Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Misty Murray Pt. One

Transcript

Misty Murray Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Welcome to our latest series of episodes of The Pathwin Chile.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: On our last series of episodes, I mentioned that Ashley
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: is on a brief occasion, so Jules and I will
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: be handling this one as well. So we're going to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: be using our formula where I share some details about
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a case with jewels and she will give off her
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: live opinion in live thoughts. So this particular case that
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: we're going to be covering is one involving a young
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: female victim with the last name Murray and the first
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: initial M. And it's got a lot of controversy and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: drama and theories about how she may have disappeared voluntarily.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: But it's not the one you're thinking about. It's not
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Mora Murray. And I know Jules is definitely familiar with
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that case, but are you familiar with the case of
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Misty Murray.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. Before we were recording, I asked
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Robin what case are we covering today, and when he
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: said Misty Murray, I'm like, I don't think I've ever
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: heard of that, and I think that if I had,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: it would have stuck with me because of the similarities
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: to Moura Murray in the name.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I covered this one on the Trail Went called
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: about five years ago, and it's actually a Canadian case
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that took place in the small town of Godrich, Ontario.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And it's pretty much unlike any other case we've ever done,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: because we've done so many where young people go missing
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and the police hold the attitude, well, they just ran away,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: there's no danger of foul play. But in this one,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: there were the exact reverse happened, where the police were
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: so set on a theory that she had been murdered,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: even though there was compelling evidence that she may have
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: actually run away on her own and disappeared voluntarily. And
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: what's particularly crazy is that someone would actually be charged
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: with Misty Murray's murder even though there was not only
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: no body, but there was actually compelling evidence that she
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: might still be alive. This kind of thing sometimes would
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: happen in the nineteenth century in the early twentieth century,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: where someone would be charged and go on trial for
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: murder of a victim and then the victim would show
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: up alive. But this took place in the nineteen nineties
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and is one of the only examples I can think
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of this happening in the modern era.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is super interesting because, for one, I didn't
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: know in the nineteenth century that people could even be
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: charged with murder if there was no body, like I
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: thought it was habeas corpus, like, you know, bring me
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the body or whatever, like, you have to have the
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: body in order to charge somebody.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: So I learned something new.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And also the fact that we're used to seeing police
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: departments get tunnel vision with regards to somebody left of
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: their own volition or of their own accord, whereas in
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: this case, even though there seems to be evidence to
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: that to that effect, it seems like they have tunnel
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: vision and that Misty Murray was murdered. So this is
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: completely flipping on the head the usual trope of girl
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: goes missing and cases unsolved.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those cases I talked about from the nineteenth century,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: those are ones where they would find human remains and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: automatically assume it was the missing victim, and of course
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: they didn't have DNA testing to confirm it, and then
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the missing person would just resurface after someone had gone
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: on trial and been convicted and it turned out, oh,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: those remains belonged to someone else and are not related
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to this case. But of course that's the sort of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: thing you wouldn't expect to happen in the modern era
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: during the nineteen nineties, even though it appears that might
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: have been the case here and you mentioned tunnel vision.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: This is honestly one of the worst cases I've ever
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: seen involving tunnel vision to the police, because they had
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: their own theory about what happened, and they were going
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to stick to it no matter what evidence came out
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to point to the contrary. So the story of Misty Murray,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: it's a Canadian case. The victim was sixteen years old
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: at the time she went missing. She was born under
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the name Jean Mrie Oldfield in Nova Scotia in nineteen
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: seventy eight. But she had a pretty turbulent childhood as
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: she had a single mother named Darlene Oldfield, who was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: having a lot of struggles with poverty and substance abuse issues.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So when Misty was less than two years old, Darlene
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: finally decided that she could not take care of her
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and decided to put her up for adoption and she
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: was placed in a therapeutic foster home. But of course,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: because Misty was born to an attic, she had trouble adjusting.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: She was a very temperamental child, and so she would
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: pretty much have to be taken care of by three
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: years by social workers before they decided that she was
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: mentally healthy enough to be adopted out to another family,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and she would finally be taken in by a couple
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: from Ontario named Steve and Anne Murray. But to confirm,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it's not Anne Murray, the famous Canadian singer.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, good, we've got that out of the way.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: What constitutes a therapeutic foster home.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is one
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: for children that may have been born to addicted parents,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: where they kind of keep them separated from like the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: regular kids who are looking to be put up for adoption.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: These are the ones with major behavioral issues, and I
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: guess they have specialists who know how to treat them.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: And obviously Misty was in that position where she had
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: such a turbulent childhood that they realized we were going
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to have to give her a lot of treatment before
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: we can even think of giving her out to another family.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: This is really heartbreaking, knowing that Darlene was struggling with
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: substance use disorder and to the point where while she
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: was pregnant, it was something that obviously impacted Missy's pregnancy,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: and then later on when she's born and she's a toddler,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: there's a myriad of issues that children can have when
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: they're exposed to either alcohol or drugs while in utero.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So when you couple that with the fact that Darlene
