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Family Murders Pregnant Daughter and Cuts Out Unborn Baby · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine the police are just standing right there in your
0:04
Speaker 1: living room. Right. They just arrived to execute a search
0:07
Speaker 1: warrant because, you know, your 22 year old pregnant daughter
0:10
Speaker 1: who had been missing for weeks was just found brutally
0:13
Speaker 1: murdered in the woods.
0:14
Speaker 2: It's an unimaginable scenario for any parent.
0:16
Speaker 1: Exactly. I mean, you would expect tears, right, or just
0:19
Speaker 1: absolute shock, like a total devastating collapse.
0:21
Speaker 2: You would expect them to be desperate for answers.
0:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd expect a mother to be begging the detectives
0:26
Speaker 1: for details, screaming, asking who did this, asking what happened
0:31
Speaker 1: to her unborn grandson.
0:33
Speaker 2: But that is not what happens here.
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Speaker 1: Not at all. Instead, you are sitting on your couch
0:37
Speaker 1: just staring at your smartphone. angrily reading TikTok comments out
0:41
Speaker 1: loud to the cops.
0:42
Speaker 2: Which is just wild to even think about.
0:44
Speaker 1: Because an anonymous stranger online just called you a, quote,
0:47
Speaker 1: nasty fat pig.
0:49
Speaker 2: It is a profound, almost hallucinatory disconnect from reality.
0:53
Speaker 1: It really is.
0:54
Speaker 2: I mean, the brain is presented with this absolute world-shattering tragedy,
0:58
Speaker 2: and it completely bypasses it to just fixate on a
1:02
Speaker 2: petty grievance on a digital screen.
1:03
Speaker 1: That exact scenario actually played out in Wexford County, Michigan.
1:08
Speaker 1: So welcome to this deep dive.
1:09
Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
1:10
Speaker 1: Our mission today is to unpack this highly convoluted, just
1:15
Speaker 1: deeply tragic true crime case based on a really comprehensive
1:19
Speaker 1: report and investigative footage from Law and Crime Investigates.
1:23
Speaker 2: It's a tough one, but it's important to analyze.
1:26
Speaker 1: We are looking at the heartbreaking disappearance and murder of
1:29
Speaker 1: 22-year-old Rebecca Park and her unborn baby boy.
1:34
Speaker 2: And, you know, we need to establish the stakes right
1:37
Speaker 2: out of the gate.
1:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to set the scene right away because
1:40
Speaker 1: the atmosphere of this case is just suffocating.
1:43
Speaker 2: It really sets the tone for everything that follows.
1:44
Speaker 1: Right. So it is early November. We are up in
1:48
Speaker 1: northern Michigan where the nights are already dropping into freezing temperatures.
1:51
Speaker 2: It's brutally cold up there that time of year.
1:53
Speaker 1: And Rebecca is 38 weeks pregnant. Her due date is
1:57
Speaker 1: literally November 18th.
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Speaker 2: She's right at the finish line.
1:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. She is heavily pregnant, physically uncomfortable, eagerly anticipating the
2:04
Speaker 1: arrival of her son. And then she just vanishes.
2:07
Speaker 2: Which immediately elevates this from a standard missing persons case
2:13
Speaker 2: to a critical ticking clock emergency.
2:17
Speaker 1: Right. Because of the baby.
2:18
Speaker 2: Exactly. A woman at 38 weeks pregnant requires medical care.
2:22
Speaker 2: She is vulnerable. I mean, the physical stakes couldn't possibly
2:25
Speaker 2: be higher.
2:26
Speaker 1: Totally. But what you are going to hear today is
2:29
Speaker 1: not just like a straightforward timeline.
2:31
Speaker 2: Of a crime. No, it's so much more layered than that.
2:34
Speaker 1: This is a masterclass in how a web of family dysfunction,
2:38
Speaker 1: rampant infidelity, and a truly bizarre obsession with social media
2:43
Speaker 1: can completely unravel under the pressure of a police investigation.
2:46
Speaker 2: And it forces us to really examine the psychological mechanisms
2:49
Speaker 2: of deception.
2:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, the way people lie.
2:52
Speaker 2: We are going to look at how modern complications like
2:54
Speaker 2: internet sleuths and viral true crime rumors intersect with the darkest,
2:58
Speaker 2: most ancient human failures.
3:00
Speaker 1: Like greed and betrayal.
3:02
Speaker 2: Exactly. Greed, betrayal, and... Just a desperate need for control.
3:06
Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. Because to really understand the sheer
3:09
Speaker 1: magnitude of the deception, we have to start with the baseline.
3:11
Speaker 2: We need to look at day one.
3:13
Speaker 1: We have to look at the official story the police
3:15
Speaker 1: were given on day one. So on November 4th, Rebecca
3:18
Speaker 1: is reported missing by her sister, Kimberly Park.
3:21
Speaker 2: And the police immediately start doing what they do best, right?
3:24
Speaker 1: Right. Reverse engineering the previous 24 hours. They need to
3:27
Speaker 1: find the last person who saw Rebecca alive.
3:29
Speaker 2: Because that initial 24-hour timeline... is it's the bedrock of
3:34
Speaker 2: any missing persons investigation.
3:36
Speaker 1: You have to know where they were.
3:37
Speaker 2: You aren't just looking for physical locations, I mean. You
3:40
Speaker 2: are establishing the behavioral baseline of the victim and the
3:44
Speaker 2: people around them.
3:45
Speaker 1: And that search for the last known contact brings investigators
3:48
Speaker 1: directly to Rebecca's mother, Courtney Bartholomew.
3:51
Speaker 2: Courtney, yeah.
3:52
Speaker 1: Courtney sits down with police and offers up her alibi.
3:55
Speaker 1: She gives them her exact version of the events from
3:57
Speaker 1: the previous night, November 3rd.
3:59
Speaker 2: And this is where things start to get interesting.
4:01
Speaker 1: Very interesting. According to Courtney, the evening started out completely normally.
4:06
Speaker 1: She claims she picked Rebecca up from the home of
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Speaker 1: Rebecca's fiance, a man named Richard Fowler.
4:11
Speaker 2: Right around 8.30 p.m., I believe.
4:13
Speaker 1: Yep, 8.30. Courtney tells the cops that this was just
4:17
Speaker 1: a standard mother-daughter errand run.
4:19
Speaker 2: Just running to the store.
4:20
Speaker 1: They were supposedly going to get milkshakes, and Courtney says
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Speaker 1: she had bought some laundry detergent for Rebecca, so they
4:26
Speaker 1: needed to pick that.
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Speaker 2: Up, too. Because Rebecca was nesting.
4:29
Speaker 1: Exactly. Getting everything clean and ready for the baby.
4:31
Speaker 2: It's a very strategic narrative choice, whether she's conscious of
4:35
Speaker 2: it or subconscious.
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Speaker 1: How so?
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Speaker 2: Well, by bringing up milkshakes and laundry detergent, Courtney is
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Speaker 2: anchoring her story in mundane, relatable dovesticity.
4:44
Speaker 1: Oh, making it sound super normal.
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Speaker 2: Right. It paints a picture of a supportive mother helping
4:49
Speaker 2: her pregnant daughter prepare for childbirth. It establishes a completely
4:53
Speaker 2: innocent motive for them being together in a vehicle at night.
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Speaker 1: It sounds totally plausible. Like right up until the moment,
5:00
Speaker 1: it absolutely doesn't.
5:01
Speaker 2: Because the story shifts gears really fast.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Courtney's story suddenly takes a violently sharp turn into
5:08
Speaker 1: the bazaar.
5:08
Speaker 2: The black car.
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Speaker 1: The black car. She tells police that on their way
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Speaker 1: to get these milkshakes, they swung back by Courtney's house
5:16
Speaker 1: to grab the detergent.
5:17
Speaker 2: Okay.
5:18
Speaker 1: And while they were parked there, Courtney claims a mysterious
5:21
Speaker 1: black sedan pulled up right into her driveway.
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Speaker 2: Just out of nowhere. Out of nowhere.
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Speaker 1: Out of nowhere. And she makes a specific point to
5:27
Speaker 1: note that this sedan had absolutely no license plates.
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Speaker 2: Which is incredibly convenient.
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Speaker 1: According to Courtney, Rebecca just abruptly says goodbye, gets into
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Speaker 1: this plateless car with a completely unidentified driver, and vanishes
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Speaker 1: into the freezing northern Michigan night.
5:45
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how this narrative completely defies every
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Speaker 2: known metric of basic behavioral logic.
5:52
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes zero sense.
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Speaker 2: If you break down the physical and psychological reality of
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Speaker 2: a woman who is 38 weeks pregnant, this story instantly
6:00
Speaker 2: falls apart.
6:00
Speaker 1: Right, because she's practically at her due date. She's ready
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Speaker 1: to pop.
6:03
Speaker 2: Exactly. A woman at 38 weeks is physically exhausted. Her
6:07
Speaker 2: center of gravity is shifted. You know, she is likely
6:10
Speaker 2: experiencing back pain, Braxton Hicks contractions, general discomfort.
6:14
Speaker 1: So just wants to be in bed?
6:15
Speaker 2: Psychologically, she is in the intense final stages of the
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Speaker 2: nesting phase. Her entire biological focus is on security. stability,
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Speaker 2: and preparing her environment for an infant.
6:27
Speaker 1: Not jumping into random cars in the dark?
6:30
Speaker 2: The proposition that a woman in this highly vulnerable, highly
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Speaker 2: protective state would spontaneously abandon her mother in a driveway,
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Speaker 2: step into an unidentified plateless vehicle in the dark and
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Speaker 2: freezing cold.
