Who Killed Jennifer Judd? - Ep.2: The Original Investigation

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Sarah revisits the original 1993 investigation into the murder of Renee Bergeron and pretty quickly realizes that the detectives stumbled from the outset. Sarah tries to account for what - and who - they failed to understand in their original investigation.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nature is a dangerous place. On I Was Prey, the podcast, listen to the life-or-death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike. Featuring audio from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and Animal Planet. From hit shows like This Came Out of Me,

Nature's Deadliest, Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. There are countless organisms that make a living off of us. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast contains explicit language and descriptions of violence. Please be advised. Test 1-2, test 1-2, test 1-2. This will be a taped interview.

Case number is 9311-0576. Date is 11-17-93. This is Detective Kevin Putnam of the Mobile County Sheriff's Office preparing to interview someone as part of his investigation into the brutal murder of Rene Bergeron. For nearly three decades, this murder has remained unsolved. Rene Bergeron's file has sat, collecting dust, untouched for all these years, until now.

For ID and ARC Media, I'm Sarah Kalin, and this is Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom, a podcast documenting my three-year investigation into the 1993 murder of Renee Bergeron. Last episode, we learned about Renee, a 26-year-old woman from New Orleans who lived in Mobile, Alabama. In 1993, Renee was murdered and decapitated, her body deposited on a service road off Interstate 10 in a rural corner of Mobile County. It had no head, and it was laying on its stomach. The body had been cleaned up, had no fluids.

The wound and the manner in which this perpetrator did this decapitation appears to be somewhat amateurish. You know, when there's a crime such as a beheading, that spreads throughout the law enforcement community because it's unusual. They started to have a huge injustice by not looking at it thoroughly. It's kind of like one less prostitute on the street. There are approximately 4,000 to 5,000 pages of files as part of the investigation into the murder of Rene Bergeron. And I need to go through these files, every single page of them.

There are interview transcripts, forensics documents, crime scene photos, cassette tapes, press releases, tips, even police reports from other investigations that at some point might have been considered relevant to this case. I even find copies of Renee's personal documents and effects, her calendar and address book, mail from her house, letters, photos. But there's one thing, well, technically four things, I find, that will become my Rosetta Stone in this case. Four steno pads, filled entirely in handwritten notes,

each page covered front and back. Mostly in the handwriting of a guy named Kevin Putnam. Detective Kevin Putnam, that is. Present is K. Putnam, P-U-T-N-A-M. Now, Putnam was one of the two lead detectives on the Rene Bergeron case in 93. The other lead was Sergeant Estes, but most people just called him Cookie. We'll talk more about him later. Back to Putnam.

Like most officers, he writes in all caps, block letters. It's the way many of us are trained, an attempt at uniform legibility. I had this same writing habit drilled into me almost 25 years ago, back when I first started work as an officer. In law enforcement, an officer's notebook is practically sacred. Like being taught to write and block letters, we have it drilled into us early and often that our notebooks are forever. It's a permanent record that can be called upon for court or referenced in future investigations or even serve to protect us from claims of negligence. This is why, when it came time to understand

the original investigation in 93, I went straight to the notebooks. These notebooks are written in a kind of code. They're meant for the individual officer to be able to reference later, if necessary, to recall people or events. Jotted notes, names in the margin with an arrow drawn to another name or to an address, phone numbers with only initials next to them. They are not exactly a clear narrative, an arrow drawn to another name or to an address, phone numbers with only initials next to them.

They are not exactly a clear narrative, but they are in chronological order documenting the progress of the detective. These four notebooks tell the story of the initial investigation into the murder of Rene Bergeron. They begin with the date and time Putnam was first called to the scene, Sunday afternoon, November 14th, 1993. There, he logs a few bullet points

describing what he saw when he arrived. He sketches a quick diagram showing the location of Rene's body in reference to the roads and buildings nearby. From there, his notes progress, with interviews, leads, pieces of evidence, continuing until the spring of 1994, when they begin to peter out.