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: was having struggles with substance use, so what type of
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: parent was she while she was present for Missy? And
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: then later when when she chooses or makes the choice
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: to give her up because she no longer can take
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: care of her, then it creates abandonment issues. I'm sure
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: it just stacks behavioral issue on top of behavioral issue
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: in a child that isn't born with a mother who
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: was substance use disorder. But it really is setting Missy
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: up for a really unfortunate trajectory here.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as we're going to talk about it would be
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: speculated later on that this was one of the reasons
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: she disappeared, that she had such abandonment issues and attachment
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: issues that even if she was getting love for the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: first time in her life, she just didn't know how
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: to handle it, and that could have compelled her to
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: run away. But Anne Marie was a teacher who was
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: trained to assist children with learning disabilities, so that's why
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: they thought she would be a good candidate to a
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: raise Misty. And at the time of her adoption, Misty
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: was only thirty two pounds and she had been affected
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: by what they called fetal alcohol spectrum disorders because of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: her own mother's issues during pregnancy. And Anne would later
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: describe Misty's initial integration into her family as we quote
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: unquote hell on Earth, as she was tormented by nightmares
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and uncontrollable sobbing. And when Missy got old enough to talk,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: she would often ask her parents what she had done
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: for her mother to want to get rid of her.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And I know that Steve and Ann also had two
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: sons of their own and would sometimes clash with Missy,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: but they pretty much decided, we're going to give her
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: unconditional love, we're going to raise her as much as
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: we can, and we're not going to give up on her.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: And by the time she reached her teenage years, she
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: started developing into an outgoing child who did very well
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: in school and started having a normal life.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Wow, Steve and Anne what incredible people. They get so
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: selfless to take on someone else's child. But someone else's
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: child who has all of these behavioral issues likely has
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: attachment issues. The fact that they've got two boys as well,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: and that it seems that Missy is at odds with
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: the boys, it would create a potentially combative environment or
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: a tenuous environment in the home, and that can be
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: difficult to deal with over time. It sounds like Anne
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: is really well equipped to deal with the variety of
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: issues that can crop up for Missy. But my heart
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: just broke for her when you told me how she
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: would cry and she would wake up and fit and
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: wonder what she did to make her mother abandon her.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: That is just so sad, it is. Yeah, And I
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: think this was kind of the thing that no matter
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: what a stable home that Misty was being raised in,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: she would always have these issues in the back of
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: her mind, knowing that her mother gave her up for adoption,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and still I guess she just had things that were
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: unavoidable where she had a hard time really attaching herself
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to people, just because she was so paranoid that no
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: matter how nice they were, they could potentially just decide
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to give her up at some point in the future.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: But like I said, she started doing well in school,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: but as she reached the age of sixteen, she started
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: becoming more rebellious and her grade slipped. But a major
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: turning point took place during the fall of nineteen ninety
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: four when Misty decided that she wanted to make contact
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: with her biological mother, Darlene Oldfield, and to her credit,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Darlene did a phenomenal job at completely turning her life around,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: because by this point she was completely clean. She was
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: living in Toronto with her husband and working a steady job,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and after the Murrays gave Misty permission, she finally agreed
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to reach out to Darlene and meet in person, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: they were finally able to establish a relationship, and Misty
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: would frequently travel from her hometown of god Rich to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Toronto at least once a month to visit Darlene. So
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: during the first weekend of June of nineteen ninety five,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: they made a decision that Misty was going to accompany
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Darlene on a trip to Halifax, her original birthplace, in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: order to attend a family reunion and meet her biological
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: grandparents for the first time, and she was also hoping
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: that perhaps she could spend the entire summer living with
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: her mother in Toronto. So it looked like things were
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: going really well at this point, and that's why it
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: would be surprising when Misty would suddenly go missing.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like the timing is very off, but
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: it makes me harken back to what you said earlier
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: in that maybe she did have some insecure attachment style
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: or abandonment issues, and so that caused her to pull
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: back even when she was being given love and nurturing,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and it maybe made her want to leave before she
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: could be left. Because we don't know if Missy was
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: dealing with any other mental health issues, but it would
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: be common given the type of upbringing that she had,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and if she did have those types of issues, that
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: she could be suffering from something like borderline personality disorder.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And of course I'm not diagnosing her. It is born
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: from trauma that could explain a lot of symptoms and
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: those so I don't know what she was dealing with,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: and it sounds like the things at home were going better,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: But we never know, when we say this over and
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: over again, we never know what somebody is dealing with internally.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: And how they're processing information unless they tell us. So
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Missy may have outwardly been doing really well, but she
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: may have just developed better coping mechanisms or a way
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: that she's better able to mask how she truly feels.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Whereas when she was younger, it was very much she
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: wore her heart on her sleeve and her moods were
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: very apparent. But as we get older, we often learn
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: how to share as much as we want to share.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good summary about what
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: might happened. And of course Anne was kind of an
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: expert in this field. And even though miss Ty was
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: not officially diagnosed, and would say in interviews that she