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Speaker 1: Without her phone, too.
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Speaker 2: Without her phone. And without uttering a single word about
6:47
Speaker 2: who the driver is or where they are going. It
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Speaker 2: contradicts every single maternal instinct. documented in human psychology.
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Speaker 1: It is the true crime equivalent of, like, a ghost
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Speaker 1: did it.
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Speaker 2: It really is.
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Speaker 1: When I was reading the source material, I just kept
7:01
Speaker 1: thinking about how often this specific trope is used.
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Speaker 2: The mysterious stranger.
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Speaker 1: The mysterious stranger in the phantom car who whisks the
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Speaker 1: victim away to parts unknown.
7:10
Speaker 2: It's the dog ate my homework of criminal alibis.
7:12
Speaker 1: Yes. It feels so transparent. If you're a seasoned detective
7:16
Speaker 1: and you hear a story that convenient, every alarm bell
7:19
Speaker 1: in your head has to be ringing.
7:20
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
7:21
Speaker 1: But it makes me wonder about the mechanics of the
7:23
Speaker 1: investigation in that exact moment. Like, how do police balance
7:27
Speaker 1: taking an absurd alibi at face value while knowing in
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Speaker 1: their gut that the person sitting across from them is
7:34
Speaker 1: probably lying to their face?
7:35
Speaker 2: It requires an incredible amount of cognitive discipline.
7:38
Speaker 1: Like keeping a poker face.
7:40
Speaker 2: We often call it maintaining a dual mindset. When an
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Speaker 2: investigator hears the fanning car story, their internal lie detector
7:48
Speaker 2: is absolutely going off.
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Speaker 1: They know it's garbage.
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Speaker 2: The unidentified vehicle is a classic deflection tactic. It's designed
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Speaker 2: to give the police a ghost to chase.
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Speaker 1: Right, to get them away from the house.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, to physically shift the investigative momentum away from the
8:02
Speaker 2: suspect's home and out onto the interstate, but outwardly. The
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Speaker 2: detective cannot show a shred of doubt.
8:09
Speaker 1: Because if you call them a liar right then and there,
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Speaker 1: they just shut down, right?
8:12
Speaker 2: Precisely. You smile, you nod, and you meticulously record the
8:16
Speaker 2: statement exactly as it is given. You play along. You
8:18
Speaker 2: officially treat it as a legitimate lead. You dispatch units
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Speaker 2: to canvas for black sedans. You pull traffic camera footage
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Speaker 2: from the surrounding intersections.
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Speaker 1: Even though you know it's probably fake.
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Speaker 2: Because you have to structurally disprove the lie before you
8:31
Speaker 2: can attack the liar.
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Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense.
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Speaker 2: But simultaneously, while the detective is writing down black sedan,
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Speaker 2: they are quietly building a psychological profile of the witness.
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Speaker 1: Watching how they act.
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Speaker 2: They are noting the absence of panic. They are analyzing
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Speaker 2: the suspicious convenience of the missing license plates. They weaponize
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Speaker 2: their patience, letting the suspect think they've gotten away with
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Speaker 2: the lie.
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Speaker 1: Which probably makes them cocky.
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Speaker 2: It does, which often makes the suspect arrogant and prone
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Speaker 2: to making further mistakes down the line.
9:02
Speaker 1: Okay, so the police nod and smile at the phantom
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Speaker 1: car story. But if the alibi is that structurally weak,
9:08
Speaker 1: the immediate next step is to start digging into the
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Speaker 1: person who told it.
9:12
Speaker 2: You have to look at the source.
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Speaker 1: And this is where the deep dive into the Park
9:15
Speaker 1: and Bartholomew family becomes absolutely essential.
9:18
Speaker 2: It gets very complicated here.
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Speaker 1: You cannot understand the chaos of this investigation without understanding
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Speaker 1: the fractured, deeply traumatic history of this family.
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Speaker 2: It is an ecosystem defined by profound instability, decades of separation,
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Speaker 2: and entirely unresolved drama.
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Speaker 1: Let's lay out the family tree because it is tragic
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Speaker 1: from the start.
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Speaker 2: Very tragic.
9:40
Speaker 1: Right after Rebecca's sister, Kimberly, was born, both girls, Kimberly
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Speaker 1: as an infant and Rebecca as a one-year-old, were officially
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Speaker 1: removed from their mother, Courtney's, care.
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Speaker 2: They went into the system.
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Speaker 1: They went into the foster care system and were eventually
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Speaker 1: raised together by adoptive parents.
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Speaker 2: So they grew up completely apart from Courtney.
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Speaker 1: For their entire childhood and adolescence, they had... zero relationship
10:01
Speaker 1: with their biological mother. They didn't reconnect with Courtney until 2023.
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Speaker 2: Which is mere months before this entire tragedy unfolded.
10:08
Speaker 1: Mere months. And that reunion only happened because their biological
10:12
Speaker 1: grandmother passed away.
10:13
Speaker 2: Which means we are not looking at a tight-knit, fiercely
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Speaker 2: loyal family unit.
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Speaker 1: Not at all.
10:18
Speaker 2: This is a fragile, fresh reunion forced by a death
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Speaker 2: in the family. It is likely fraught with decades of
10:24
Speaker 2: abandonment issues, resentment, and a complete lack of foundational trust.
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Speaker 1: They barely know each other.
10:30
Speaker 2: They share DNA, sure. But psychologically, they are near strangers
10:35
Speaker 2: attempting to simulate a familial bond.
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Speaker 1: And the friction was obvious from the jump. Courtney actually
10:40
Speaker 1: admits this to the police.
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Speaker 2: She tells them it wasn't great.
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Speaker 1: She tells them it was a rocky reunion, but the
10:45
Speaker 1: way she describes it is so jarring.
10:48
Speaker 2: The terminology she uses.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, she quotes her daughters as referring to her as
10:54
Speaker 1: just a bag donor.
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Speaker 2: It's a brutal phrase.
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Speaker 1: Let that sink in. To look at the woman who
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Speaker 1: gave birth to you and call her a bag donor
11:01
Speaker 1: is incredibly cold.
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Speaker 2: It shows a complete absence of maternal connection on the
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Speaker 2: daughter's part.
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Speaker 1: But what's wild is how Courtney uses that exact devastating
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Speaker 1: estrangement to validate her own alibi.
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Speaker 2: She weaponizes the trauma of their relationship.
11:15
Speaker 1: Exactly. She tells the police that the reason she didn't
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Speaker 1: stop Rebecca from getting into the mysterious black car, the
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Speaker 1: reason she didn't ask questions or try to stop her,
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Speaker 1: was because she didn't want to be all up in
11:26
Speaker 1: her business. Right. She claims that if she pushed Rebecca
11:29
Speaker 1: too hard, Rebecca would get mad, so she just, you know,
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Speaker 1: let her walk away into the dark with a stranger.
11:34
Speaker 2: It is a highly manipulative framing technique.
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Speaker 1: It's so twisted.
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Speaker 2: She is taking the genuine psychological reality of their strained
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Speaker 2: relationship and using it as a shield to deflect from
11:45
Speaker 2: her own unnatural lack of maternal panic.
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Speaker 1: Like, I'm just respecting her boundaries.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. She is trying to convince the detectives, look, I'm
11:54
Speaker 2: not a bad witness, and I'm not a cold mother.
11:57
Speaker 2: I am just a marginalized biological parent treading lightly to
12:01
Speaker 2: respect my daughter's boundaries.
12:02
Speaker 1: Trying to spin it as a positive?
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Speaker 2: It's an attempt to make her apathy look like respect.
12:07
Speaker 1: But detectives don't just rely on psychological framing, right? They
12:11
Speaker 1: pull the hard records.
12:12
Speaker 2: They look at the rap sheets.
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Speaker 1: And when they run the names of the people in
12:16
Speaker 1: Rebecca's inner circle, the results are staggering. It creates this
12:20
Speaker 1: massive cloud of peripheral suspicion.
12:23
Speaker 2: The backgrounds are highly concerning.
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Speaker 1: First, you have Courtney. She has a history of nonviolent charges.
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Speaker 1: Things like forgery, driving with a suspended license.
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Speaker 2: Which is important context, actually.
12:34
Speaker 1: Why is forgery important for a murder case?
12:36
Speaker 2: A history of forgery... indicates a documented willingness to deceive
12:41
Speaker 2: authorities and falsify documents.
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Speaker 1: Oh, she's comfortable lying to the state.
12:45
Speaker 2: It establishes a baseline of dishonesty, even if it doesn't
12:48
Speaker 2: immediately suggest a propensity for brutal physical violence.
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Speaker 1: OK, but then the police look at the men in
12:54
Speaker 1: the picture and the threat level just skyrockets.
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Speaker 2: This is where it gets very dark.
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Speaker 1: Courtney's husband. So Rebecca's stepfather is Brad Bartholomew. And he
13:04
Speaker 1: is a convicted sex offender.
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Speaker 2: A registered offender.
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Speaker 1: And then there is Rebecca's fiance, Richard Fowler, who is
13:09
Speaker 1: the father of her unborn child.
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Speaker 2: And he also has a record.
13:13
Speaker 1: He is also a convicted sex offender.
13:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
13:16
Speaker 1: So if you are the police, you are looking at
13:18
Speaker 1: a missing 22-year-old pregnant woman whose immediate orbit consists of
13:22
Speaker 1: a mother with a forgery record. and two men living
13:26
Speaker 1: under the strict restrictions of the sex offender registry.
13:29
Speaker 2: This creates what we call severe investigative friction.
13:32
Speaker 1: Investigative friction. I like that term.