This is when the Mobile County Sheriff's Office appears to have hit a dead end, even though her case was not yet solved. Not even close. Basically, these notebooks show the meat of the case and help me piece together how the initial investigation went down, who investigators spoke with, what they looked into, and how they talked about Renee.

And all of this is important because as far as Renee's family is concerned, law enforcement is to blame here. Not for the murder itself, but for the fact that Renee's case has yet to be solved. It was never looked at her as a human being or definitely not as my mom or anybody's mom or anybody's daughter or anybody's sister. It was looked at as one less prostitute we got to worry about.

So I was like, good luck dealing with them because, you know, we had no luck, no help. Amanda's skepticism is understandable. She believes that the early investigators, including Putnam, made stereotyped assumptions about who her mom Renee was and who might have been responsible for her murder. And worse than that, she says that detectives ignored Renee's loved ones, even as they begged them to pursue new leads.

So I'm now going to examine the original investigation into Renee's murder, who worked it, what they did and did not do, and whether they might be responsible, in part, for the fact that this case remains unsolved. When I first got on with the sheriff's office, it was a small group of guys that were best friends. They partied together. They drank after work together. I never fit in. This is Mitch McCray. He worked at the Mobile County Sheriff's Office for 27 years before retiring as a detective sergeant. He describes his early days in the office in the 1980s and 1990s. I came in and worked. I worked hard and I worked long hours.

I'm not that smart, so I got to make up for it by working harder than anybody else. That's just my mentality. And these other guys, the way I pictured them is if I'd come in a substation, they'd be sitting at a desk, feet up on the desk, waiting for the phone call of somebody wanting to confess to a murder, where I was always out trying to chase people down, find out who did it. And their opinion was, well, just sit here. Somebody will call. You know, we'll get that magic phone call and solve the murder by somebody calling us

and telling us who did it. I'm speaking with him because I need to learn more about the sheriff's office back then, the same office that led the investigation into Renee's death. How did this even happen? I need some answers. I need a real look inside the culture

of this office in the 90s. And Mitch isn't the only one I'm some answers. I need a real look inside the culture of this office in the 90s. And Mitch isn't the only one I'm speaking to. I ask almost every officer I meet, what was this place like back in the day? And according to just about everyone you ask, the answer is, uh, not so great. Well, there's some things I could tell you, but it's not going to be on camera.

It's difficult to get cops to speak publicly and critically of their own department, even if it was in the past. They don't want to be unprofessional and disrespectful or air-dirty laundry. But privately, internally, these things are discussed, criticized, complained about even. It's fair to say that the Mobile County Sheriff's Office of the 1990s was a vastly different agency than the one it is today. And that included the Major Crimes Division,

the guys responsible for solving murders. There was two superstars here. It was Larry Tillman and Cookie Estes. They were the murder police. They worked all the cases. And they were the best. It's important to remember one name here, Cookie Estes. Detective Sergeant William Estes, actually. Cookie was a nickname. I actually trained under Detective Sergeant Estes.

He had a lot of street smart, and I learned a lot from him, a tremendous amount, but he also taught me a lot of what not to do. And Cookie's passed away now. He's a good man. He tried hard. But my personal opinion of him, he would put on blinders. He would focus on you, and if he could prove it was you, fine. If he couldn't, he'd just lose interest in it. One other thing about Cookie is he didn't want anybody else interfering in his cases.

He didn't want anybody else interfering in his cases. He didn't want anybody else's opinion. So that's Cookie for you. He was one of the two leads on the investigation into Renee's murder. The other lead on the case was Putnam. It is his handwriting that is all over the stenopads. Still, both detectives show up in the cassette tape interviews And these, combined with the notebooks Give a loose account of how the investigation went down

