah, he might get away with it, but at the same time. I don't know. You can tell me how you feel, but basically, even when you tell this story, it doesn't sound like he's, like, overall a good dude, but it sounds like his parents are horrific human beings. And I almost wonder if maybe he didn't do it. And maybe the call was, hey, they're gone.

You need to come help us, or we're going to blame it. you know, something like that, so he went and did this. Doesn't make it okay, but I wonder if it, because, you know, everything tracks with, again, you know, the, the mom, his mom had took a lot of issue with them and living there. And then, you know, with everything that went down and being turned in, you know, then there was an issue between that and her husband now. Her husband's gone with no body, you know. It just, it doesn't take rocket science here.

I mean, I know that, you know, putting it together in my way, different than the way the police have to do it, but it doesn't take rocket science to be like, hey, here's your, here's your culprit right here, you know, bring her in for questioning, but, you know, that's just, that's just my opinion. And maybe they're just so afraid of her, even Joey's still so afraid of her that he, he can't come forward with the actual truth. There's something. Something's there.

I don't know what it is. I mean, we've been told, like, over the years and like, even in my investigation, like, talking to people who were close to them back then and close to Joey back then, they talk about like how close he was with his mom like oddly close um not just like a mom son moms and sons are close sometimes you know there's nothing wrong with that but like weird close um i don't know there i mean i i try not to go into that too much but i honestly think like there's something definitely going on i think that there's definitely a history of it with his dad, right? We can say that with the photograph that was found with another

only member. And there's a history of that, not just with one person. And so if his dad has that going on and his mom maybe did potentially know or didn't, I have reason to believe that she did know based on conversations that I've had with people close to them. And so everyone's like well maybe she didn't know i have reason to believe she did um and i'm not her and i haven't asked her and so that's why i'd like to talk with her but do i think that he grew up in a shitty household like yeah do i think that everyone says he did everything his dad told him to do um and he was like the baby of the family and i don't know then there's just the kidnapping with um his sister's grandbaby and um

I don't know. There's just a lot of things that just say like it wasn't just one of them. And Joey himself too, you got to think about telling my mom and the look on his face that day. And I mean, there's other things that I haven't shared. But just the pulling the gun out and all of the drug use. And there's also like psychological things that like come in to play that like people don't know about but like I know. And so I think it's a possibility like that he could have done something. But it's also a possibility that it could be his mom or his dad. And I just really believe that they're all three guilty.

I think that they are. I would agree with you because, again, even if he wasn't the one who actually, you know, whatever, whatever method they used, he wasn't only that actually did it. He knew that they were gone. He helped dispose. He didn't report. you know, it's been all these years. So he still has culpability.

I mean, even if he didn't do it himself, there's still culpability there. Agree. And if he did love her like he says he does and love that child like he says he does, he sure is hell didn't love them enough to turn, to turn, you know, them in. And I get that it's his family, it's his mom or whatever. Maybe he was scared. But, I mean, you know, it's an interesting situation. Yeah, you would think after so much time, like,

a grown man, like what, he's 43 now, or Jennifer's 40, he's 45. I mean, you would think that he would be able to break away from that hold that they have on him. I mean, there's also, like, we talked about domestic abuse and things like that. Like, there's that kind of hold people can have, which so I'm, you know, I'm not saying it can't be that. But I don't know. I just don't think it excuses anything.

I think that. It doesn't excuse. Yeah. And yeah, don't miss it. I'm not saying that it does. I just kind of makes you wonder. And I'll tell you this too.

It's the term you were looking for earlier is called emotional incest. Yeah. And so I grew up in a household similar to that. My mom is not really the best person. Well, I mean, I don't think she's committed murder. I do think she's committed arson and burned a property she had down that she didn't

tell anybody she even owned this property. That's a different story. That's my opinion. and I think that she's done mortgage fraud, tax fraud, all those kind of things when she's owned a mortgage company. But I don't think she's murdered anybody. But the point is that I was the baby as well. And the thing about it is from being in that perspective is that it took me having my own

kid to get pulled out of this and her reaction the way things were going. I was already kind of getting there. But it took me well into my late 30s to really get there. And so maybe he's not there because, you know, he doesn't have something. than to pull him out of it, but I started kind of seeing like what was going on. And my mom and I haven't spoke since 2019, February, February 2019 was the last time. So, um, and, and my point is to that is that that could be why he's still defending her and stuff that she could just have grips in him.

He hasn't matured. I mean, guys are, let's be real. We're stupid most of us. And I mean, we are though. And, you know, we don't get it. We're manipulated easily. And so, you know, that's all that I'm not, again, I'm not, again, I'm not, giving him a pass because I think that regardless there's that he guilt lies with him one way or the

other and that guilt is murder you know but it just kind of makes you wonder if that's why he hasn't turned on his mom. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's definitely some kind of like emotional like manipulation there and everything. I think that you're spot on. I think she's capable of that and from what I'm told she absolutely is from other people that that know her. But I know he also has his issues too. And I said this earlier, but there's a little truth and every lie. I mean, I've theorized a million times and people asked me what I believe happened. And I believe up until the point he says, Jennifer looks at him and says, take me to cross planes. I think that happened. I think they did go for a drive and they did go eat their sandwiches. And I think they decided to

break up. And I think things got real heated. And they went back to the house and Jennifer was probably going about in their house, probably saying things she shouldn't say, packing their stuff, maybe even accusing someone of the sexual abuse. And I think that everything happened right there, all three of them. And I think that makes all three of them responsible. And like you said, like everything that came after as well. Like you don't do those things that came after. And then say you didn't play a part in it.