13:34
Speaker 2: In a clean case, detectives can focus purely on the
13:37
Speaker 2: evidence of the disappearance. But here, the victim is surrounded
13:41
Speaker 2: by individuals with extensive, highly stigmatized criminal histories.
13:46
Speaker 1: It muddies the water.
13:47
Speaker 2: Every single interaction the police have with these people is
13:51
Speaker 2: tainted by pre-existing criminal behavior's deep-seated distrust of law enforcement,
13:56
Speaker 2: and obvious motives to lie just to protect their own
13:59
Speaker 2: parole or registry status.
14:01
Speaker 1: Because they don't want the cops poking around their lives anyway.
14:03
Speaker 2: Exactly. The police have to machete their way through this
14:06
Speaker 2: dense jungle of secondary criminality before they can even get
14:09
Speaker 2: a clear look at where Rebecca might actually be.
14:11
Speaker 1: And to make that dense jungle even harder to navigate,
14:14
Speaker 1: you introduce the true crime internet.
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Speaker 2: Which is a whole other layer of chaos.
14:18
Speaker 1: Because almost immediately, rumors start flooding social media, the internet
14:23
Speaker 1: gets hold of the family dynamic, the criminal records, and
14:26
Speaker 1: the local Facebook groups just ignite.
14:28
Speaker 2: They feed on cases like this.
14:29
Speaker 1: It actually gets to the point where a literal bounty
14:32
Speaker 1: hunter inserts himself into the case.
14:34
Speaker 2: Just an amateur taking things into his own hands. Yeah.
14:38
Speaker 1: This guy is doing his own rogue digging, having unrecorded
14:41
Speaker 1: conversations with the family, and then he marches into the
14:45
Speaker 1: police station.
14:46
Speaker 2: Like he's part of the team.
14:47
Speaker 1: He tells law enforcement that the family is, quote, beating
14:50
Speaker 1: around the bush and providing more BS instead of giving
14:54
Speaker 1: any concrete road-tested answers.
14:57
Speaker 2: Which perfectly illustrates the chaos of the modern investigative environment.
15:01
Speaker 1: It must drive the police crazy.
15:02
Speaker 2: The police are no longer just fighting against a suspect,
15:05
Speaker 2: you know. They are fighting against a toxic family ecosystem
15:09
Speaker 2: that is actively being manipulated, agitated, and broadcast in real
15:14
Speaker 2: time by amateur sleuths.
15:15
Speaker 1: It just adds so much noise.
15:17
Speaker 2: This bounty hunter, however well-intentioned he might be, is contaminating
15:21
Speaker 2: the witness pool.
15:23
Speaker 1: Oh, how so?
15:24
Speaker 2: Well, if he is interrogating the family off the record,
15:26
Speaker 2: he is giving them practice.
15:28
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I didn't think of that.
15:29
Speaker 2: He is allowing them to test drive their lies. and
15:32
Speaker 2: refine their stories before the actual detectives can get them
15:35
Speaker 2: in an official interrogation room.
15:37
Speaker 1: So they learn what works and what doesn't before it counts.
15:39
Speaker 2: Exactly.
15:40
Speaker 1: So you have this bounty hunter stirring the pot, the
15:43
Speaker 1: internet screaming, and a family providing nothing but smoke.
15:46
Speaker 2: The leads are stuck.
15:48
Speaker 1: The police realize they can't just keep nodding and smiling
15:51
Speaker 1: at the phantom car story. They have to change the environment.
15:54
Speaker 2: They have to apply some real pressure.
15:56
Speaker 1: They have to apply psychological leverage. And three weeks after
16:00
Speaker 1: Rebecca goes missing... They bring out the polygraph tests.
16:03
Speaker 2: This is a critical pivot point in the timeline.
16:06
Speaker 1: Tell me about the polygraph strategy.
16:08
Speaker 2: When you lack a body, when you lack a crime scene,
16:11
Speaker 2: you use the polygraph not necessarily to get a scientific
16:15
Speaker 2: reading of truth.
16:15
Speaker 1: Because they aren't even admissible in court, right?
16:18
Speaker 2: Right. But you use them to fundamentally alter the psychological
16:22
Speaker 2: pressure in the room.
16:23
Speaker 1: So Courtney agrees to go to the Michigan State Police
16:26
Speaker 1: Mount Pleasant Post. And the footage of her pre-interview is
16:29
Speaker 1: just deeply unsettling.
16:31
Speaker 2: It's very strange behavior.
16:33
Speaker 1: Before they even hook her up to the machine, she
16:35
Speaker 1: is engaging in this weirdly jovial, almost manic, small talk
16:40
Speaker 1: with the examiner.
16:41
Speaker 2: Acting like they're old friends.
16:42
Speaker 1: She's looking at the equipment, asking what the test consists of,
16:45
Speaker 1: and then she smiles and literally says, I heard they
16:48
Speaker 1: zap you.
16:49
Speaker 2: That kind of nervous, deflecting chatter is incredibly common in
16:53
Speaker 2: these situations. Really? The suspect is trying to project a relaxed,
16:57
Speaker 2: unbothered persona. Like, I have nothing to hide. This is
17:00
Speaker 2: just a funny little test. But what she says next
17:04
Speaker 2: provides a startling window into her actual cognitive state.
17:07
Speaker 1: Right. She starts speaking in these bizarre moral riddles.
17:11
Speaker 2: It's a monologue.
17:12
Speaker 1: She tells the examiner that she was raised by her grandparents.
17:15
Speaker 1: And she describes herself as being raised like the old babies.
17:19
Speaker 2: The old babies.
17:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. She explains to the examiner that this means she
17:22
Speaker 1: possesses old school values. You don't lie. You don't steal.
17:26
Speaker 1: You don't cheat.
17:27
Speaker 2: Golding up her character.
17:28
Speaker 1: But then in the very next breath, without missing a
17:30
Speaker 1: single beat, she shockingly admits to the examiner, time to
17:34
Speaker 1: lie about certain things.
17:36
Speaker 2: It is a staggering admission to make to a polygraph examiner.
17:39
Speaker 1: It's like she's confessing to lying before the test even starts.
17:43
Speaker 2: And it highlights a deeply disorganized, likely narcissistic mindset.
17:47
Speaker 1: How does that connect to narcissism?
17:50
Speaker 2: Because a narcissist fundamentally believes they are smarter than the
17:54
Speaker 2: people in the room, and in this case, smarter than
17:56
Speaker 2: the machine itself. On one hand, She is desperately trying
17:59
Speaker 2: to establish a foundation of moral superiority, the whole old
18:03
Speaker 2: baby routine, to convince the examiner she is inherently trustworthy.
18:07
Speaker 1: But she can't keep it up.
18:08
Speaker 2: The cognitive dissonance is so loud that the facade just slips.
18:13
Speaker 2: By admitting it is time to lie about certain things,
18:17
Speaker 2: she is essentially trying to build an alibi for failing
18:20
Speaker 2: the polygraph before the test even begins. Wow. She is
18:24
Speaker 2: rationalizing her deception. She's telling the examiner, If I fail
18:28
Speaker 2: this test, it's not because I'm a bad person involved
18:30
Speaker 2: in a crime. It's because my unique, complex circumstances require
18:34
Speaker 2: me to selectively withhold information.
18:37
Speaker 1: It's an incredibly arrogant way of trying to control the narrative.
18:40
Speaker 2: She thinks she's managing him.
18:42
Speaker 1: It's like she's trying to pre-negotiate the results of a
18:44
Speaker 1: lie detector test.
18:45
Speaker 2: Exactly.
18:46
Speaker 1: And while Courtney is in that room giving these cryptic
18:48
Speaker 1: half-confessions to a machine, an absolutely massive twist comes in
18:52
Speaker 1: from the outside.
18:53
Speaker 2: The tip.
18:54
Speaker 1: A woman who is essentially an online sleuth closely following
18:59
Speaker 1: the case on TikTok and Facebook contacts the police.
19:02
Speaker 2: Path of the blue.
19:03
Speaker 1: And she claims she just had a 34-minute phone call
19:06
Speaker 1: with Kimberly, Rebecca's sister.
19:07
Speaker 2: And this is the moment where the social media circus
19:11
Speaker 2: stops being an annoyance.
19:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:13
Speaker 2: And actually becomes an active critical vector for the official investigation.
19:18
Speaker 1: According to this online sleuth, during that 34-minute call, Kimberly
19:23
Speaker 1: completely blew up the family's official story.
19:25
Speaker 2: Just dismantled it entirely.
19:27
Speaker 1: Kimberly allegedly told this total stranger on the Internet that
19:30
Speaker 1: the black car story was a complete fabrication. She said
19:34
Speaker 1: Rebecca was already dead.
19:35
Speaker 2: A massive revelation.
19:37
Speaker 1: She claimed that Courtney and Brad murdered her, that they
19:39
Speaker 1: knew exactly where the body was hidden. And most chillingly
19:44
Speaker 1: of all, she claimed that Courtney and Brad had been
19:46
Speaker 1: joking about the murder in the days following the disappearance.
19:49
Speaker 2: Joking about what? their own daughter.
19:51
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting and honestly where I
19:53
Speaker 1: get completely lost in the psychology of this case.
19:56
Speaker 2: What part?
19:56
Speaker 1: If Kimberly actually possessed the knowledge that her own sister
20:00
Speaker 1: was murdered by her mother and stepfather, why on earth
20:03
Speaker 1: would she sit on that information and then suddenly confess
20:07
Speaker 1: it to a random person on the internet instead of
20:09
Speaker 1: quietly calling 911?