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: suspected that Misty suffer from some sort of attachment disorder
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and that even though her reunion with her biological mother,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Darlene was going great, she may have still had it
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: in the back of her mind that because her mother
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: had given up for adoption, she feared she might get
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: abandoned again. So some people have speculated that she was
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: really looking forward to this trip to finally go and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: see her mother and how facts, but maybe she got
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: cold feet. Maybe in the back of her mind she
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: felt that something bad was going to happen, and her
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: mother was going to abandon her again. So that's why
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: she may have suddenly decided to just run away in
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: order to avoid taking this trip.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And I think there's two sides to the coin of
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: having Darlene be sober and doing really well, working a
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: steady job and being married. There's the side that says, okay,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: she's okay, now, why wasn't I a part of her
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: life all of those years that she was okay? Why
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: didn't she come looking for me? Why didn't she do
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: these things? And it's all well and good that we're
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: meeting up now and great that there's a relationship, but
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: there's always going to be the why didn't she do more?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Why wasn't she yearning for me the way that I
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: was yearning for her?
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: And I should mention this would have been around the
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: same time period when one of the more famous sitcom
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: episodes of all time aired on The Fresh Prince of
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: bel Air, where Will's father, who abandoned him when he
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: was a baby, suddenly decided to reconnect with him when
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: he was a teen, and then at the end of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the episode just decided abandoned him again and CODs was
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: will to have a breakdown, So I can understand why
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: people would have like these feelings in the back of
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: their mind that, ooh, maybe even though my biological parents
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: seems sincere and wants to have a relationship with me,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: what if they decide to abandon me again?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: What a time to be alive in the nineties. The
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: way that comedies and especially geared towards young people handled
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: real issues when looking back in retrospect is comical. Like
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: this is totally off topic, but do you remember did
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: you ever watch Save by the Bell?
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Not much?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: No, there was a one episode where Jesse takes like
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I watched it when I was like a little kid,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: and she took like too many caffeine pills and it
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: was like this, ooh, Jesse has a dependence on caffeine,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: and she's dancing around to the I'm.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: So excited and I just can't hide it, and she
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: keeps singing it over and over again, and it's like
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: it's like they were cloaking caffeine pills with like cocaine
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: or meth or something, but they had to say caffeine
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: pills because it was like saturing TV.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wild.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that episode. It's almost an internet meme
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: now because she goes from saying I'm so excited, I'm
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: so scared, and that's a big dramatic moment. But that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: fresh Prince of bel Air episode, people still talk about
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it to this day and how much it broke their hearts.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: And I know that the actor who played Will's father,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Ben Breen, says that people come up to him on
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the streets to this day to get angry with them
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: because they hated his character so much on that episode.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: But kind of a reverse thing here with attachment disorders.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Is Anne also said that people who have that disorder
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: sometimes have her propensity to form indiscriminate relationships and have
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: zero fear of strangers. And apparently, when Misty was still
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a child, she would just walk up to strangers in
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: public and start conversations with them and even go so
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: far as to ask if she could live with them.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And I think this is an important detail because there
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: has been speculation that one of the factors behind Misty's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: disappearance is that she could have befriended the wrong person
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: who manipulated her and may have convinced her to run away.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: What was her intellect like, well, it was described that
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: she was doing very well in school when she started
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: high school, so she had a pretty decent intellect. She
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: had a lot of extracurricular activities because she was a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: member of the school band, and she was able to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: maintain friendships. We're going to talk about the possibility that
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: she may have had a boyfriend that her parents didn't
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: know about. But seemed like everything was going well and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: that she was adapting. But at the time of her disappearance,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: like I said, she was becoming more rebellious and her
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: marks were going down, and we don't know if that
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: might have been the result of something going on in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: her personal life. So the day that Misty went missing
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: was May the thirty first, nineteen ninety five, which was
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: only a few days before her scheduled trip to Halifax.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: She was dropped off at her high school, the god
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Rich District Collegiate Institute, and after a seemingly routine day
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: which she attended classes and made a visit to the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: school nurse, Misty attempted to make a phone call to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Anne at a job at an elementary school where she
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: worked sometime between two and three pm, and was not
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: available to take her call. At that time, and Misty
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: elected not to try to leave a message or call
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: her back, And as far as we know, this is
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the last time she was confirmed to be alive, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: she would just disappear after she left school. And like
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, she was also a member of the school
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: marching band, and she had actually told her parents that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: she was planning to stay after school to practice with them.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: But then Misty never returned home that night and failed
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to resurface. And then when Anne called the school, she
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: discovered that there was no marching band practice that day,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: so it became a parent that Misty had lied to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: them for some reason. But whatever she was doing that
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: afternoon played a role in her decision not to come home,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and when she failed to resurface by the following day,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Anne reported her missing to the god Rich Police.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: And I know this is really unlikely because it's nineteen
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: ninety five. I know cell phones were a thing, But
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: did Missy have a cell phone?