Following the taped interview, take one of the urges Day's date is 1-21-94 Time is 9 a.m. This is a interview at Metro Jail with Archie Lorenzo McPherson. In the first days after Renee's body is found, the detectives interview a number of people. The following is a tape interview taken with Maurice Hill. Maurice, the purpose of this interview is a reference to a young lady that you know,

a woman named Maria Martinez. They interview Rene's boyfriend, Maurice, which makes sense. When is the last time you saw Maria? From the best of my knowledge, it was Thursday when I got off work. They also interview a friend of his named Freddy. You would describe Maurice as your best friend. So I like him he's a good guy maurice is going on the fly okay the purpose of this interview is in reference

to a situation i showed you a photograph earlier with white female have you ever seen him before they interview a local sex worker named paulette who said she had seen renee on wednesday we don't care what your girl's done or who you done it to or how much dope you smoked or what you stole from the Don General. All we concerned with is who killed Maria. That's all we concerned about.

All this other conversation we had, don't worry about it, okay? Thank you. And I want you to know I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing it more for Maria. They interview a guy who Renee had hung out with on Thursday. John, I understand that you were acquainted with Maria Martinez.

Is that correct? That's correct. Funny enough, they actually interview three teenagers who Renee had gotten into a spat with in a parking lot outside a convenience store shortly before her death. Tell me what that woman was wearing that night that you remember. A blue jean jacket. I don't know what the shirt looked like. Some tight blue jean pants and some ugly boots that had three zippers that just all the way around with purple

and green and orange and pink on it. It's not clear what the spat was about exactly, but it must have been bad for one of the teen girls to still take the time to insult Renee's boots after she died. The detectives also chat with a convenience store clerk who calls in a tip. Someone came in talking about the murder in graphic detail. They collect security cam footage from that store. As I go through the files, I create a database of every single name, address, phone number,

vehicle license plate, and detail in the file. I want to see patterns to connect names and addresses to interview transcripts. But still, I'm not totally sure how some of these people came onto their radar, and I'm struggling to understand how relevant some of this information is to the case. But what's an even bigger mystery to me is who they didn't choose to interview.

The detectives do not take the time to speak at length to Renee's mom, Joyce, or her dad, Raymond. They do not ask Renee's mom, Joyce, or her dad, Raymond. They do not ask Renee's boyfriend, Maurice, about whether he knows of anyone else who they should speak to, at least not in the recorded interview. There are other tips called in. A guy who goes around town with a laminated picture of Renee. He describes her murder in detail, first to a DMV employee and then to his doctor.

Another guy calls in a tip on a friend of his who drunkenly bragged about raping someone who matched a description of Renee. A woman calls the office repeatedly the week after Renee's body was found. She leaves a message for the detectives, saying she heard screaming in the middle of the night in the woods near the crime scene. The notebooks include her original tip, then another note left saying she called while the detectives were away. But there's no record of the detectives following up with her. What Putnam and Estes do is canvas the community.

They print flyers offering a $15,000 reward. Do you know who killed this woman? The flyers read with WOMAN in all caps, followed by three question marks. They use an old mugshot of Renee on the flyer from a time when she was arrested, despite the fact that they have other, more recent pictures of her on hand,

including one of her with her young daughter in her lap. In press releases, the sheriff's office makes mention of her record, writing, and I quote, she made her living through prostitution, was a frequent user of crack cocaine, and spent much of her time on the street, end quote. Maybe the detectives think they are being smart about this. They probably think they stand the best chance of getting real information if they present Renee in the terms by which they view her, a sex worker and drug user, because that's how they assume others will know her. The press takes this narrative and runs with it, not that they needed much encouragement.