20:11
Speaker 2: It seems baffling.
20:12
Speaker 1: What is the mechanism behind that choice?
20:15
Speaker 2: It feels entirely counterintuitive, but in the digital age, we
20:19
Speaker 2: see this specific phenomenon with alarming frequency.
20:23
Speaker 1: Really? Confessing to strangers online?
20:26
Speaker 2: It comes down to the psychological need for a pseudo-confessional space.
20:30
Speaker 1: A pseudo-confessional space?
20:32
Speaker 2: Think about the immense crushing weight of Kimberly's alleged reality.
20:37
Speaker 2: If she goes to the police... The situation instantly becomes real.
20:41
Speaker 1: It's official.
20:42
Speaker 2: She goes on the official record. She becomes the primary
20:45
Speaker 2: witness in a homicide trial. She has to face the terrifying,
20:49
Speaker 2: indescapable reality of sending her own mother and stepfather to
20:53
Speaker 2: a concrete cell for the rest of their lives.
20:55
Speaker 1: That's a huge burden.
20:56
Speaker 2: There's an absolute terrifying finality to talking to a homicide detective.
21:00
Speaker 1: Because once you tell a cop, you can't put the
21:02
Speaker 1: genie back in the bottle. You can't unsay it.
21:04
Speaker 2: Exactly. The legal machinery activates, and you lose all control.
21:09
Speaker 2: But talking to an online sleuth?
21:11
Speaker 1: It's just a screen.
21:12
Speaker 2: That doesn't feel like a legal proceeding. It feels like venting.
21:16
Speaker 2: It feels like unburdening your soul into the void.
21:19
Speaker 1: Right.
21:19
Speaker 2: The digital screen, the physical distance between her and this stranger,
21:24
Speaker 2: acts as a psychological buffer. People who are trapped in
21:28
Speaker 2: highly stressful, dangerous criminal cover-ups are desperate to relieve their
21:33
Speaker 2: own internal pressure.
21:34
Speaker 1: They want to confess, but safely.
21:36
Speaker 2: They deeply want to tell the truth. But they're paralyzed
21:40
Speaker 2: by the fear of the authorities. So they subconsciously seek
21:44
Speaker 2: out a middle ground. They leak the horrific truth to
21:48
Speaker 2: platforms or individuals who have no actual authority to arrest anyone.
21:52
Speaker 2: It is a desperate safety valve for their conscience.
21:55
Speaker 1: Wow. It's an emotional release without the immediate legal consequence.
21:59
Speaker 2: That's the goal anyway.
22:00
Speaker 1: But of course, the irony is that the online sleuth
22:02
Speaker 1: instantly takes that information to the police, turning Kimberly's safety
22:05
Speaker 1: valve into the very thing that destroys the family's cover.
22:08
Speaker 2: The sleuth did the right thing.
22:10
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So armed with this tip that a murder has
22:13
Speaker 1: actually occurred, the police run the polygraphs on Courtney and Brad.
22:19
Speaker 1: And the results are exactly what you'd expect. They both
22:22
Speaker 1: fail miserably.
22:24
Speaker 2: Which is validating for the detectives.
22:26
Speaker 1: But here is the agonizing reality for law enforcement at
22:29
Speaker 1: this moment. They have failed polygraphs. They have a secret
22:32
Speaker 1: tip from a family member claiming it was a homicide.
22:35
Speaker 2: Right.
22:36
Speaker 1: But without a physical body and without a drop of
22:38
Speaker 1: blood or concrete physical evidence tying Courtney and Brad to
22:42
Speaker 1: a crime scene, the police are effectively paralyzed.
22:45
Speaker 2: Their hands are tied.
22:46
Speaker 1: You cannot get an arrest warrant for first degree murder
22:49
Speaker 1: based solely on a failed polygraph and a game of
22:52
Speaker 1: Internet telephone.
22:53
Speaker 2: It is the absolute definition of investigative purgatory.
22:56
Speaker 1: Purgatory is a great word for it.
22:58
Speaker 2: The detectives know they are lying. The polygraph machine knows
23:01
Speaker 2: they are lying. Their own daughter is anonymously broadcasting their guilt.
23:05
Speaker 1: Everyone knows.
23:07
Speaker 2: But the rigid structure of the law demands physical proof.
23:11
Speaker 2: The police have to find the tangible thread that will
23:13
Speaker 2: cause the psychological lie to unravel.
23:16
Speaker 1: And to find that thread, the police realize they have
23:19
Speaker 1: to lock down the timeline from the other side.
23:21
Speaker 2: They should look at the fiancé.
23:23
Speaker 1: If they can't break Courtney, they need to scrutinize the
23:26
Speaker 1: last person to legally see Rebecca at home, her fiancé,
23:30
Speaker 1: Richard Fowler.
23:31
Speaker 2: Makes perfect sense.
23:32
Speaker 1: If Courtney didn't bring Rebecca back to him, what exactly
23:35
Speaker 1: was he doing all night? So the police bring Richard
23:39
Speaker 1: in for an interrogation, and his timeline is incredibly important
23:43
Speaker 1: to dissect.
23:43
Speaker 2: We need to look closely at what he says he did.
23:46
Speaker 1: Richard tells the detectives that on November 3rd, the night
23:49
Speaker 1: Rebecca vanished, everything was completely normal. He says he gave
23:52
Speaker 1: her a hug and kissed her before she left the
23:54
Speaker 1: house with Courtney.
23:55
Speaker 2: The standard goodbye?
23:56
Speaker 1: He claims Rebecca looked right at him and said, I
23:59
Speaker 1: love you, I'll be back about hour, hour and a half.
24:02
Speaker 2: Notice the specificity there.
24:03
Speaker 1: The time frame.
24:04
Speaker 2: By stating she promised to be back in an hour
24:06
Speaker 2: and a half, Richard is establishing a firm expectation of
24:10
Speaker 2: an immediate return, which helps justify his later concern.
24:13
Speaker 1: Right. It sets the clock. Then he tells police that
24:16
Speaker 1: he wasn't feeling well, so he just fell asleep. He
24:19
Speaker 1: claims he woke up around 11.30 p.m.
24:21
Speaker 2: Okay, so three hours later.
24:23
Speaker 1: He realizes Rebecca isn't home, so he tries to call
24:26
Speaker 1: and message her, but he gets no response. Richard says
24:29
Speaker 1: he just assumed she decided to stay the night at
24:31
Speaker 1: her mother Courtney's house, so he goes back to sleep.
24:34
Speaker 2: Plausible.
24:34
Speaker 1: He wakes up again around 1 a.m., tries calling again,
24:37
Speaker 1: and this time it goes straight to voicemail.
24:40
Speaker 2: The phone is off.
24:41
Speaker 1: At this point, Richard tells the police he knew in
24:44
Speaker 1: his gut that something was terribly wrong.
24:47
Speaker 2: And what is his reasoning for that?
24:48
Speaker 1: His reasoning is that Rebecca was 38 weeks pregnant and
24:51
Speaker 1: practically attached to her phone. He said she would never
24:54
Speaker 1: ignore his calls in the middle of the night unless
24:56
Speaker 1: she was actively in labor and unable to answer.
24:59
Speaker 2: If we analyze Richard's statement purely from an investigative standpoint,
25:04
Speaker 2: it is a very mundane timeline.
25:06
Speaker 1: That boring.
25:07
Speaker 2: Falling asleep, waking up, shooting off a text, falling back asleep.
25:11
Speaker 2: It lacks the dramatic, cinematic flair of a fabricated alibi,
25:16
Speaker 2: like a mysterious, plateless black car.
25:18
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a wild story.
25:20
Speaker 2: It sounds like a plausible boring night. However, when a
25:25
Speaker 2: victim is missing, the police don't take plausible at face value.
25:29
Speaker 1: They still suspect him.
25:31
Speaker 2: They are scrutinizing every single minute of that timeline, looking
25:35
Speaker 2: for a fracture, looking for an inconsistency that proves he's
25:38
Speaker 2: hiding something.
25:39
Speaker 1: And the very next morning, that fracture seemingly arrives, but
25:43
Speaker 1: it is hand-delivered by his own in-laws.
25:45
Speaker 2: This part is just crazy.
25:48
Speaker 1: According to Richard, the next day, Courtney and Brad show
25:51
Speaker 1: up completely unannounced at his house. Brad is driving the truck.
25:54
Speaker 1: Courtney is sitting in the passenger seat.
25:56
Speaker 2: Okay.
25:57
Speaker 1: Brad points to Courtney. Richard walks over to the passenger window,
26:00
Speaker 1: and they just hand him Rebecca's cell phone.
26:02
Speaker 2: The magical, incredibly convenient appearance of the victim's primary piece
26:06
Speaker 2: of digital evidence.
26:07
Speaker 1: It is beyond suspicious. The police immediately demand to know
26:10
Speaker 1: how Brad found it.
26:11
Speaker 2: And Brad has a story ready to go.
26:13
Speaker 1: And Brad spins this elaborate tale. He claims that Courtney
26:16
Speaker 1: was showing him a satellite photo of the area on
26:19
Speaker 1: her phone. He says he studied the map and decided
26:22
Speaker 1: that the only logical place a car could have pulled
26:25
Speaker 1: off the road was a specific two-track dirt trail directly
26:29
Speaker 1: across from their house.
26:30
Speaker 2: Just a lucky guess based on a map.
26:32
Speaker 1: Right. So Brad tells the detectives that he walked down
26:36
Speaker 1: this dirt trail to look around. But he makes a
26:38
Speaker 1: very specific point to tell the police that as he walked,
26:42
Speaker 1: he carefully stayed inside the tire tracks the entire time.