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: No?
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: She didn't, Okay, so even if she did have a boyfriend,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: we don't really have any way of tracking that. Do
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: we know if she had an email or if she
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: was in communication online with anybody?
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think the internet was really
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: in its early stages back in nineteen ninety five, so
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think she was online. And one detail which
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I've always been intrigued by is her visit to the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: school nurse, as most of the sources have said that
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: she went to see the nurse for quote unquote reasons
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: not made public, and I've always wondered if that played
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: some sort of role in her decision to run away,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: because as you'll notice, she immediately tried to phone her
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: mother afterwards, and then when she couldn't reach and that's
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: when she suddenly just disappeared and decided not to return home.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And I've always wondered if she was told something. Maybe
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: she was told that she was pregnant. And it makes
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: me wonder what the medical ethics are like in missing
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: persons cases, where even if a person vanishes without a trace,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: if the nurse is still obliged not to share any
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: details about what Misty saw her for to the public.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That's so difficult because she's not of legal age to
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: be an adult. So I would think that her parent
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: or guardian, so Steven Anne, would be able to have
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: access to that information if she went missing, Because you
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: can't go missing of your own accord when you aren't
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: a legal adult. But if somebody is an adult and
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: they choose to go missing, you can't just make their
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: medical records public because somebody's missing and you don't want
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: them to be even though they choose to be. So
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I think it's like a really complex, difficult thing that
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: it would be very I think it would be I
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: don't know what situation that they would decide to open
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: up the medical records for law enforcement or for the family.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: I just I don't know how often it's done, and
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: if it would vary state by state. It just seems
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: like a rather arduous process. It's one thing when it's
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: cell phone data, right, getting somebody's cell phone data, But
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: medical stuff seems to be even more intrusive than that.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it would be one thing. There was
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: clear cut evidence that Misty was deceased, but like I said,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: it's very possible that she ran away a peron accord
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and still had the right to privacy. And of course,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: if it turned out she was murdered and she was
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: pregnant at the time, they might release that to the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: public because they think that may have played a role
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: in her murder. But what's weird about this case is
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that it's the police who became convinced that she was murdered,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: whereas her family and friends were convinced that she ran away.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: But no matter what, the police never decided to disclose
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: any information about what Misty saw the school nurse for.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: You've got to wonder if it had to do something
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: with pregnancy, because it would explain their tunnel vision. If
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: then they believe that Missy's pregnant and the reason for
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: her disappearance is because she's with child, then you start
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to wonder who got her pregnant and was there a
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: secret boyfriend? Was this something that wasn't consensual. There's all
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: these different avenues to pursue, but we're left wondering, Okay,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: this wasn't discussed, but it feels like it has to
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: be relevant in her disappearance because otherwise, why else would
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: she randomly be going to the school nurse. I mean,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: it could be anything. It could be an earache. We
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: don't know, but it's hard not to feel like this
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: is important.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as we're going to talk about, there was a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: man in Misty's personal life at this time who would
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: be investigated, and it's unclear what kind of relationship he
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: had with Misty, but theoretically, if he had gotten her pregnant,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: then this could have played a role in her decision
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: not to come home and totally skip out on her
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: trip to see her mother. So of course, at the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: outset there was speculation that maybe Misty had decided to
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: run away because she wanted to go live with her
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: biological mother, Darlene, because they noticed that in her school
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: book she started signing her name as Misty Oldfield, which
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: was her birth name, rather than Misty Murray. But of
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: course they contacted Darlene Oldfield in Toronto and she had
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: never heard from Misty and had no idea where she was,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and of course she would not show up at all
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: for their weekend trip to Halifax, which why it seemed
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: like a very range time for Misty to decide to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: run away, and they discovered that she left behind a
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: suitcase that she had already packed for the trip, as
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: well as two hundred dollars in spending money, so it
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: appeared that Misty had just disappeared with nothing but the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: clothes on her back.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It could be a very stressful time leading up to
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: meeting Darlene, because in her mind she has this picture
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: of her mother and how things could be if they
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: were to meet, and then this intense anxiety that could
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: develop potentially around what if I meet her and she
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: hates me. What if I meet her and it doesn't
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: go well. What if I feel like, you know, she
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: reaffirms all these horrible things that I believed about myself
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: and that's why she abandoned me. There can be all
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: these things that would be going through her head leading