And then to your point, you had something to pull you out of it. He's had nothing to pull him out. I mean, something like this whenever you're a suspected or maybe. I would pull me out like, Mom, you got me as a suspect for murder. I'm done. I think that would maybe do it for me. But you, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you would think because she's just straight up letting her child be suspected of murder,

which people are suspicious of her too now. but all these years, it was just him. You know what? And I guess it's this kind of backtracks on what I was saying earlier with it being her. It's always the boyfriend or the husband. That's what I was about to say. It's all right. I didn't mean to cut you off then.

It's all right. You finished my sentence. That's what people always say. It's the boyfriend or the husband. And I think she's letting people believe that. And it very well could have been. But you're not saying anything about it. So that makes me think it's you.

Yeah. Interesting. Well, all of that said, this is a lot to go through. And I hope that, you know, answers are coming. I'm happy, you know, us having this conversation now versus where we were the last time, which is like a year, year and a half, year and a half ago or so. I mean, a lot has transpired since then. And that's good.

Movement in a 20-year-old case is good. Hopefully it continues in that direction. And. Yeah. We are, which there will probably be more that comes out about this. I don't know whenever you're planning to put everything out there. But we've been raising money for a while now to hire an attorney. And we've been able to do that.

And so our family is moving forward with a civil suit for wrongful death. Now, it's also out of statute of limitations for wrongful death in Tennessee. only one year. But our code, our Tennessee code, like has exceptions to that statute. And certain statutes will toll, basically stop

whenever something happens in the case. And we believe that, like, him saying what he said last year about, that's the first time we've ever heard confirmation from the last people that saw them, they're deceased. So that's why we're moving forward on it now.

And we're hopeful that we can either get some sort of justice or some sort of answers. It could bring about documents we've never seen or information we've never had. They very well could plead the fifth on everything. But I don't know. We have a little bit of hope as far as that's concerned. And we have no guidance. That's something else for missing persons, families that we don't have any guidance.

No law enforcement is not allowed to tell us. Like, does this help or hurt your case? I can help you with that, I think. I know he won't care. I'll double check with him. I'll introduce you to Joe Petito. We actually have a call later this afternoon at 3.30. Oh, Joe?

Okay, you're going to love him. He's phenomenal. And he, you know, when they went after Ron Cold Death on the laundries, they, you know, I don't know what they got or what they didn't get. What I do know, because it's part of the settlements that they can't talk. But what I'm inclined based on conversations is that it was not about money. It was about information. and they were apparently satisfied with the information they got or documentation that they got, whatever it was.

You know, and so, yeah, so hopefully you could be. But they can also give you directions on, you know, missing persons and dealing with this. There was obviously much shorter than yours, but they've come a long way. Yeah, you introduced me to Nikki after CrumCon. And so she and Joe are jumping on a call with me at 3.30, mainly about like legislation. and stuff because I know he's big into that. We don't know. Yeah, yeah.

And we've got to get in front of it in Tennessee. It's obviously a big issue, not just with my case, but Sebastian, his family is on board, too, his dad. And so that's the good. When you say family, I know that's Seth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I talked to him just last week. And so I haven't talked.

Yeah, I haven't talked to him in ages. And if you talk to him, you know, please give him my best. But, and I'll say this. we're still recording. I haven't talked to him because when his case got to a point a lot of creators, especially for like when we were in Tennessee, we were getting threats. And it is my opinion based on what I've been able to tell is that those threats from other people were tied to the other side of the family.

Yeah. And I'll say this in transparency with the proud foot. I don't believe that Chris or Katie Proudfoot sent these people to do it. I think that they were doing it on their own trying to defend them. But, I mean, some of the people were kind of dangerous. So it's why myself and so many of us stepped away because it just got so volatile and not about a missing child anymore. It got about being on which team you were on. And the way I looked at it was Seth was the only one out there who was searching.

Still is. Yeah. And I went out there with him a few times. Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely in support of what he's doing. I think similar to Joey's mom, like you stand up for your kid.

And I mean, we don't have to go into their case, but Seth is still out there fighting for Sebastian, and Sebastian is what matters. Maybe I should give him a call, and I can't just kind of see how that could go. He might not want to hear from me, but well,

I'll think about it. But all that said, I do appreciate you coming on and sharing this story. I know that you've been fighting for over 20 years now, you have to be exhausted. It's become a huge part of who you are. And I really hope that, you know, there's some new information and some answers soon. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it too. You've done a lot. Well, we try. Well, everybody, this was unheard. We will see you guys next time. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the individual's

speaking and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. Unheard is intended to provide a platform for personal stories and lived experiences, not to establish facts, determine guilt, innocence, or provide legal, medical, or professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to conduct their own research and form their own conclusions. Thank you for listening to Unheard.