26:46
Speaker 2: Let's pause on that detail.
26:47
Speaker 1: And then, magically, as he came to a slight curve
26:50
Speaker 1: in the trail, he claims he spotted Rebecca's phone just
26:54
Speaker 1: sitting in the dirt slightly off the path.
26:56
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture of criminal psychology...
26:59
Speaker 2: This is a textbook, almost painfully transparent example of a
27:03
Speaker 2: perpetrator desperately overplaying their hand.
27:05
Speaker 1: Wait, let me stop you there. Because when I read
27:07
Speaker 1: that detail about the tire tracks, it didn't sound like
27:09
Speaker 1: a desperate dad looking for his daughter's phone.
27:11
Speaker 2: No, it didn't.
27:12
Speaker 1: That sounded like a guy who knows exactly where the
27:14
Speaker 1: phone is, and he's reverse engineering an excuse for why
27:16
Speaker 1: his footprints are about to be found in the mud.
27:18
Speaker 1: Am I reading too much into that?
27:20
Speaker 2: You are reading it exactly right.
27:22
Speaker 1: Really?
27:22
Speaker 2: That is what we call an exclusionary detail. Think about
27:26
Speaker 2: the sheer statistical improbability of what Brad is claiming.
27:30
Speaker 1: Finding a black phone in the woods.
27:32
Speaker 2: In the vast, sprawling expanse of rural Michigan, he just
27:37
Speaker 2: intuitively guesses the exact, correct dirt path to walk down.
27:42
Speaker 2: He happens to walk just far enough to find a
27:45
Speaker 2: tiny black rectangle in the dirt.
27:47
Speaker 1: It's absurd.
27:48
Speaker 2: But the psychological tell is the tire tracks. By proactively
27:52
Speaker 2: telling the police, I only walked in the tire tracks...
27:55
Speaker 2: He is inserting a defense into his own narrative before
27:58
Speaker 2: anyone has even accused him of anything.
28:00
Speaker 1: He's building an alibi for his own footprints.
28:02
Speaker 2: Exactly. Perpetrators do this when they want to help the
28:05
Speaker 2: investigation to steer the momentum away from themselves.
28:08
Speaker 1: They think they're being clever.
28:09
Speaker 2: They suffer from the delusion that discovering evidence makes them
28:12
Speaker 2: look like cooperative, deeply concerned family members. They think it
28:16
Speaker 2: makes them look like heroes.
28:18
Speaker 1: Wow.
28:19
Speaker 2: In reality, discovering a key piece of evidence in a
28:22
Speaker 2: needle in a haystack scenario... almost always points the finger
28:25
Speaker 2: right back at the person who found it. The police
28:28
Speaker 2: realize very quickly that Brad didn't find a needle in
28:32
Speaker 2: a haystack. He brought his own needle and placed it there.
28:35
Speaker 1: And his excuse for bringing it to Richard is just
28:38
Speaker 1: as flimsy.
28:39
Speaker 2: What was the excuse?
28:40
Speaker 1: Brad claims he brought the phone to Richard because Richard
28:42
Speaker 1: supposedly named Rebecca's passcode, and they needed to unlock it
28:46
Speaker 1: to find her.
28:47
Speaker 2: But what?
28:47
Speaker 1: But Richard tells police it was too dark outside, And
28:50
Speaker 1: he couldn't get into the phone. So look at where
28:52
Speaker 1: the police are at this exact moment.
28:54
Speaker 2: They have a lot of pieces.
28:55
Speaker 1: They have a failed polygraph. They have a secret tip
28:58
Speaker 1: about a murder and joking parents. And they have a
29:01
Speaker 1: stepfather magically discovering the victim's phone in the dirt and
29:04
Speaker 1: lying about his footprints.
29:06
Speaker 2: It is a mountain of circumstantial red flags.
29:08
Speaker 1: A massive mountain. But officially. The case is still just
29:12
Speaker 1: a missing persons investigation.
29:13
Speaker 2: Until the afternoon.
29:14
Speaker 1: Until the afternoon of Richard's polygraph test.
29:17
Speaker 2: This is the exact moment the entire structural nature of
29:21
Speaker 2: the investigation violently and irrevocably shifts.
29:24
Speaker 1: Yes. In a single afternoon, the missing person case officially
29:28
Speaker 1: becomes a homicide investigation. At 2.30 p.m., while Richard is
29:33
Speaker 1: sitting at the station taking his polygraph, civilian searchers who
29:37
Speaker 1: have been scouring the rugged terrain make a horrific noise. discovery.
29:40
Speaker 2: It's tragic.
29:41
Speaker 1: They find a body deep in the Manistee National Forest.
29:45
Speaker 1: And I want to highlight the geography here because it
29:47
Speaker 1: destroys Courtney's alibi entirely.
29:49
Speaker 2: The geography is crucial.
29:51
Speaker 1: This location in the forest is less than three miles
29:53
Speaker 1: from Courtney and Brad's house.
29:55
Speaker 2: Three miles.
29:56
Speaker 1: The body is quickly and tragically identified as Rebecca Park.
29:59
Speaker 1: confirmed by a distinctive tattoo she had above her left eye.
30:03
Speaker 2: The geography is the first concrete piece of evidence that
30:06
Speaker 2: shatters the illusion of the phantom black car.
30:09
Speaker 1: How so?
30:10
Speaker 2: If a mysterious stranger kidnapped her to traffic her or
30:13
Speaker 2: take her away, they wouldn't dump the body three miles
30:16
Speaker 2: from her mother's driveway.
30:17
Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense. They'd take her far away.
30:19
Speaker 2: Dumping a body that close to home indicates extreme panic,
30:23
Speaker 2: geographical familiarity, or just sheer laziness. The crime is intensely,
30:29
Speaker 2: undeniably localized to that family's immediate orbit.
30:32
Speaker 1: And it's important to clarify that what I am about
30:35
Speaker 1: to describe are the alleged facts of the crime scene
30:37
Speaker 1: as reported by the authorities and court documents.
30:40
Speaker 2: Right.
30:40
Speaker 1: The sheer brutality of what the searchers found on those
30:43
Speaker 1: woods stunned even the most seasoned detectives working the case.
30:47
Speaker 2: It's a horrific scene.
30:48
Speaker 1: Rebecca had been stabbed repeatedly. Her killer or killers had
30:52
Speaker 1: surgically sliced open her uterus. And her unborn baby boy
30:56
Speaker 1: had been stolen from her body.
30:58
Speaker 2: Just unbelievable.
30:59
Speaker 1: She was left there to die alone in the freezing forest.
31:01
Speaker 2: It completely elevates the nature of the crime. We move
31:04
Speaker 2: from a potential domestic homicide, you know, a crime of
31:09
Speaker 2: sudden passion or an argument that got out of hand,
31:12
Speaker 2: to something almost unfathomably cruel and premeditated.
31:15
Speaker 1: Monstrous.
31:16
Speaker 2: The surgical nature of the crime that targeted theft of
31:19
Speaker 2: an unborn child. It suggests a level of obsession and
31:23
Speaker 2: absolute depravity. that requires the police to completely rewrite the
31:27
Speaker 2: psychological profile of the suspects they're dealing with.
31:30
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back at the station, Richard finishes his polygraph.
31:35
Speaker 2: Did he pass?
31:35
Speaker 1: He fails it. Wow. When the detectives sit him down
31:38
Speaker 1: and inform him of the tragic news that his fiancée
31:40
Speaker 1: has been found dead, they note in their reports that
31:43
Speaker 1: he shows very little emotion.
31:45
Speaker 2: He's stoic.
31:46
Speaker 1: He is completely stoic. However, despite the failed polygraph and
31:49
Speaker 1: the lack of emotion... There is absolutely zero physical evidence
31:53
Speaker 1: linking Richard to that brutal murder scene in the forest.
31:57
Speaker 2: So they can't charge him.
31:58
Speaker 1: They cannot legally charge him with homicide, but the police
32:01
Speaker 1: clearly do not want him walking back out onto the
32:03
Speaker 1: streets while they figure out this tangled web. Right.
32:06
Speaker 2: He's a flight risk or worse.
32:08
Speaker 1: So they utilize a classic workaround. Richard is arrested and
32:11
Speaker 1: held on unrelated charges, specifically two outstanding counts of delivering methamphetamine.
32:18
Speaker 2: It is an incredibly common and effective law enforcement maneuver,
32:22
Speaker 2: often referred to colloquially as the Al Capone strategy.
32:26
Speaker 1: Like getting him on tax evasion.
32:27
Speaker 2: Exactly. When you have a prime suspect in a major
32:30
Speaker 2: felony but lack the forensic evidence to hold them for it,
32:34
Speaker 2: you scour their background for any outstanding warrants or unrelated charges.
32:38
Speaker 1: Whatever sticks.
32:40
Speaker 2: You execute those lesser charges to keep the suspect safely
32:43
Speaker 2: in custody, isolated from the other co-conspirators. and readily available
32:48
Speaker 2: for further questioning while the forensic teams work the main
32:51
Speaker 2: murder scene.
32:52
Speaker 1: With Richard secured and the body finally found, the police
32:55
Speaker 1: immediately move to execute a search warrant at Courtney and
32:58
Speaker 1: Brad's house.
32:59
Speaker 2: To find the primary crime scene.
33:01
Speaker 1: But in a truly morbid twist unique to our modern
33:05
Speaker 1: digital era, the police don't get the chance to deliver
33:08
Speaker 1: the tragic news to the mother.
33:10
Speaker 2: Because of the internet.