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: up to meeting Darlene, hoping that she doesn't get rejected again. Yes,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: it looks positive moving forward, but what if she meets
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: her mother, things go well and then she cuts her
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: off again. I think it would be only natural given
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: what she had endured in the past, and she's been
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: able to come out the other side and been, like
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: you said, successful in school, part of the marching band.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: She's gone from somebody who wakes up from night terrors
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: and is very difficult in the home and like combative
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: with her step siblings to somebody that seems to be thriving.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: And then to introduce this new variable, which is her mother, Darlene,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: who appears to be well and is doing well and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: married into the mix. It seems like a positive thing,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: but I could see how it could be a major stressor.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And although things on the surface look like they're almost
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: perfect for Missy, I could see how one thing could
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: really like scrape off that veneer and could send her
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: into a tailspin.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there is a good chance that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: this did happen, And it would also depend on if
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: there was anyone else in Misty's personal life who is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: really getting into her ear, maybe telling her these things,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: saying that, oh, you shouldn't bother with your mother, She's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: just going to abandon you again. And for all we know,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: maybe Misty went to this person when she decided to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: run away and that's why she cut off all contact
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: with her adoptive parents and her biological mother. But then
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: something in the down the line could have gone horribly wrong.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: So a missing person's investigation was launched, and of course
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the adoptive parents, Steve and Anne, were thoroughly questioned, but
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: there would be a big turning point when the police
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: discover what they believed to be a hole in Steve's story.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: On June the first, the day after Misty went missing,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Steve decided to leave on a business trip very early
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in the morning to travel to Toronto, and he did
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: not even learn that Missy was missing until he returned
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: home at eight thirty pm that night and learned from
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Anne that Misty had still not resurfaced. Well, the police
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: would learn Steve's story get his alibi during that time period,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: but then they would learn from outsiders that on the
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: night that he returned home from Toronto, at about seven pm,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: he decided to go to a local marina and take
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: out a boat he owned onto the lake for a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: spin before he returned, and Steve forgot to mention this
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: in his original statement, and he would always say, well,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I'm known for having kind of a bad memory, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: because Misty had run away, I was kind of stressed out,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: so I couldn't remember every single detail of my day.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And at the time I took this boat ride, I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: didn't know Misty was missing, so I was pretty much
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: doing it care free. I wasn't thinking about anything. But
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: in the police's eyes, the fact that Steve forgot to
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: share this detail made them suspicious, and so they started
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: focusing on him and the investigation would be turned over
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: to the Ontario provincial police to launch a potential homicide
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: investigation because they started thinking, hmm, maybe Steve was using
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: this time period on this boat ride to dispose of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Misty's body.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that's possible. But what in Steve's
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: background would make them think that he was anything other
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: than a loving father to Missy.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the problem is is that there was nothing
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: bad in Steve's background, Like, obviously he got the legal
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: rights to adopt, and so he was known for being
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a very loving guy with no history of abuse, known
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: for being nice to everyone he knew. And they would
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: later find a letter that Misty had written a week
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: before disappearance in which she apologized for being such a
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: difficult daughter at times, and she thanked them for their
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: love and asked for forgiveness and actually contained this line
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: quote if I were you a long time ago, I
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: would have given up on me, but I know you
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: love me, your daughter forever always, Misty Nicole Murray end quote.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And of course police started suspecting that maybe there was
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: something darker going on in their background, that maybe Steve
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was secretly abusing or molesting Misstea decided to get rid
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of her, but when you look at that letter, it
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: sounds like she still felt nothing but a great relationship
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: with her adoptive parents, and there was no warning signs
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: or red flags at all that Steve was doing anything wrong.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like a bit of a reach. Of course,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: it could be possible, but I think we would have
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: heard something along the way from somebody who would have
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: suspected something untoward between even Missy, and we hear none
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: of that, So it just it feels unlikely.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been over thirty years now and nothing has
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: come out about Steve's background to suggests that he could
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: have done anything to Misty. But this was the big
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: problem with the investigation is that now that they poked
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a hole in Steve's story, they had determined that Misty
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: was the victim of foul play and nothing was going
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to change their mind. But it's particularly frustrating because as
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the weeks went on, there would be a number of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: reported sightings of Misty which seemed fairly credible, but because
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the police were convinced that Steve had done something, they
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: never actually shared any of these sightings with Steve or
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Ann or anyone else from her family. And we've talked
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: many times about on missing persons cases that you're always
