Who Killed Jennifer Judd? - Ep.4: Friend or Foe?

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

As Sarah tries to further understand the life Renée led in Mobile, she learns of a close friend of hers named David. But she doesn’t know if he is dead or alive. So, she decides to see if she can find him and talk to him. What she discovers sends her investigation hurtling in a new direction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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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 episode contains explicit language and descriptions of violence. Please be advised. Is there anyone alive in Mobile who might have known your mom? It's hard because I don't really know her life in Mobile. I don't really know who she hung out with there.

There's Leanne, but she's dead. This is Amanda Campos, Renee's daughter. We're speaking on the phone. There's David. David? Yeah, he was a friend of my mom's. He would bring gifts and things of my mom for me. Actually, he took me where she was killed, like where her body was found.

It was me, my grandma, grandpa, and David. We all drove the mobile. He showed me her house, where she hung out, and then he took us to the spot, like, alongside the highway. But yeah, I don't know if David is still alive. Maybe you could reach out to him. For ID and ARC Media, I'm Sarah Kalin, and this is Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom? Previously on Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom. The injuries to the neck which involved decapitation meaning that her head had been physically removed from her body. These wounds they're just indicative of someone who was in a state of rage trying to do as much damage as they possibly could. I feel like she was left out because of the circumstances

of what happened, you know, because it was a murder. It was a brutal murder. She was a drug addict, and when she had a bad, 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 mean, this was going to be, I knew at the time,

this was going to be a real challenge, to try to recreate what could have happened to this young woman. 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. I need to sit down with Amanda, hear more about this David guy.

So I decide to visit her at her home. Her house is decorated with bright colors and holiday knickknacks and lots of framed photographs. It reminds me so much of Joyce's home. Clearly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There's a pair of parakeets, a few small aquariums filled with fish, and a little dog scuttling around. At this point, I'm hoping we can talk more about a guy named David Young, a guy she mentioned the very first time we spoke on the phone. Do you have a memory of David and your mom coming over together ever? No, never. She didn't,

you never met him before your mom? Not that I remember. I remember my mom talking about him as a friend. And I remember my mom explaining to me the difference of love and being in love. Through David? As an example. Me and my mom were talking and I said, well, what's the difference? And she said, well, like David, he's my friend. I love him, but I'm not in love with him. And I said, well, how can you say that? You know, it's a good thing I'm seven, eight years old trying to figure out what love and in

love is. And I said, so you're not in love with David? And she said, no, I just love him as a friend. And it was because she said that he was a good friend and he was my dad's best friend. So that's the only way she referred to him he was my dad's best friend. So that's the only way she referred to him as, was my dad's best friend. So that's how I knew him. But despite how seemingly close Renee and David were, Amanda does not meet David until after her mom dies. Not long after the funeral, Amanda travels with her grandparents to Alabama. They need to collect Renee's belongings, including her beloved little sports car,

which is still at the mechanics in Mobile. Once they arrive in Mobile, they meet up with David. He offers to take them around, since none of them really know Renee's life there. First, David takes the Bergeron family to the cemetery where Amanda's dad, Clay, is buried. She's never been there before. After that, he takes her to meet Clay's brother so that Amanda can be introduced to the other side of the family. After that, he takes Amanda and her grandparents to Renee's house, the one she shared with Maurice. And I remember walking in and my grandma saying, how do we know this is the right house?

I walked in and there's a big old picture of me on the refrigerator. Like I had given her my Easter picture. My grandma had made me a dress, you know, you sit with the Easter bunny, but she had blew it up to like the size of the whole refrigerator. And I said, well, unless I'm famous, this is the house.

It is clearly Renee's house, but apart from the picture of Amanda on the fridge, it looks abandoned. There was nothing in the house. It was a few pictures, an empty purse, not even furniture, like not even a sofa, nothing on the wall. It was like ransacked, I guess you would say. It was just, and I remember that feeling like, this isn't right, like this is empty. There wasn't even a sofa.

There wasn't a bed. There was nothing in there. According to Amanda, David then tells her grandparents that he thinks she, Amanda, should see where her mother's body was found. It's not far from Renee's house. The family drives over with David.