33:11
Speaker 1: Because of social media. Courtney and Brad already know. The
33:14
Speaker 1: discovery of Rebecca's body leaked and hit the local Facebook
33:17
Speaker 1: groups before the detectives could even pull into their driveway.
33:20
Speaker 2: Which is a massive blow to the investigation.
33:22
Speaker 1: Why is that a blow?
33:24
Speaker 2: The speed of digital information has entirely bypassed official channels.
33:29
Speaker 2: It completely robs the detectives of the opportunity to witness
33:32
Speaker 2: and gauge a genuine first-time reaction from the parents.
33:36
Speaker 1: Because they can prep their reaction.
33:38
Speaker 2: A detective learns a massive amount... from how a parent
33:42
Speaker 2: reacts in the first five seconds of hearing their child
33:45
Speaker 2: is dead.
33:45
Speaker 1: But the reaction they do get from Courtney when they
33:47
Speaker 1: walk through the door is arguably more chilling than any
33:51
Speaker 1: fake tears could have been.
33:52
Speaker 2: This is the moment we mentioned at the start.
33:54
Speaker 1: When the police arrive in the living room to execute
33:57
Speaker 1: the warrant, Courtney is sitting there. She knows her daughter
33:59
Speaker 1: has been brutally murdered. She knows her grandson has been
34:02
Speaker 1: literally cut from the womb and is missing.
34:05
Speaker 2: What does she do?
34:06
Speaker 1: But she isn't weeping. She isn't begging the police to
34:08
Speaker 1: find the baby. Instead, with armed officers standing right there
34:12
Speaker 1: in her living room, Courtney is entirely fixated on her
34:15
Speaker 1: phone screen.
34:16
Speaker 2: It's just staggering.
34:18
Speaker 1: She is reading nasty social media comments out loud. She
34:22
Speaker 1: literally reads a comment loud to the cops that calls
34:24
Speaker 1: her a nasty fat pig who smells like meth and
34:27
Speaker 1: accuses her of killing her daughter. And?
34:30
Speaker 2: She's mad about the comment.
34:31
Speaker 1: She is outraged by the comment, not the murder.
34:33
Speaker 2: This is one of the most profound displays of cognitive
34:36
Speaker 2: dissonance and misplaced priorities you will ever see in a
34:40
Speaker 2: criminal case.
34:41
Speaker 1: It's hard to even wrap your head around.
34:42
Speaker 2: It requires a deep dive into the psychology of severe
34:45
Speaker 2: narcissistic traits and likely an element of dissociation.
34:49
Speaker 1: How does that actually work in the brain? I mean,
34:52
Speaker 1: how do you ignore a murdered child to focus on
34:54
Speaker 1: a TikTok troll?
34:55
Speaker 2: When a guilty suspect is suddenly cornered by the absolute
34:59
Speaker 2: horrific reality of their actions, when the walls are literally
35:02
Speaker 2: closing in as police execute a search warrant, the brain
35:06
Speaker 2: can become overloaded by the existential threat of what they've done.
35:09
Speaker 1: It's too much to process.
35:10
Speaker 2: To protect the ego from complete collapse, the brain dissociates
35:14
Speaker 2: from the massive unmanageable trauma, which is the murder, and
35:17
Speaker 2: violently latches onto a micro-threat that feels manageable.
35:21
Speaker 1: Like a comment online.
35:22
Speaker 2: For Courtney... Acknowledging the brutal slaughter of her daughter would
35:26
Speaker 2: destroy her psyche. But a stranger on the internet calling
35:29
Speaker 2: her ugly? That is a narcissistic injury she can process.
35:34
Speaker 1: She knows how to fight back against that.
35:36
Speaker 2: She can get angry about that. She can deflect the
35:38
Speaker 2: horror of the reality in her backyard by hyper-focusing on
35:42
Speaker 2: the superficial, controllable attacks on her character happening on her
35:46
Speaker 2: phone screen.
35:47
Speaker 1: Her life is effectively over. She's likely going to prison forever.
35:50
Speaker 1: Her child is dead. But her ego is so fragile...
35:53
Speaker 1: that her primary concern is her online reputation.
35:57
Speaker 2: It's terrifying.
35:58
Speaker 1: It really is. So with the body found, the physical
36:02
Speaker 1: search forms in play, and the suspects displaying this level
36:05
Speaker 1: of bizarre guilty behavior, the police decide it's time to
36:09
Speaker 1: stop observing and start squeezing the family.
36:11
Speaker 2: They separate everyone.
36:12
Speaker 1: And this is where the lies don't just crack. They
36:15
Speaker 1: completely shatter into a chaotic, incredibly toxic web of betrayals.
36:19
Speaker 2: This is where the interrogation strategy becomes paramount.
36:22
Speaker 1: We are introduced to Detective Jamie Voss with the Michigan
36:25
Speaker 1: State Police, and the way she handles Brad Bartholomew is fascinating.
36:29
Speaker 2: She uses a very specific technique.
36:31
Speaker 1: She doesn't drag him into a sterile, terrifying interrogation room. Instead,
36:37
Speaker 1: she pulls Brad out of the house and interviews him
36:40
Speaker 1: in the front seat of an unmarked state police car
36:42
Speaker 1: parked outside.
36:43
Speaker 2: Notice the deliberate psychology of that setting.
36:46
Speaker 1: Why do it in the car?
36:47
Speaker 2: An unmarked car feels significantly less official and far less intimidating...
36:51
Speaker 2: then a stark room with a camera in the corner.
36:53
Speaker 1: It feels casual.
36:55
Speaker 2: By removing the institutional barriers, Detective Voss is creating a
36:59
Speaker 2: false sense of intimacy. She is employing elements of the
37:03
Speaker 2: Reed technique.
37:03
Speaker 1: Oh, minimizing the situation.
37:06
Speaker 2: Exactly. Minimizing the moral weight of the situation to make
37:09
Speaker 2: the suspect feel comfortable enough to start talking.
37:12
Speaker 1: And she plays it brilliantly. She tells Brad right off
37:14
Speaker 1: the bat, you're not under arrest. You can go back
37:17
Speaker 1: inside anytime you want. Check that door handle. It's totally unlocked.
37:20
Speaker 2: Building rapport.
37:21
Speaker 1: She is building this massive amount of rapport. Brad initially
37:24
Speaker 1: tries to hold the line. He reiterates Courtney's story about
37:28
Speaker 1: the mysterious black car.
37:29
Speaker 2: Sticking to the script.
37:31
Speaker 1: But then he makes a fatal error. He decides he
37:35
Speaker 1: needs to improvise to make the story sound better. He
37:37
Speaker 1: tells Detective Voss that Rebecca's sister, Kimberly, was supposedly in
37:41
Speaker 1: the black car too.
37:42
Speaker 2: Which is a catastrophic lie.
37:44
Speaker 1: Why change the story now?
37:46
Speaker 2: The fundamental rule of deception is to keep it simple.
37:49
Speaker 2: The more details and characters you add to a fabricated story,
37:52
Speaker 2: the more surface area you give an interrogator to attack.
37:55
Speaker 1: Exactly. And Detective Voss pounces on it. She pushes back hard.
38:00
Speaker 1: She basically drops the friendly act and tells him, Brad, look,
38:03
Speaker 1: you're the last person to talk to me. That story
38:06
Speaker 1: about finding the phone in the tire tracks is completely absurd.
38:09
Speaker 1: Nobody believes it.
38:10
Speaker 2: She corners him.
38:11
Speaker 1: She says, things do not look good for Courtney right now.
38:13
Speaker 1: I'm trying to help you not go down for a
38:15
Speaker 1: murder if all you did was help her cover it up.
38:17
Speaker 2: Giving him an out.
38:18
Speaker 1: She puts the squeeze directly on his loyalty to his
38:21
Speaker 1: wife's and the pressure works. Brad completely cracks. He drops
38:25
Speaker 1: an absolute bombshell that turns the entire motive of the
38:28
Speaker 1: case sideways.
38:28
Speaker 2: This changes everything.
38:30
Speaker 1: Brad reveals to Detective Voss that Courtney and Richard Rebecca's
38:33
Speaker 1: fiancé have been having a secret affair.
38:35
Speaker 2: That is a staggering revelation.
38:38
Speaker 1: The mother and the fiancé.
38:39
Speaker 2: It instantly recontextualizes everything the police thought they knew about
38:44
Speaker 2: the dynamics of this family.
38:46
Speaker 1: Brad claims that Cordy and Richard conspired to kill Rebecca,
38:49
Speaker 1: to kill, as he put it, two birds with one stone.
38:53
Speaker 2: Two birds with one stone.
38:55
Speaker 1: According to Brad's new, desperate narrative, the two secret lovers
38:59
Speaker 1: wanted to get rid of the pregnant Rebecca so they
39:01
Speaker 1: could freely be together, and they wanted to frame Brad
39:04
Speaker 1: for the murder to get him sent back to prison
39:06
Speaker 1: and out of the picture entirely.
39:09
Speaker 2: Suddenly, the police aren't just looking at a random act
39:11
Speaker 2: of violence. They are looking at a classic, ancient triad
39:14
Speaker 2: of motive.
39:14
Speaker 1: Lust and greed.
39:16
Speaker 2: Lust, greed, and the violent elimination of obstacles. Brad realizes
39:20
Speaker 2: the ship is sinking, and he's desperate to save himself.
39:24
Speaker 1: So he flips on her.
39:25
Speaker 2: He immediately pivots from protecting his wife's alibi to throwing
39:28
Speaker 2: her and her secret location. entirely under the bus.
39:32
Speaker 1: And Detective Voss doesn't let the momentum die. Armed with
39:36
Speaker 1: this new information, she immediately heads over to Kimberly's house.