Prostitute, crack addict, mugshot, lather, rinse, repeat, a toxic feedback loop. When the detectives canvas Theodore, the small town where Renee lived and was later found dead, they speak with two men who claim they saw a woman resembling Renee get into a car with a known drug dealer named Dinesky Brown on either the Thursday or Friday before her body was found. But they state they only saw this from a distance

and don't know for sure if it was her. This tip, written down in the steno pads, will become the first lead that Cookie and Putnam pursue. Nature is a dangerous place. On I Was Prey, the podcast, listen to the life-or-death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike. Featuring audio from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and deadly parasites alike. Featuring audio from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and Animal Planet. From hit shows like This Came Out of Me, Nature's Deadliest,

Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. There are countless organisms that make a living off of us. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. I don't know, it's a casual Friday. I didn't know. I didn't get the memo. Yeah, I'm not staying here all day. It's Friday. I'm not on call. Hallelujah. This is Detective Matthew Peet. Matt is the most all-American guy

I know. He loves baseball, chews tobacco, celebrates National Hot Dog Day. Today's National Hot Dog Day. Wait tobacco, celebrates National Hot Dog Day. Today's National Hot Dog Day. Wait, it was National Hot Dog Day the other, maybe it was international. It was probably National Hot Dog Day without a bun, and now it's Hot Dog Day with a bun. Hot dog and chili and sauerkraut. Oh God, that sounds good.

When I am at the Mobile County Sheriff's Office, Matt is my partner in this investigation. Together, we look through the case files, interview suspects, walk through theories and hurdles, and figure out next steps. I trust him. Matt and I want to learn more about the original investigation, beyond what we could read in the case files. So we decide to speak to Detective

Kevin Putnam, one of the two lead detectives on the original case, the only one still living, and the guy whose handwriting fills up most of the steno pads. So we ask him to come in and review his notes with us. Putnam is tall, very tall He seems to almost fill the doorway when he enters Matt's office Before sitting in a chair beside the desk And speaking with people at the sheriff's office who knew him back in the day And know him now

There's always a pause They say he's an odd duck Or just different from most cops. Stuff like that. You know, we were talking about Taylor Blaine. There's 10 commandments. One of them is thou shalt do no murder. And that there are more murder victims out there than we will ever fathom.

There's as many murder victims out there as there, as there are lies that have been told. As we go through the case files, Putnam offers up whatever pieces of information he can. And then Tammy. Which one? Hutchinson? Tammy Hutchinson, yeah. Her name was all up in it. She used to run with the crowd down there. We discussed the sources Putnam interviewed, the people who seemed to know Renee. Now, here's William David Young's name in my book. I didn't think it was there. Yeah, it seems like somebody talked to him once, briefly.

He even says that he came in and talked to somebody once. Came to get D.L., had a had laminated picture of victim talking about murder. On the whole, things line up with how I had thought his investigation went. I just, I thought I'd get better notes than this. Look, honestly, if you didn't keep the notes that you kept, we wouldn't have anything. Cookie and Putnam zeroed in on a lead suspect within the first 48 hours after Renee's body was found. Donesky Brown, the drug dealer mentioned earlier. So here's what happens next.

The detectives drive to Donesky's house. They ask to speak with him about a case they're investigating. Smartly, Donesky asks for a lawyer. The detectives ask to search the inside of Donesky's car, a blue Toyota Celica. Again, Donesky asks for a lawyer. The detectives ask to search the inside of Doneski's car, a blue Toyota Celica. Again, Doneski asks for a lawyer. So the detectives bring cadaver dogs to sniff around the car.

The dogs signal that there's an odor related to human remains inside the Toyota. So now the detectives have probable cause, that is, a legal basis to search and seize the car. As they search the car, have probable cause, that is, a legal basis to search and seize the car. As they search the car, they find sneakers, shorts, and a buck knife, the folding kind often used in hunting.

The tip of the knife is broken off. The blade has a single blood smear on it. The handle has blood in the crevices. They send the knife to the state lab for testing to see if the blood matches Renee's. A month later, the results come back. No, the blood does not match Renee's. At this point, the detectives have nothing else to go on

except some guys saying Renee maybe got into Doneski's car. No other evidence suggests that Doneski's connected to her murder. The detectives are left with just hunches and biases. Doneski was black and a drug dealer, and maybe Renee owed him money since she was known to use cocaine. It is at this point, when their lead suspect, Donesky, is reasonably excluded from consideration, that the case begins to go cold. Over the next few months, the detectives pursue a few more leads, but none quite as ardently as Donesky-Brown. But talking to him in the present day, Putnam does remember other suspects, including one particular suspect, Renee's boyfriend, Maurice.