I remember waiting in the car. You didn't get out of the car? No, no, no. My grandma and grandpa got out, and my grandpa told me to wait in the car. So I don't know what they said or how precise he was, whatever, you know. Amanda doesn't know what David or her grandparents see or talk about while she stays in the car.

After that, the Bergeron family returns home to New Orleans. In the first years after Renee's death, David visits the family every so often. In fact, just a few months after their mobile visit, David offers to buy Renee's car. My mom had a 280ZX, and it was teal, and had spoiled rotten written across the front of it in gold letters. The car had been hard to sell, but Amanda loved having it around in her grandparents' driveway. She said she would just go sit in it so she could smell her mom. So it was a very

noticeable car. Everybody knew it was her car. So he told my grandma that he wanted to drive it around town so if anybody seen him in the car, he would know that he's looking for him. Is what he said.

After that, David keeps returning to the Bergeron home. But each time he visits, Amanda's grandpa Raymond makes her go somewhere else. He doesn't want her to interact with David. My grandpa was one of those people that could read people. And he just, from jump, he didn't like them. And the first couple times he came over, he didn't even let them come inside. Like, he had to stay outside and talk to them, you know. Eventually, at some point, David is allowed to come inside.

Amanda's grandma Joyce invites him in to chat. David brings Joyce newspaper clippings with updates on the case. New rewards offered, new possible connections. But Amanda recalls Raymond still refuses to speak with David or let Amanda interact with him much. Despite this, David sends Amanda

holiday cards. So it's a teddy bear holding a heart and it says, Happy Valentine's Day. And on the inside it says, a Valentine's greeting for you from me, as warm as a great big hug would be. Have a happy day. And then David wrote, and please don't ever forget that I think about and love you forever. Love always, David. And very happy Valentine. I knew I had another, like a note from him before,

and he had sent me a picture of himself when he started driving 18-wheelers. He sent me a picture of that. That's all I remember, though. Amanda remembers another time when David slipped an envelope under the door. On it, he had written, For Amanda.

Inside the envelope was a gold necklace. My mom's necklace. That he supposedly just found in the car, is what he said. But my mom always had that necklace on. It's not just Amanda's memory. I have found at least six pictures of Renee wearing this necklace. It looks to be a favorite of hers. And then another time, he came in for Christmas because he bought me a bicycle.

A 10-speed pink and gray bicycle, you know, with the swirly handles. David's visits are regular enough that Joyce buys him a Christmas present every year. It was a carton of Winston cigarettes. And then one year, he never came. And then he never came again. buys him a Christmas present every year. It was a carton of Winston cigarettes. And then one year, he never came. And then he never came again. He just stopped coming. No letter, no phone call.

He just stopped out of nowhere. So my grandma, I didn't know if something happened to him or just got busy. And I remember that box of wrapped cigarettes long after Christmas was over. My grandma just kept it out, you know, in case everybody showed up, then she had it for him. And eventually she just threw it away. After that, Amanda never sees David again. He vanishes into thin air. Yeah, I don't know if David is still alive.

Maybe you could reach out to him. How old do you think he was? Older than my mom, but I actually do know his birthday. Christmas. Hard to forget. David Young. His name actually appears in the original case files, but only briefly. He makes his first appearance on February 19, 1994,

three months after Renee was killed. A doctor calls in saying David came into his office seeking anxiety medicine because he was upset about what happened to Renee. Around the same time, a DMV employee also calls in a tip on David. Apparently, he came into the DMV to renew his commercial driver's license. He showed the employee laminated photos of Renee and discussed the case in detail.

He seemed upset. The employee was shaken and told a state trooper stationed at the DMV who then gave the information to detectives at the sheriff's office. Both of these tips are written down in the detective's notebook. From there, it looks like the detectives spoke with David about 11 days later, presumably following up on these tips. But there is no recording of their conversation, just a few notes jotted down saying that it happened

and that David said he hadn't seen Renee since July, a full four months before she died. Someone being upset about a murder when they know the person who was murdered is not alarming. Yes, he shares a few too many details, but I don't believe there is a right way or a wrong way to process grief or traumatic loss. And so someone being a little ghoulish about it