39:40
Speaker 2: The sister.
39:41
Speaker 1: Remember, Kimberly is the sister who originally reported Rebecca missing,
39:46
Speaker 1: and she's the one who secretly told the online sleuth
39:49
Speaker 1: that her parents committed the murder. Voss walks in and
39:52
Speaker 1: confronts Kimberly with Brad's new claim that Kimberly was supposedly
39:56
Speaker 1: in the black car.
39:57
Speaker 2: How does Kimberly react?
39:58
Speaker 1: Kimberly aggressively denies it. She claims that Courtney and Brad
40:02
Speaker 1: straight up confessed to the murder the day after Rebecca disappeared,
40:06
Speaker 1: and she says they threatened to kill her and her
40:08
Speaker 1: own daughter if she ever went to the police.
40:10
Speaker 2: Kimberly is desperately trying to paint herself as a terrified,
40:14
Speaker 2: coerced bystander, who was trapped by her evil parents.
40:17
Speaker 1: But Detective Voss calls her bluff in what is just
40:20
Speaker 1: an amazing moment of police work. Voss looks right at Kimberly,
40:24
Speaker 1: completely unbothered by the tears, and says, I've been doing
40:27
Speaker 1: this for 30 years now. Courtney and Brad are not
40:29
Speaker 1: going to confess a homicide to you.
40:31
Speaker 2: She shuts her down.
40:32
Speaker 1: She says, honesty is the only thing that's going to
40:35
Speaker 1: help you right now. Voss completely strips away Kimberly's victim narrative.
40:40
Speaker 1: She refuses to accept the lie, and she demands the
40:44
Speaker 1: absolute truth.
40:45
Speaker 2: And Kimberly breaks.
40:46
Speaker 1: Under that intense, unyielding pressure, Kimberly breaks. She reveals yet
40:51
Speaker 1: another massive betrayal.
40:53
Speaker 2: Another one.
40:54
Speaker 1: Kimberly admits that her mother, Courtney, wasn't the only one
40:56
Speaker 1: sleeping with Rebecca's fiance. Kimberly confesses that she was also
41:00
Speaker 1: having a secret affair with Richard.
41:01
Speaker 2: It is an emotional Ponzi scheme.
41:03
Speaker 1: An emotional Ponzi scheme.
41:04
Speaker 2: I like that. Everyone in this family ecosystem is borrowing intimacy, trust,
41:09
Speaker 2: and secrets from someone else to cover their own deficits.
41:12
Speaker 2: And the moment Detective Voss starts auditing their timelines, The
41:15
Speaker 2: entire psychological structure collapses in on itself.
41:18
Speaker 1: It is a level of toxicity that is genuinely hard
41:21
Speaker 1: to comprehend.
41:22
Speaker 2: It's disturbing.
41:23
Speaker 1: Think about the reality for this 22-year-old pregnant woman. She
41:27
Speaker 1: is surrounded by a mother who is sleeping with her fiancé,
41:30
Speaker 1: a sister who is sleeping with her fiancé, and a
41:32
Speaker 1: stepfather who is actively trying to frame the fiancé for
41:35
Speaker 1: her murder.
41:36
Speaker 2: The betrayal is total.
41:37
Speaker 1: Every single person in her orbit is betraying her in
41:41
Speaker 1: the most intimate ways possible.
41:42
Speaker 2: And from an investigative standpoint, it creates an absolute nightmare.
41:46
Speaker 1: Who do you believe?
41:46
Speaker 2: Everyone is pointing fingers. Everyone is demonstrably lying. And everyone
41:51
Speaker 2: has a clear selfish motive to see the others take
41:54
Speaker 2: the fall.
41:55
Speaker 1: So what do the police do?
41:56
Speaker 2: When human testimony becomes this thoroughly corrupted by self-interest and
42:01
Speaker 2: serial infidelity, investigators know they have to abandon the narratives.
42:05
Speaker 2: They have to turn to the only witness in the
42:07
Speaker 2: case that cannot lie, cannot be seduced, and cannot be
42:11
Speaker 2: threatened into silence.
42:12
Speaker 1: The digital trail.
42:13
Speaker 2: Exactly.
42:14
Speaker 1: While the family is spinning this chaotic, dizzying web of
42:17
Speaker 1: conflicting stories and affairs, the police quietly pull the historical
42:21
Speaker 1: cell phone records.
42:22
Speaker 2: The pings.
42:23
Speaker 1: And the digital evidence cuts right through the BS like
42:26
Speaker 1: a knife. The cell phone location pings place both Courtney
42:29
Speaker 1: and Brad's phones at the exact crime scene in Boone
42:32
Speaker 1: Township on the night of November 3rd.
42:35
Speaker 2: The exact night Rebecca supposedly got into the phantom black car.
42:39
Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. Before Rebecca was even officially reported missing by
42:43
Speaker 1: her sister, Courtney and Brad's phones were pinging off the
42:47
Speaker 1: towers at the precise, isolated location in the forest where
42:51
Speaker 1: her brutally murdered body was later discovered by searchers.
42:54
Speaker 2: It's case closed right there.
42:55
Speaker 1: That is the concrete, undeniable physical thread the police needed
43:00
Speaker 1: to break the paralysis of the failed polygraphs.
43:03
Speaker 2: The data doesn't care about their twisted affairs.
43:05
Speaker 1: It doesn't.
43:05
Speaker 2: It doesn't care about their TikTok drama or their fake alibis.
43:09
Speaker 2: The satellite data puts them squarely at the scene of
43:11
Speaker 2: the slaughter.
43:12
Speaker 1: So on November 30, 2025, the hammer finally falls. Corton
43:17
Speaker 1: Bartholomew and Brad Bartholomew are officially arrested by the state police.
43:21
Speaker 2: Finally.
43:22
Speaker 1: And the charges levied against them by the prosecutor are staggering.
43:26
Speaker 1: They are both charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, torture,
43:29
Speaker 1: and assault on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage or stillbirth.
43:33
Speaker 2: They are facing the rest of their natural lives behind bars.
43:35
Speaker 1: And the moment those handcuffs click, the final... Pathetic shreds
43:40
Speaker 1: of their marital alliance evaporate completely.
43:43
Speaker 2: They turn on each other immediately.
43:44
Speaker 1: Facing the terrifying reality of spending the rest of their
43:47
Speaker 1: lives in a concrete box, they completely turn on each other.
43:51
Speaker 1: They produce competing confessions that are incredibly dark and legally
43:57
Speaker 1: very difficult to parse.
43:59
Speaker 2: Let's look at those confessions.
44:00
Speaker 1: Let's break down these horrific, conflicting stories they tell the
44:04
Speaker 1: police once they are sitting in separate interrogation rooms.
44:07
Speaker 2: What does Courtney say?
44:08
Speaker 1: According to Courtney's version of events, Brad was the evil mastermind.
44:13
Speaker 1: She claims Brad wanted revenge on Richard Fowler because Richard
44:17
Speaker 1: supposedly snitched to the police about Brad violating the rules
44:20
Speaker 1: of his sex offender registry.
44:22
Speaker 2: Okay, so she gives him a motive.
44:23
Speaker 1: Courtney claims that Brad brutally stabbed Rebecca to death simply
44:27
Speaker 1: to punish Richard. Then, she says Brad physically forced her
44:31
Speaker 1: against her will to use a scalpel to cut the
44:34
Speaker 1: baby out of Rebecca's uterus.
44:36
Speaker 2: Horrifying.
44:37
Speaker 1: She claims the baby died shortly after the forced cesarean,
44:40
Speaker 1: and Brad took the tiny body and dumped it.
44:43
Speaker 2: Notice how Courtney's narrative is meticulously designed to minimize her
44:46
Speaker 2: own culpability, even while admitting to a horrific act.
44:50
Speaker 1: She claims she was forced.
44:51
Speaker 2: She admits to the most gruesome part of the crime,
44:54
Speaker 2: the cesarean. But she frames it entirely under the legal
44:57
Speaker 2: umbrella of extreme duress.
44:59
Speaker 1: She was a victim, too, in her mind.
45:01
Speaker 2: She is trying to paint Brad as a vengeful, uncontrollable
45:05
Speaker 2: monster and herself as a terrified hostage to his violence,
45:09
Speaker 2: hoping to avoid the first degree murder charge.
45:11
Speaker 1: But then the detectives walk into Brad's room and he
45:14
Speaker 1: flips the script entirely.
45:15
Speaker 2: It's his version.
45:16
Speaker 1: Brad tells the police that the murder was 100 percent
45:20
Speaker 1: Courtney's sick, twisted idea. According to Brad, Courtney desperately wanted
45:25
Speaker 1: a baby to raise herself.
45:26
Speaker 2: But they couldn't adopt.
45:28
Speaker 1: Because of Brad's status as a registered sex offender, they
45:31
Speaker 1: were legally barred by the state from ever adopting a child. Right.
45:35
Speaker 1: So Brad claims they hatched a plan. They forced Rebecca
45:39
Speaker 1: into their truck, drove her out to the desolate woods,
45:42
Speaker 1: and according to Brad, Courtney was the one who viciously
45:45
Speaker 1: stabbed her own daughter to death and cut the baby out.
45:48
Speaker 2: And his role.
45:49
Speaker 1: Brad only admits to his role in the aftermath. He
45:53
Speaker 1: says he took the deceased baby and the murder weapon,
45:55
Speaker 1: which he claims was a knife, and threw them both
45:58
Speaker 1: away in a specific GFL dumpster at an apartment complex
46:01
Speaker 1: where Courtney used to live.