But I do remember going to the house, and I do remember him saying, sure, go ahead and look around. I remember walking through a room and looking around on the floor, especially the floor, because I think it had a wood floor. And, you know, blood gets in wood floors, and it just gets way down in there deep. It was dark that night. You went at night?

Yeah, we went at night. Was there blood on the porch? There was, I know there was... Seems like there was something worth looking at on the porch. Right. Cook, you would have collected it. So Putnam confirms this. There was blood

on the porch at the house Renee shared with her boyfriend. He saw it the same night that Renee's body was found. I just never got the sense that he was involved in it. He just seemed like he was, you know, he had her around because they were friends

and buddies. And I'm sure they had sex. They were together for six years. They were a couple for six years. And what makes him go off the reservation? But I am of the same mind as you that in this case, I don't think that he's the one who did it. I think he was probably a shitty boyfriend, but I don't think he killed her. You know what I mean?

I mean, she's got a place to live. He's paying her bills. He wasn't paying her bills. That was her house. That's not what we heard. It doesn't matter what you heard. The lease was in her name. That was her house.

She made $42,000 that year. She wasn't living off of anybody. I'm not saying she was a saint, but I also, I think it's important to recognize that there were a lot of tales about her at the time that were not accurate. Everything I could find in the original case files makes it very clear that Renee was not living off anyone. She had money in the bank.

She owned her car outright. She lived in a house leased in her name. She tracked every penny that she brought in and that she spent. Putnam should have known this. There's the title to her car in the original case file. Notes in the steno where her landlord says he leased the place to her, not Maurice.

It just feels important to clarify because these kinds of misunderstandings about a victim can shape a case, lead it in different directions, and bias those who are supposed to solve it. And even if the detectives did not suspect Maurice, someone did. And she was beating down the agency's door,

pleading for them to please pursue new leads, to please solve her daughter's murder. I'm Joyce Bozeman, and I was Renee's mother, and still is. She's still in my heart after 29 years. This is Joyce, Renee's mother still lives. She's still in my heart after 29 years. This is Joyce, Renee's mom. I speak with her early in my investigation because I want to get to know the people who knew Renee best

and who knows you better than your own mom. Today, Joyce lives in the same house she raised Renee and her five siblings in. It's also the house that Amanda grew up in. It's a modest ranch just outside of New Orleans. I gave them a tour to see all of the nutcrackers. She loves to collect things. Her kitchen is filled with Coca-Cola memorabilia.

Her living room has, I kid you not, hundreds of nutcrackers, all gifted to her by her children, grandchildren, neighbors, and friends. The Bergerons were, and still are, a picture family. There are stacks of photos, album after album, the walls of the family home adorned in every room with more and more pictures of them all. Even though Renee is gone, she's still present in the household. Her photos are everywhere.

Joyce first found out that Renee had died when the sheriff's office called her and her husband. But she didn't learn the exact details until she traveled to Mobile to recover her daughter's body from the funeral home. The guy from the funeral home told me, he says, Ms. Joyce, before we make arrangements, I want you to talk to the guy that did the autopsy in Mobile.

So he got him on the phone, and he's the one that told me. He said, are you aware how your daughter died? I said, I was told she was found on the side of the road. And that's when he proceeded to tell me that her head was found two days later. Given the extent of injuries to Renee, the family had to identify her body through small, cropped pictures of her tattoos. A butterfly in the web between her thumb and index finger,

and a broken heart above her ankle. We went to the Mobile Police, and I wanted to talk to them. She says Mobile Police Department here, but she really means the Mobile County Sheriff's Office. It's a common misnomer, but important to clarify. But the guy who was in charge of the police department at the time was a total a-hole. His attitude was that she was a street person

and that she didn't have a place to stay and all this. And I said, you're going to tell me she was homeless? I said, the house she was living in, she rented it. The furniture that was in there, she had on it. Regardless, the agency dismissed her. But Joyce pushed back on the detectives. She knew her daughter rented her own place, bought her own furniture, took good care of herself.