isn't a red flag in and of itself. But that being said, I can't stop thinking about the story Amanda shared, about David taking her to the place where her mom's body was found. Whatever it might mean, it's clear that I need to speak with David Young. It's been clear since Amanda first mentioned his name. Even if he has a rock-solid alibi and no connections to Renee's murder,

at the very least, he's probably someone who knew her fairly well. I have a name and a birthday. No year, but it being on Christmas makes it at least a little easier to find him. So that's all I need. I find his criminal record. There are charges for assault, robbery, burglary, and weed. A felony marijuana charge, actually, meaning he had a

distribution-level amount when arrested, not some dime-bag recreational amount. I also find an address in Mobile. As far as I can tell, there's no death certificate or obituary connected to his name, so it looks like he's still alive, 65 years old, and lives not too far away. My partner Matt and I decide that we're going to pull up to David's house and try to interview him without warning. We want to knock him off balance a little, see how he reacts. David lives at the very back of a trailer park. We have to drive through a series of twists and turns on a dirt road to find him.

When we finally arrive at his address, it's hard to see his trailer because it's obscured by very high, cropped hedges. But once we walk past them, we can see it clearly. His single wide looks old, at least 30 or 40 years. Faded, worn, some rust showing. But it is also clearly as well-kept as anyone could be expected to manage at its age, or at his. The property slopes down behind the trailer into a huge section of woods with a small shed at the edge of the property line. Hi, this is David Young, Sheriff's Office.

Hi, man. How are you? Good. Hey, can I stop by and see you? Yeah, thank you. I record the interview on my phone, so it's not high quality. I'll try to clarify as we go, because this conversation, though it only lasts half an hour, contains a lot of very important information. He's wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans, both of which appear quite crisp and clean, but also seem at least a size too big. With just socks on his feet, he joins us outside at Matt's request,

sitting down on the narrow metal steps in front of the trailer's front door. David Young has a sort of lanky Santa Claus quality to his appearance. Long white hair, long white beard, though both are yellowed from years of nicotine exposure. He is so tall and thin that gangly is the first word to pop into my mind. Hey, this is Sarah.

Yeah, I'm Matthew. Hey, I wanted to talk to you about an old case that has been brought to my attention recently. We're kind of looking at. That was an old murder back in 93. With who? David seems stunned, almost mute. He clearly knows immediately why we are there. You might have missed it just now, but the moment when we mention a murder in 1993, he replies, mumbling, I quote,

you mean Renee? Then, I didn't really know her, end quote. At the outset, before we even begin asking him questions, David starts by saying that Renee got on crack. She threw her life away. I still got it. Do you hear him? He says, that's what got her killed, you know?

That stuff changes people sometimes, doesn't it? My best guess is that David is struggling to grasp what is happening and maybe trying to end the conversation with us. He's throwing out answers, whatever comes to him in that second. Anything to just make this stop. That may be why he downplays his relationship with Renee, claiming not to know her really and emphasizing her drug use, distancing himself from her. But Matt pushes on. So tell me a little bit about her because some of the case notes that I've read just don't tell

me a whole lot about her. I see a picture of her and that's all I know about her. I want to know some details about her life, who she hung around and what she liked to do. Where did she go? So David, Maurice? Maurice, yeah. And they said they questioned him, and it was clear to him. So David says that Renee got on drugs and started hanging out with black people, including her boyfriend, Maurice. How was her relationship with Maurice? Did you ever see any indication of violence on his part? No, I don't think he, I don't think that was him, to be honest. David is quick to say that he does not suspect Maurice. Matt asks David if the detectives ever spoke with him.

Yes, David says. He went down to the sheriff's station and talked with Cookie Estes about the case. He makes it sound voluntary on his part. I didn't like the way they handled it because they were... They did things a lot different a long time ago. Okay. So I'm trying to put some fresh eyes on it. I did all I could to find out about it.

Tell me about that. That would help me tremendously. Yeah, it was just... Tell me about that. That would help me tremendously. So who did you suspect after you kind of dug into things? When Matt asks David who he suspects, David keeps quiet. He doesn't offer an answer. Instead, he says, the detectives say she left the house that morning and was going to the store. It's like he's thinking out loud.