46:03
Speaker 2: This raises an important question, and it highlights one of
46:06
Speaker 2: the most difficult, complex challenges in criminal prosecution.
46:10
Speaker 1: Which is?
46:11
Speaker 2: How does a district attorney navigate a case where both
46:13
Speaker 2: suspects openly admit to being present at the crime scene,
46:17
Speaker 2: both admit to being involved in the kidnapping and the
46:20
Speaker 2: gruesome aftermath? But they each vehemently blame the other for
46:24
Speaker 2: the actual fatal acts of violence.
46:26
Speaker 1: Because there's no footage.
46:28
Speaker 2: If there is no camera in the woods, how does
46:30
Speaker 2: a jury legally determine whose hand was actually on the knife?
46:34
Speaker 1: I was just thinking that if they just point fingers
46:36
Speaker 1: at each other forever, does reasonable doubt let them both
46:38
Speaker 1: get away with it?
46:39
Speaker 2: That is the grim beauty of the felony murder rule,
46:42
Speaker 2: which the prosecutor specifically charged them both with.
46:44
Speaker 1: Tell me about that rule.
46:46
Speaker 2: In many jurisdictions... The law recognizes that if you are
46:49
Speaker 2: a willing participant in a highly dangerous felony, such as kidnapping, torture,
46:54
Speaker 2: or armed robbery, and someone dies as a direct result
46:57
Speaker 2: of that felony, you are legally culpable for the murder.
47:00
Speaker 1: No matter who did the stabbing?
47:02
Speaker 2: Regardless of who struck the fatal blow. The prosecution doesn't
47:06
Speaker 2: necessarily have to prove to a jury exactly whose hand
47:09
Speaker 2: held the scalpel or the knife in the dark to
47:11
Speaker 2: secure a life sentence for both of them.
47:13
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So the intent to commit the kidnapping is enough?
47:16
Speaker 2: Precisely. They just have to prove that Courtney and Brad
47:20
Speaker 2: acted in concert to commit the underlying atrocity of kidnapping
47:23
Speaker 2: and torturing a pregnant woman.
47:25
Speaker 1: Which they both basically admit to.
47:27
Speaker 2: In a twisted way, their competing confessions actually do half
47:30
Speaker 2: of the prosecution's work for them. By blaming each other,
47:34
Speaker 2: they inadvertently corroborate the timeline, they place themselves at the
47:37
Speaker 2: exact location, and they confirm their shared intent to commit
47:41
Speaker 2: a grievous crime.
47:42
Speaker 1: They trap themselves.
47:43
Speaker 2: Legally, their furious finger-pointing seals their own fates under the
47:47
Speaker 2: felony murder doctrine.
47:48
Speaker 1: It is incredibly dark, but legally fascinating. Which brings us
47:53
Speaker 1: to the aftermath and where this deeply tragic case stands today.
47:57
Speaker 2: Did they ever find the child?
47:59
Speaker 1: Following Rad's confession, he actually led the police out to
48:02
Speaker 1: the specific GFL dumpster where he claims he disposed of
48:05
Speaker 1: the evidence. He also walked detectives through the exact hill
48:09
Speaker 1: in the forest where he says the murder took place.
48:11
Speaker 2: But... But.
48:12
Speaker 1: Despite massive, exhaustive search efforts by law enforcement, the murder
48:17
Speaker 1: weapon and the remains of Rebecca's baby boy have never
48:20
Speaker 1: been found.
48:20
Speaker 2: Which leaves a haunting, painful void in the resolution of
48:23
Speaker 2: this case.
48:24
Speaker 1: It's heart-wrenching.
48:25
Speaker 2: The complete absence of the child's remains denies the extended
48:28
Speaker 2: family and the community at large any true final closure.
48:33
Speaker 2: The physical reality of the child is just gone.
48:36
Speaker 1: I want to report impartially on the legal updates that
48:39
Speaker 1: have occurred in the months since the arrests. Five days
48:41
Speaker 1: after Courtney and Brad were taken into custody, the devastated
48:44
Speaker 1: residents of Wexford County held a candlelight vigil to honor
48:48
Speaker 1: the memory of Rebecca and her unborn child.
48:50
Speaker 2: A small piece of respect for her.
48:52
Speaker 1: As for the peripheral characters in this tangled web of affairs,
48:56
Speaker 1: Richard Fowler, the fiancé, has never been charged by authorities
49:00
Speaker 1: in connection with the murder of Rebecca or their baby.
49:03
Speaker 2: Even with all the messy affairs.
49:04
Speaker 1: And Kimberly Park, the sister who originally lied to the police,
49:08
Speaker 1: hid the affairs. and claimed her parents confessed to her.
49:12
Speaker 1: The charges against her, which included tampering with evidence, lying
49:15
Speaker 1: to a police officer, and filing a false police report
49:18
Speaker 1: were all officially dropped by prosecutors in May of 2026.
49:22
Speaker 2: That decision likely comes down to prosecutorial discretion.
49:26
Speaker 1: It wasn't worth it.
49:27
Speaker 2: The state likely recognized that the collateral damage of prosecuting
49:31
Speaker 2: the surviving sister, however deceptive and morally compromised she may
49:35
Speaker 2: have been during the investigation, just wasn't worth the expenditure
49:38
Speaker 2: of legal resources.
49:39
Speaker 1: Because they have the main targets.
49:40
Speaker 2: When they already had the two primary architects of the
49:43
Speaker 2: murder safely in custody facing life sentences.
49:46
Speaker 1: Which leaves Courtney and Brad Bartholomew. They both currently remain
49:50
Speaker 1: in county jail, awaiting trial for a crime that has
49:53
Speaker 1: permanently scarred this northern Michigan community.
49:56
Speaker 2: It's a scar that won't fade.
49:57
Speaker 1: I think the words of Lexford County Prosecutor Johanna Carey
50:00
Speaker 1: summarized the state's view on this tragedy perfectly. She stated, quote,
50:05
Speaker 1: The brutality and disregard for human life displayed here are
50:08
Speaker 1: deeply troubling. The evidence reflects an extraordinary level of callousness
50:12
Speaker 1: and violence.
50:14
Speaker 2: Callousness is exactly the right word to anchor this case.
50:17
Speaker 1: It really is.
50:18
Speaker 2: From the very first moment Courtney sat down and spun
50:21
Speaker 2: a fake alibi about a black car, to her unbelievable
50:25
Speaker 2: complaints about TikTok haters while her daughter lay dead, to
50:28
Speaker 2: the desperate, blame-shifting confessions, there is an absolute chilling void
50:33
Speaker 2: of human empathy here. and the actions of the suspects.
50:36
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? We started this deep
50:38
Speaker 1: dive looking at a deceptively simple missing persons report, a
50:41
Speaker 1: wild claim about a mysterious black car.
50:44
Speaker 2: And it unraveled so fast.
50:45
Speaker 1: And we unpacked it to reveal a suffocating labyrinth of deceit.
50:49
Speaker 1: We saw how an emotional Ponzi scheme of infidelity, where
50:53
Speaker 1: a mother and a sister were both betraying a pregnant
50:55
Speaker 1: daughter with her own fiancé, created a toxic environment incredibly
50:58
Speaker 1: ripe for disaster.
51:00
Speaker 2: It was powder keg.
51:01
Speaker 1: We saw how a desperate, twisted desire for control, whether
51:05
Speaker 1: it was fueled by revenge against a snitch or a sick,
51:09
Speaker 1: impossible desire to steal a baby, culminated in unimaginable tragedy
51:14
Speaker 1: in the freezing woods.
51:15
Speaker 2: It is a stark, terrifying reminder that the most dangerous
51:19
Speaker 2: threats often don't come from mysterious strangers in plateless cars
51:23
Speaker 2: pulling into our driveway.
51:24
Speaker 1: Oh, they don't.
51:24
Speaker 2: The most dangerous threats usually come from the people sitting
51:27
Speaker 2: right across the dinner table.
51:28
Speaker 1: That is chilling.
51:29
Speaker 2: But I want to leave you with a final thought
51:31
Speaker 2: to mull over, looking at the broader societal implications of
51:34
Speaker 2: exactly how this case played out in the public eye.
51:37
Speaker 1: The true crime Internet aspect.
51:39
Speaker 2: In an era where TikTok lives, Facebook rumors and rogue
51:43
Speaker 2: amateur bounty hunters can instantly broadcast a family's darkest, most
51:47
Speaker 2: toxic secrets to millions of people in real time.
51:50
Speaker 1: Right.
51:50
Speaker 2: Does the constant noise of the true crime Internet actually
51:53
Speaker 2: help bring justice? Or does it just provide a chaotic,
51:56
Speaker 2: overwhelming smokescreen for guilty people to hide behind? stalling the
51:59
Speaker 2: investigation while police are forced to separate facts from viral fiction.
52:03
Speaker 1: It's a terrifying question. When the fire alarm of a
52:06
Speaker 1: missing loved one finally rings, you really have to wonder
52:09
Speaker 1: if the sound of it is just being drowned out
52:11
Speaker 1: by the noise of a million keyboards typing out rumors.
52:14
Speaker 2: It's something we all need to think about.
52:16
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. We
52:19
Speaker 1: encourage you to always question the information you see online,
52:22
Speaker 1: to look deeper beyond the surface of a viral story,
52:26
Speaker 1: And to remember the real human tragedies that sit at
52:29
Speaker 1: the absolute center of these cases.
52:31
Speaker 2: Stay curious, but stay respectful.
52:33
Speaker 1: Keep digging, keep questioning, and we'll catch you on the
52:36
Speaker 1: next deep dive.