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: going to get eyewitness sightings that are mistaken, but in
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: this particular case, a lot of the sightings are from
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: friends of Misty's who knew her personally, so I find
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: them to be more credible than the ones you'll find
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: in most missing persons cases. So the most notable one
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: took place on June the first, which was the day
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: after Misty went missing, when one of her fellow students,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a friend of HER's named Sarah Crawford, claimed that she
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: ran into Misty inside a bargain shop in Godrich, their hometown,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and according to Sarah, Misty told her that she had
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: been driving with friends in the nearby town of Clinton
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and that she was planning to see Sarah again in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: school on Monday. And some of the details that Sarah
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: provided about Misty's appearance seemed to match like her description
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: at the time she went missing, because even though Misty
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: had seven piercingings in her ears, Misty was not wearing
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: any earrings when she attended school the previous day, and
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Sarah corroborated this, and when Misty went missing, she had
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: been wearing a green nylon jacket which had the crest
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: for the school marching band on it stitched into a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: left sleeve, and Sarah confirmed that Misty was wearing this
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: exact jacket when she saw her in the bargain shop.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But even though Sarah reported this encounter with Misty to
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the police, they pretty much just disregarded it. They never
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: attempted to corroborate sarah story by interviewing the employees who
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: were working at the bargain shop that day to confirm
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: if Misty was there, because by this point they were
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: already convinced that Misty had been murdered and that there
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: was no way that she could be hanging out in
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a shop the day after she went missing.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: This is wild to me. Sarah obviously knows her, and
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: she didn't just see her from a distance. She saw
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: her up close and corroborated things that you would really
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: only know if you saw her in person, like not
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: wearing any earrings when she's typically wearing seven and wearing
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the green jacket with the marching band crest. And they
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: communicated saying that she would see her on Monday. So
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: either Sarah made it all up and just got lucky
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: with the description because she'd saw Missy recently and then
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: she went off of that maybe she frequently wore that
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: jacket and often didn't wear earrings when she was attending school,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: so this was like a lucky guest. But I feel
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: like they should have pursued this more doggedly. Again, we
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: say this with every episode where we see tunnel Vision,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: that you go where the evidence takes you, and then
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: you form conclusions as the evidence reveals itself. But you
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: don't become stuck on like one conclusion before all of
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: the evidence is revealed. And it feels like they were
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: so stuck on Steve that they were ignoring tantalizing evidence
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: and not telling Missy's parents about it.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: It's this is wild.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is just so frustrating. I mean, I definitely
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: don't think Sarah was intentionally lying, and I'm willing to
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that perhaps she got the date wrong, that maybe
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: she saw Misty at this shop on a previous occasion
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: before she went missing. But there are a lot of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: details which add up, like the fact that this siting
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: supposedly took place on a Thursday, and that Misty was
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: supposed to be going on a weekend trip to Halifax
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and really was planning to return to school on Monday,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and if this story is accurate, it does show that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Misty was not planning to run away permanently, that maybe
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: she was planning to return home at some point and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: return to school. But another part of Sarah's story was
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: checked out is she said that Misty told her that
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: she was hanging out with some friends in the town
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: of Clinton, located only twenty kilometers away from god Rich,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and there would sure enough be some sightings of Misty
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: in Clinton the day afterwards, on June the second, from
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: more people who personally knew her, Three of Misty's fellow
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: high school students said they saw her walking along Highway
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: eight from Godrich to Clinton that on the evening of
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: June the second, and since Misty had been seen near
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: a bus stop, police believe that the students may have
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: mistaken her for Misty's best friend, who had caught a
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: bus from Clinton that same day. But the problem is
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: that the friend's bus had already left hours before this
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: sighting took place, and these students once again accurately described
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the green nylon banjacket that Misty had been wearing, with
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the crest on the left sleeve and there was also
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: a four student who said they were called seeing Misty
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and Clinton that night and even said that he honked
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: his horn at her as he drove past. So this
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: is a total of five witnesses who knew miss Steve
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Persley who are reporting having her seen her in the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: surrounding area in the days following your disappearance.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: This feels criminal not investigating this further and not pushing
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: this further and sticking to Steve as a suspect when
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: you have so many people who are saying, yeah, we
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: saw her, we interacted with her. And the thing is,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: it's not just like one independent person, like all of
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: these stories stitch together. They are all corroborating each other,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Like Sarah doesn't know what these other people are saying,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: but yet their stories are corroborating hers and vice versa.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: So I just don't see how investigators weren't able to
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: go just maybe maybe we got this wrong and Steve