But eventually, he does offer his own theory of the case. She acted like somebody was after her ass. How do you know that she had ratted on somebody? Did she personally tell you that? Well, it was in the newspaper. It was in the newspaper. Sure it was. Well, I remember, okay, so I do remember seeing something in an a newspaper. Sure was. Well, I remember, okay,

so I do remember seeing something in an old newspaper where that was a potential thought process of the sheriff's office at the time was that she could have snitched on someone, per se, who had been in the drug world. David believes Renee is responsible for somebody going to prison, and that is why she was killed.

He cites the fact that she acted like somebody was after her. When Matt presses him on this, he then claims he read it in a newspaper. It is worth noting that for many years, Renee's mom Joyce has kept a file folder of all the documents related to Renee's murder. In it, there are multiple newspaper clippings about the case. David gave some of these clippings to Joyce. On one, he writes in the margin, Still lacks clues.

So it does appear that he followed the case closely after Renee's death. I ask him about what he knows of Renee's personal life. I want to see what he'll offer us. What were you going to say? She was married? Well, Renee, she was married to that Clay Beers boy. You know, he died. Clay died with a damn brain in your business. I mean, we all lived out there in the neighborhood.

Yeah, he got... Him and her got married. She got pregnant by him. Just a reminder, Renee left home as a teenager and went to Mobile, Alabama, where she married a guy named Clay, that's Amanda's dad, who later died of a brain aneurysm. David and Clay were childhood friends, so he knew her for a long time. And David tells us a history of Renee that more or less matches what we know.

She put baby Amanda in her parents' care. She traveled. She engaged in sex work. It appears that David did know Renee well. But I am also curious about David's relationship to Renee's family after her death. Like, why did he visit so much? Why did he buy her car? And why did he take the family out to the place

where Renee's body was found? According to David, Renee's family asked him to take them out to that spot. Yeah. I took her. We're over there about 10. You took them out to the spot where she was killed? Yeah.

They wanted to go out there. Oh, they wanted to? They wanted, yeah. They wanted. They asked me and I said, yeah, come on. When's the last time you rode out there? Oh, I think it's been about a week ago. About a week ago? I go by there once a while. David's body language changes. He seems uncomfortable, cagey even,

unable to address the question directly. As Matt tries to get a more exact answer, David starts offering a roundabout story. He says he drove there with his friend Calvin, who he lives with and takes care of him. He's on medication. He and Bo's on social security. I take care of him. Matt asks David, when did he last go to that spot? Last week, David answers.

Matt follows up, clarifying that David is saying that he drove by there last week. At this point, David starts murmuring, saying, I don't know, I don't know. I'm not exactly sure what David is trying to say as we push on this point. But this is what I gather. It's clear that David says the last time he drove by the spot

where Renee's body was found was last week, like the week before we were talking to him. Why would he be driving down this particular remote road so often? I'm not sure. Psychologically, this stands out to me, the fact that he's been to that spot so recently. And the more we ask about Renee, the more that David keeps bringing the conversation

back to the grisly details of what happened to her. He seems obsessed with them. He also seems familiar with them. He says this is because he's seen pictures of what happened to Renee. I shall make sure it goes on. He says this is because he's seen pictures of what happened to Renee. Sounds like something a black person would do, something crazy like that. Why do you say that? I don't know. I kept trying to figure out why in a black they did it,

since she was missing black on the ground. So David claims he has pictures of Renee's tattoos that he got from her dad. I know that these photos were shown to the family to help identify Renee's body and may have been in their possession. But I don't know whether anyone in the Bergeron family showed these to David. David also claims that at one point, he had the autopsy report. That is odd. These are not publicly available in homicides.

One thing I notice is that David is pretty unclear, and I don't mean just in terms of the audio quality. Like, we ask him a question, and he doesn't really answer that specific question. He says something unrelated that may or may not have to do with the actual question. He doesn't finish his sentences. It's hard to follow his train of thought.

But it also seems clear to me that he's pretty nervous and not sure what he is supposed to say to detectives about this case. There's a lot to note in this first conversation. David seems to know a lot about the murder of Renee, like a lot of specific details, and he seems eager to talk about them. He also gives roundabout, unclear answers, and he's pretty judgmental, racist even about Renee's life.