She wasn't a, quote, street person. And that's when he backed up his chair, he crossed his leg, put it on the table and began to describe my daughter to me how she was a street person. And I looked at him and I told him, I said,

I don't know if you're married. I don't know if you have kids. But I said, you've got to remember that girl was somebody's daughter. She was somebody's mother, and she was somebody's sister. One of the detectives dismissed the mother of a murder victim, literally putting his feet up on the table and telling her that her daughter was a street person. Can you imagine?

The thing is, Joyce knew about Renee's occasional sex work. She says Renee reassured her that it was closer to chaperoning rich guys than working as a street prostitute. Joyce says that she knew she couldn't control Renee. It was better to make peace with her daughter's choices at any given point in her life, even if she didn't agree with them. But what she did not make peace with was how the sheriff's office treated her. Not only was it cruel, it also hurt their investigation. Because Joyce knew who Renee's good friends were.

She knew who they should talk to. And Joyce had her own suspicions. One that she wanted them to investigate. Renee's boyfriend, Maurice. Joyce remembers that Maurice did not come to the funeral. But more than that, Joyce remembers another crucial did not come to the funeral.

But more than that, Joyce remembers another crucial thing about Maurice. Renee had told her mom that Maurice was abusive towards her. Apparently, Renee and Maurice would get into huge, awful fights. In fact, right before her death, Renee told her mom that she was going to leave Maurice. She says, well, Mom, she says it's at this point. If I don't leave him, either he's going to kill me or I'm going to end up killing him. She says, I can't take it anymore. Joyce told the detectives that she thought they should at least investigate Maurice more. Not that I felt Maurice did it.

Because, quote the Mobile Police, the man is a musician. He wouldn't use his hand to kill anyone. Any professional man didn't do it. And I looked at him, I said, what about O.J. Simpson? I said, wasn't he a professional football player? And I said, don't hand him me that bowl. Despite being rebuffed, Joyce continued to write letters to the sheriff's office. One reads, Since Renee's death, I have mailed you a copy of a book.

I know you got it. I have written you five letters, this being the sixth. Please write me some kind of report as to what has been done and what is being done. Please don't let her be an unsolved case. I know I'm looking for answers, and answers are what I need. But those letters went unanswered. The same day that Renee's body was found, back in November 1993, detectives interviewed her boyfriend, Maurice.

The following was a taped interview taken, Maurice. There's a cassette recording of this interview. The recorded interview runs less than 20 minutes. That's pretty short for a criminal interview. You said sometimes she just leaves. She goes away for a few days and comes back. All right. She's got sort of a sordid past, isn't it? She does drugs. more particularly crack cocaine.

I understood you to say that she also been turning some tricks. I mean, I didn't condone what she was doing and I never followed her. And we really didn't discuss it, you know, because I just felt less than a man. I mean, she used to tell me about her tricks. She didn't discuss her tricks with me. So I don't know who she was tricking, but I know that she was tricking because she'd leave home and she'd come back with money or drugs. Sometimes she goes out of town and does this, Houston, Dallas, wherever.

She just sort of comes and goes. Is that right? Right. Do you have any idea where she may have been staying during this period that she was gone? None whatsoever. None whatsoever. It's clear that the officers and Maurice had talked before the recording started. Oh.

I gather from the conversation you and I had earlier that initially you and her, you felt pretty close to her. But because of her lifestyle and some of the things she's been doing, that you felt close. Not really intimate, but I still love her. But, you know, I can I can't you know it's just black and white just two opposites but we have always been the best of friends and lovers up until the last time she left a couple of months ago we had decided really that we were gonna kind of part. And when she got back Monday,

I thought that maybe we would try to make another go at it. She was gonna try to straighten her life up and everything. And then that Tuesday she was ripping and running again. Were you happy or sad, the two of you breaking up? Did it hurt you? I would really been relieved, but I really love Maria. We've been through thick and thin, through this and the other for many years. I wouldn't want to see her hair hurting her head.