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: didn't murder Misty and dispose of her body.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And it gets even worse because we have a sixth
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: witness who gave a credible sighting a Misty. Once again,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: this was another student from her high school who knew
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: her personally who said that she saw Misty at the
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Clinton Fair on the evening of Saturday, June the third,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and also described her as wearing that distinct green banjack.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting about this student story is that they
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: said that she said that she looked extra hard at
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Misty to make sure it was her because she was
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: under the impression that Misty was going to be traveling
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: to Halifax with her mother, her biological mother that weekend,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: so she was surprised to see Misty at the Clinton Fairs.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: So that's like a witness who is double checking to
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: make sure that she saw Misty correctly, and the police
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: are still not believing her. And there would also be
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: at least two employees at the fair who thought they
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: saw a girl matching Misty's description. And what's interesting is
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that these employees said that Misty was in the presence
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: of two other girls, and one employee said that he
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: distinctly remembered this sighting because one of these girls was
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: so drunk that he wouldn't allow her to go on
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the ride that he was operating. But once again, the
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: police refused to tell the Murray family about these sightings.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: They didn't find out about them until months after the fact.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And the opp also forgot to neglected to share this
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: information with Child find which is the top organization in
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Canada up for locating missing children. So not only are
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: they being negligent by not informing the family, but they're
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: not informing other organizations who could help find Misty if
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: she was still alive.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: This is getting embarrassing with regards to the investigation. It
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: just feels like willful ignorance when you're not sharing those
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: details and you're ignoring all of these sightings. But what
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: it really makes me question is what happened with that nurse.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Did Missy receive some kind of news that made her
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: not want to go and meet her mom, that made
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: her need to take some kind of break? And I'm
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: just wondering who these friends are that she's being seen with,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: and who the friends are she was driving around with,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Like who are these people? And is there any boys
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: or men involved that she could have been in a
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: relationship with, because being seen with two young women that's
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: one thing, But if she was seen with a guy,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: then it just raises even more eyebrows. Then it's like
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: did he do something to her? But it doesn't seem
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: like she was under duress. If she was at the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: fair and with two young women, I don't even know
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: why they were still looking at Steve at this point.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm about to talk about a man from Misty's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: personal life who could have had a role in her disappearance.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: But I do agree that I'm not sure how these
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: young women fit into this, because no one ever came
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: forward to say that I went with Misty to Clinton,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I hung out with her at the fair that night,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: and well, it's easy to believe that she may have
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: been manipulated by a male in her life who prompted
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: her to run away. It's unclear to me, like why
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: she would be hanging out with these young women. But
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the man I'm going to talk about is a guy
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: named Jeremy Cook who lived in Misty's hometown of god Rich,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and details about this are vague because they have never
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: disclosed Jeremy's exact age, but the sources described him as
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: an adult male who was involved in a quote unquote
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: sexual relationship with Misty, and I looked it up. The
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: age of consent in Ontario at that time in nineteen
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: ninety five was sixty, so technically it was not statutory rape.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: But of course, if he's many years older than Jeremy
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and he's having a relationship with Misty while she's sixteen,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: it's still pretty icky. But apparently Jeremy had been seen
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: with Misty in god Rich on May the thirty first,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the same day that she disappeared, and when Jeremy was
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: questioned by the police, he did acknowledge that he knew Misty,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: but said that the last time he saw was on
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: May the thirtieth, the day before she went missing, because
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: he saw Row while he was out cashing his welfare
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: check and paying his rent. But they checked bank records
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and showed that Jeremy's transactions actually took place on May
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the thirty first, the day that Misty went missing, and
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: two witnesses, including a woman who worked in a shop
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: located below Jeremy's apartment, claimed that they saw Misty in
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the apartment stairwell on either May the thirty first or
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: June the first, And unfortunately, there really aren't too many
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: other details out there about Jeremy, but according to Misty's
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: guidance counselor, she had said that she had an ex
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: boyfriend who was very positive and she felt threatened by him,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: But it does not to sound like she ever disclosed
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the name of this boyfriend. And I don't think she
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: ever told Steve Ran about him, because as far as
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: they knew, she didn't have a boyfriend.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: So there's a mystery boyfriend who's an adult who we
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: don't know how old he is. It changes the creepiness
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: factor if Jeremy is in his thirties versus if he's eighteen,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Like, the age of
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: consent is sixteen, and yes, technically it wouldn't be illegal
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: for an adult man to sleep with her, but it's