He clearly dislikes black people and blames them for what happened. For me, the first conversation with David raises more questions than answers. It's not clarifying. It's confusing. 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. The next month, Matt and I asked David to come to the sheriff's office for a sit-down interview at the station. We need to speak with him again and ask about, one, his relationship with Renee,

two, his knowledge of the murder, and three, his drives past the crime scene. In the time since we first talked to David, we've pulled license plate data from across the county. This data marks when a plate passes through red light cameras, allowing us to look for patterns of movement. When we look at the past 60 days of data for David, we count approximately 25 times that his vehicle appears to pass by the crime scene. The data shows that his car passes through the nearest light to the scene, going in one direction,

and then, usually 10 to 20 minutes later, passes through again, going back the other way. I am curious to see if David will confirm or deny whether or not he is in fact visiting the crime scene. It's part of our broader strategy, get David to tell us as much as possible, and gently push back for clarification when he goes astray. I am not sure how much of what he says will be true or not, but I want to gauge how he responds when we ask him to clarify details. When David arrives, we guide him to the interview room.

This is a room with white walls, a small round table, and a recording system. Matt begins the interview. Do you remember my partner Sarah? All right. So, man, we've been looking through thousands of pages of documents in this investigation. It's unbelievable. David seems to trust Matt more. He opens up to him. What were those about? You said they were really vivid.

It was her, her dad, mom. They had come somewhere when we was hitting, he was going to take her back. That was the dream? Yeah. David says he's been having dreams about Renee. Now, having a dream about someone may seem like a pretty innocuous admission.

We all have dreams about people and situations we know. But in the world of criminal psychology, when any suspect begins to talk about dreams, we pay attention. This is because dream admissions are very common in the world of sexual homicide. People may not admit to the crime directly, but they admit to having had a dream about committing the crime. This is a psychological telltale. David's dream strikes me as an interesting one. It is in no way an admission dream, but it does suggest to me there is some level of David's subconscious focusing on Renee. I make a note to remember this to see if he mentions any other dreams

throughout our interviews. Before we go any further, Matt and I want to learn more about the fact that David keeps driving past the crime scene. We know that he has done this multiple times since we last spoke to him. But will he admit that? But did you go there to the murder site

where her body was discovered? Well, I guess my question is, since me, you, and Sarah talked three or four weeks ago, have you been back over there? Yeah, I went back down to Durban Road and what he found out. Since we spoke? Yeah.

So David does cop to going to the site. Interesting. Now, on to our second area of focus. How does he know so much about the murder of Renee? In our first interview, David seemed to know a lot of details about the specifics of what happened to Renee. David claims it is because he had the autopsy report. This claim about the autopsy report sticks out to me. These reports are not made publicly available, and they are rarely given to families, especially in criminal cases like this.

One, because they could reveal sensitive information about the case. And two, because they are disturbing. When I asked Dr. Hughes, the sheriff's surgeon and a medical examiner about this, he said bluntly that these autopsy reports are not public. So we have to ask David about this. And just me being honest and speaking to you now, you know, it kind of struck me as odd the other day when we were at your house and we spoke with you,

and you told me you'd just recently burned all those things that you did have. Help me understand why you did that. Well, this one old girl, she said, David, you need to quit thinking about it. You need to try to get over it. Yeah. David is hard to hear, but he says that a girl he was seeing told him it was time for him to get over Renee and what happened to her.

So you said another woman told you it was time for you to get over it? Yeah, Vicki. Vicki told me. She said, look, you you to get over it? Yeah, Vicki. Vicki told me. She said, look, you need to get off. You need to get away from it. What's her name? I can't remember her last name. Was she a girlfriend of yours?

No, she was just a girl I met. What stuff did you specifically burn at your house? A bunch of pictures that I had. Okay. And all the old coffee. Now that thing was thick, that old coffee, about 30 panes. Yeah, I've got it. It's pretty thick. Yes.