I can't understand why somebody would want her dead other than she ripping somebody off or something. I mean, I'm used to it, you know. Do you have any knowledge of how Maria came to be dead? No, sir. I sure don't. I'll take a lie detector test or whatever I have to do. I have no knowledge whatsoever. I have not seen Maria since Thursday night. She hadn't been back home because I can tell when Maria comes in she just tears everything up and I was waiting for her to leave before I clean the house back up. She come in, put dishes all over the place and clothes all over the place, but I knew that she was close by because her luggage was still there. See if her

luggage was gone that means she would have been gone but her luggage still there. So she couldn't have been too far. She doesn't go anywhere without the luggage. Do you have any knowledge of how Maria came to be dead? I can't imagine her, but I still just don't seem like she's dead to me. This is hard for me to... Nature is a dangerous place. On was prey the podcast listen to the life or death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks natural disasters and deadly parasites alike featuring audio from discovery channel science channel and animal planet from hit shows like this came out of me nature's Deadliest, Still Alive,

and Monsters Inside Me. There are countless organisms that make a living off of us. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. There is a tongue-in-cheek joke tossed around in True Crime. The husband did it.

Sadly, this trope exists because it is statistically, overwhelmingly the case. When a woman is murdered in America, she is 15 times more likely to have been killed by a man she knows than any other type of offender. Half of them are directly at the hands of an intimate partner.

And it appears that Renee might have experienced abuse from Maurice. Both Joyce and Amanda remember Renee coming to New Orleans with bruises on her body that she said were from fights with him. So I know it's important that I speak with Maurice myself, not only to investigate whether he might have had any involvement in Renee's murder, but also to talk with someone else who seemed to know Renee pretty well, even if he knew her as Maria. Hey, Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's Office. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Hey, is Maurice around? Good morning. How are you doing?

I'm well, sir. I spoke with you on the phone the other day. Yeah. Maurice lives in a quiet residential section of Mobile, not far from downtown. The street is wide. The homes are lovely, mid-century ranches. The oaks are enormous,

creating a canopy over the whole neighborhood. It's the summer of 2020, peak COVID, so we stay outside, keeping our distance. The audio, unfortunately, reflects this. As we talk to Maurice, we learn some of the basics about him. He has adult children who live nearby. They seem like a close family.

He's certainly getting up there in age. He was 15 years Rene's senior. Today, he moves with the help of a wheelchair, though once he gets where he's going, he stands up to speak. He is an imposing figure. He is tall, very sturdy. He seems very sharp. And though we are there to discuss

dark, difficult things, there are moments we get a glimpse of what I suspect is a quick wit. And I can see why Renee was drawn to him. I do remember her following me around because I would be so happy to see her. a lot most of the time when I played she was out of town and I would be glad to see her. One time I was playing in a club, and this woman was in there, was married, and she was fixated on me. And Maria got her straight. You don't mess with my man. I'm like, oh, my God. I didn't know you were my woman, but okay.

Maurice shares fond memories of Renee, like when she would come to watch him play music at his gigs. But he is also frank about problems in their relationship. He hones in on her drug use, just as he did in his original interview from 1993. So you two kind of kicked it off? We all first met and then started dating, is that right? Okay.

And any problems during that dating? We had problems with... She was a drug addict and me and she had a bed. Mm-hmm. Cocaine? Yeah. She'd be gone sometime for two or three days. I would get upset or whatever,

but not enough to kill her or nothing like that. It'd be like cutting my own throat. Other than that, man, it was great. We used to go to New Orleans every weekend. I played music and I worked on appliances on the side every week. And we didn't have any money problems. She wouldn't give me money for rent and stuff, so we didn't have any big problems. He still remembers that Sunday in November. When you found out, I'm sure the investigators asked you, but I didn't see any notes in the file.