So you don't remember the last time you spoke with Vicki? Not a long time. How long is a long time? A long time. About 10, 15 years. Okay, how would she tell you to get rid of Renee's things then? She just told me to try to get over her, you know, her soul, you know. Okay, so she didn't physically tell you, you need to get rid of all these things right before you hurt her. No, she told me I need to just

get over her. Yeah, but that was 10 or 15 years ago. And you told us last month that you had just burned the stuff like a couple weeks earlier. No, it's been a long time since I've burned a chair. I'm just trying to understand. David says he got the autopsy report from Renee's dad. But he also says that he burned the autopsy report before our interview because a girlfriend told him to. Okay, so let's say he is telling the truth. How exactly did he get the autopsy report? They aren't publicly available.

And neither Joyce nor Amanda remember Renee's dad Raymond ever having that report or giving it to David. Could David have gotten this autopsy report through some other means? And more importantly, why would David then burn it?

Now, let's say David is not telling the truth. How else would he have found out about the specifics of Renee's injuries? The details of them were not publicized. And did he actually burn anything? Like, is he trying to prevent us from looking for something by saying it's not there? Or could he have actually burned something to destroy evidence that might have otherwise been at his house? This is where I really want to press David, so I deliberately use an emotional tactic. I bring out a picture of Renee. It's a formal portrait, the one from her memorial. In it,

she's wearing the same gold necklace David gave Amanda. David is mesmerized by this picture. He looks at it intently. He says he's never seen it before. It's from her memorial. Let me ask you, actually, what you're looking at. Does that necklace look familiar? No. Does it?

You used to, you know, you said you would give Amanda Yeah, I just give her a little Shrinkets and stuff like that Because she has that necklace and she says that you gave it to her Oh, really? We just kind of need to understand I understand you guys are close and everything So for us, as we move forward and we're looking at things, we have to, you know, we have to explore some weird angles.

Yeah. And it's, frankly, it's a weird angle to me that a necklace... It was real. It was real. I guess you left it, you, like, put it under the door or something, didn't see her. And when she, she went straight to that picture, she said, that's the necklace. I don't remember giving her that. So at first, David says he does not recognize the necklace.

When I bring up the fact that he gave trinkets to Amanda, including the necklace, he says, oh yeah. But as I try to ask him how he got Renee's necklace, he diverts and simply says that he has no memory of giving it to Amanda. Oh, yeah. But as I try to ask him how he got Renee's necklace, he diverts and simply says that he has no memory of giving it to Amanda. Okay. So this brings us to our third area of focus. What was David's relationship like with Renee?

Did you and Renee ever have any sexual relationship? No, ma'am. Did you want to? Honestly any sexual relationship? No. Never did. Did you want to, honestly? Well, I mean... I mean, me being a man, I understand. Yeah, but I was a little bit smarter than that man. I've been around a lot of girls. Yeah? Like I said, I had three girlfriends going at one time.

You're a braver man than I am. I can't hardly handle one, let alone three. So did you ever try to sleep with Renee? Mm-mm. All we was was friends. I always told her if she ever needed any help or didn't want to stay. And you did do those things. You helped her.

Oh, yeah. You gave her some money, and you would give her a place to stay if needed. Yeah. But she never did stay long. David says he and Renee never had a sexual relationship. When Matt asks him if he wanted to, he says yes, but that he's smarter than that. But he does add that they were friends and he offered for her to stay with him if she ever needed anything. I am still unsure what the relationship between David and Renee really looked like. Amanda has said that her mom told her David wanted more than she did, but David seems sincere saying that their friendship was platonic. 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.

To conclude the interview, Matt and I use a tried and true method in detective work. We leave the room and watch how he behaves when we aren't around, specifically how he interacts with that photo of Renee, which we will leave with him. I enjoy talking to y'all. Yeah, if you'll give us just a second, I want to look at something in the office with Sarah. Yeah. We'll come back in and talk for maybe another five minutes, and you'll be good to go.

Yeah. Okay. We'll be right back. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you, sir. Is there anything on your hip y'all want? You want another coat? No, I'm okay.

Okay. I'll be right back. All right. Now, keep in mind, there's no two-way mirror. But there is a camera and microphone recording him. We go into another room to watch that feed. Here is what we see. David props Renee's photo up on the table,

looks at it, talks to it. Between the AC and his low voice, it is almost impossible to decipher what he's saying. But he looks serious, maybe even longing. He can't take his eyes off of it. As we return to the room, Matt and I enact a plan to try to get a DNA sample from him. Throughout the interview, David has been sipping on a can of Coke.

We are going to try to convince him to leave that Coke without telling him that is what we're doing. We know how mesmerized he is by this picture of Renee. So Matt will offer the picture to David, but subtly, hoping that David will take the picture and leave the Coke. We return to the room, ready to put our plan into motion.

Matt actually snatches the photo of Renee off the table from where David had it propped up. David stands up from the table, Coke in hand. Matt holds out the picture of Renee. David's eyes flip between the picture and the Coke in his hand. Matt holds the picture just slightly out of reach as he walks backwards out of the room, luring David towards the door. David sets the Coke down on the table and grabs the picture. Yeah, I'll take that. Here you go. I'll put it in a nice frame. David sets the Coke down on the table and grabs the picture.

Bingo. Okay. That's good. Yeah, you should have something. We have our DNA sample. Many sexual homicides involve trophy collection behavior. This behavior can look like the offender retaining objects of the victims, but may also involve reenacting certain elements of the crime, revisiting the scene, engaging with the victim's family in order to watch their emotional response, so on.

Psychologically, these actions can often lead the offender to feel bursts of enjoyment or even sexual gratification. There are certain accepted fundamentals of violent and sexual homicides, trophy collection being one of them, and they really are the baselines of our modern understanding of these crimes. These fundamentals were developed by the pioneers in the field, like Douglas, Ressler, Hart, and of course, Dr. Ann Burgess, who expressed her own concern regarding David's behavior when I brought it up. What intrigued me with David Young is how much time he spent going back to the scene, being especially developing the relationship with the daughter was and

some of the that was really very eerie that he would do this so he was reliving it we could say that if he was if he did this that he was reliving what he did and they would keep it alive in his mind and he would enjoy that part of it so became he was just too involved in the the dynamics if you will of the family i think hello hey david yeah hey detective peak how are you today hey what's going on buddy yeah i called you yesterday. Yeah, sorry I stepped out of the office yesterday afternoon. I just saw this morning where I missed your phone call.

A week after our interview, David calls Matt. It was just something that was in my mind that was put in there a long time ago by either Renee or it almost had to be. You know, I kept thinking, why in the hell didn't I ask her that day when she told me somebody might be looking for her? I never did ask her who was looking for her. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I mean, you're looking out for your friend and trying to help, so don't beat yourself

up over that. I was always scared for her life, man. I think that's why I was so concerned about her. Yeah. Because, you know, the life she was living? Yeah. You know, she had a black baby and sold it. No, I didn't know that.

Yeah, she had a black baby and sold it. Now, when did that happen? That happened, I don't know, maybe a year or two before she got took out. Okay. She had a black baby and sold it. And how do you know this? She told me. Who'd she sell it to i'll tell you what man i wish i could i wish i could swap my

life for hers and bring her back so she could tell you man yeah she knew everything and i didn't well you're being helpful so you're doing everything you can do and just keep keep thinking of things and write them down so you don't everything you can do and just keep keep thinking of things and write them down so you don't forget before you call me I went back out there yesterday where's that? me and Calvin did on where they found her at oh did you?

yeah I went back after I was trying to think while I was out there yes sir see I didn't get to go to her funeral either why not? Yeah, I went back after I was trying to think, you know, while I was out there. Yes, sir. Because, see, I didn't get to go to her funeral either. Why not? I don't know, man. I didn't even go to my mother's funeral. Yeah. All right, thanks, David.

Okay, bye. I'll talk to you later. All right, bye-bye. All right, bye. Today is 6-24-20. The time is 0-8-37 hours. That phone call was with David Young. The call is short and all over the place.

David seems to like playing detective. He provides us with different theories and suspects, all of which feel far-fetched and, frankly, just made up. David claims Renee told him she felt in danger shortly before her death. Yet he, her close friend, never thought to ask her who exactly she was afraid of? And about that baby. Until this point in the investigation,

there have been no other accounts of a second child. But less than 24 hours after David tells us this, someone else comes forward claiming the exact same thing. But not to Matt or me. To Amanda. And says, you know, you may have a brother. And she said, well, he contacted me. That's next time on Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom.

Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom is produced by Arc Media for ID. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you could take a second to subscribe and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.