When was the last time that you saw her part of her death? Because she was found on a Sunday morning. I think I saw her that Wednesday. It was one of them weekends she was on the bench, and I hadn't seen her. I was looking for her. Maurice worked as an electrician during the day and a musician during the evening. Time cards show him clocking into and out of work during most of that week before Renee's death.

He also had music gigs at night. He says Renee seemed to be on a bender during that time. They didn't cross paths much that week. And according to Maurice, he did not find out about Rene's murder until detectives showed up at his door. When it happened, I didn't, I didn't even go, I went to New Orleans the day they have a funeral, but I didn't even go to the funeral.

I didn't want nothing to remind me that she was gone. Well, it would have been a shock. I mean, it was... Oh, that was horrible. I have my theory on who killed her, but... And what's your theory? That she got some drugs from somebody on credit. And when they came to her, she was so out of it.

She didn't have the money, so they killed her. That was my idea. But honestly... Did you ever know her to get drugs on credit prior to her death? Because she usually had money. I mean, and at the time of her death, she had money credit prior to her death? Because she usually had money. I mean, and at the time of her death, she had money, according to her banking records, which she kept really meticulous notes.

You know, I didn't keep up with how much money she had. I knew that she had money, but I never kept up with it, how she got it. She was the sweetest thing in the world. I never will forget her, but I call her Maria, but we find out later her name was Renee Bergeron.

But she always be Maria Martinez to me. I went into this meeting expecting to dislike Maurice, simply by virtue of what I'd heard about his alleged history of domestic violence. To be clear, my thoughts on that are no different now. Domestic violence is an intolerable condition. It is a cancer on society. It is endemic.

It is on the rise again in this country. And it is a predictor of so many types of violent crime. But when Maurice speaks about Rene, it is very difficult, even for me, to not feel empathy for how much sadness he still seems to carry at her loss. Above all, my read on him is that he is being very forthright with us. His answers are clear and natural. There are none of the telltale signs of lies. Nice to meet you, Sarah. Nice to meet you. Let's enjoy the weekend.

If you think of something, please call us, okay? I sure will. Shake your hand, bud. Y'all have a good day. There's a term of art in law enforcement and in criminal justice in general, the totality of the circumstances. There is no one thing that eliminates Maurice as a suspect. Maurice appears to have a credible alibi that weekend, and no other accounts of Rene's whereabouts include Maurice. Plus, he seems forthright. There are no red flags. When I look at the facts of the case, I can arrive at one of two conclusions.

Either an overarching sense that it just doesn't add up to his having done this, or perhaps even being able to do this, or I must land in a place where I want to continue pushing in this direction. To me, there is nothing that stands out, nothing glaring that says, keep going, there's got to be something there.

And frankly, that is a mistake too many investigators make. As I see it, there are witnesses placing both Maurice and Renee at different locations during almost all of the key points in the timeline leading to her death. There are a few small gaps, holes we can't fill in. But in those holes, we have evidence pointing us away from Maurice and much more clearly to other suspects. There are interviews with people who knew them both in Mobile,

none of which raise any suspicion of Maurice. He doesn't match the psychological profile of someone who would do this, and there's no physical evidence, like a weapon, tying him to this case. Given our impression of his forthrightness with us, his statements to detectives in the immediate aftermath of the murder, and a complete absence of anything even coming close to proof that he did commit it. I'm going to side with the totality of the circumstances. I don't see any reason to keep Maurice at the top of the list.

I don't think he's our guy. Still, the question remains, who on earth would do this to Renee? Next time on Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom. I think the public needs to know how long the surveillance goes, how much that the offender gets out of stalking, silently stalking his victim. You cannot assume that the victim is a stranger to the offender. It builds the fantasy. It builds into what he wants to do and how he's going to do it.

Everything on the surface to me looked like a sexual homicide, potentially a serial. There was something about her sexuality that was particularly offensive. That's actually really key. Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom is produced by Arc Media for i-D. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you could subscribe and take a second to leave us a five-star review

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