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: it's icky, it's really icky, and it feels morally wrong.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: So if he's eighteen, that's a different story than if
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: somebody who's well into their twenties or into their thirties.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: We just don't know that information, so we can really
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: only speculate. But we can only speculate if Jeremy is
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: indeed this controlling ex boyfriend who we don't know, if
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: maybe their relationship is a reason that she was going
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: to the nurse and she was pregnant, and that is
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: going to eat away at me. It's the one detail
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of this case, like what happened with that nurse. That's
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: just gnawing at me because I feel like it is
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: directly related to what happened to her or why she
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: chose to leave.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the timing would work out because she was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: last confirmed to be alive after the meeting with the
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: nurse and after she attempted to call Anne was unable
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: to get a hold of her. And then Misty was
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: supposedly seen with Jeremy on May the thirty first, sometime
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: after she would have been in school. So theoretically, if
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: she went to the nurse found out she was pregnant
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and Jeremy was the father, she might have gone to
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: see him that day and then just decided to hang out.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe she told her, oh, you're going to get into
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: so much trouble with your adoptive parents, and maybe even
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: your biological mother won't want anything to do with you
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: if she finds out that you're pregnant at age sixteen,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: So she decided not to go home, and then maybe
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: was spending the next few days like hanging out in
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: the area and God rich or Clinton, but then potentially
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: cross passed with the wrong person, and then that's why
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Misty never returned. Home.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those things where you could see
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: that you might have had plans to see Darlene and
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: that there was a lot of anxiety around that. But
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: can you imagine, let's just speculate on this or just say, like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: for example, if you're a teenage girl and your mother
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: got pregnant with you and then she was dealing with
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: substance use disorder, so she had to give you up
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and you felt very abandoned, and then you might feel
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: as though if you were to get pregnant while being
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: a teenager, that you're repeating the pattern of your mother.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: So then to go and see your mother whilst pregnant
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: and it might have just been too much.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well, and that Jeremy put
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: played a role in like manipulating Misty into not going
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to see your mother again, maybe put these ideas into
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: her head. And we mentioned earlier that because of a
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Misty's attachment disorder, she was known for having no filter
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: when it came to befriending strangers. That she would go
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: up to like complete random strangers when she was a
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: kid and asked if she could live with them. So
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: that could be very well, how she met Jeremy in
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the first place, that maybe she cross passed with them
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: in public and he manipulated her into beginning this relationship
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and then she wound up becoming pregnant.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: That's scary to think that, like, there's no stranger danger
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: and you just don't have those appropriate filters to apply
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to people and to really understand when people's intentions are
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: good or they're bad. Just lacking boundaries all together, that
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: just puts Misty in a very vulnerable place.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, it's possible that Misty may have wound up
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: with some people who forced her into drugs and sex work,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: because in the next several weeks after Misty's disappearance started
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: making publicity, there were a whole bunch of reported sightings
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: of people who thought they saw a girl matching her
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: description in London, Ontario, which was about one hundred kilometers
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: away from god Rich. Now these aren't from witnesses who
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: knew Misty personally. They're just basing it on the photograph
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: from or missing posters, so we can't be one hundred
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: percent certain if they're correct. But they said that they
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: saw a girl who looked like her like hanging out
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: on the street, and she looked like she may have
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: been on drugs, and she was hanging out with street
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: people who were known for their associations with drugs and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: sex work. And finally word of this got back to
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Stephen Ann and of course they're outraged because all these
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: sightings are coming up of Misty still being alive somewhere
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: and the police have never bothered to tell them. So
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: because the police didn't seem inclined to investigate this, they
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: decided to make their own trip to London to perform
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: their own search for Misty, and while they were unable
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: to find her, they did speak to a local pool
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: hall owner who confirmed that they had seen Misty who
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: was in the presence of a pimp. But apparently, after
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Misty's disappear and started generating publicity, Misty or pimp suddenly
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: disappear from the area. So theoretically, if the girl this
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: pool hall owner had seen really was her, they may
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: have gotten paranoid that she was going to be discovered
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and decided to flee. But it would make sense though,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: when you hear about Misty's personality, that she could have
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: met the wrong person and then wound up being forced
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: to sex work. And was under the control of a pimp.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could one hundred percent see how a scenario
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: like that could play out, especially because of all of
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: the recent emotional triggers that Missy had had. If you
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: had somebody who'd met her before and was grooming her,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: what a great time to use to strike when Missy
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: is going to see her mother, which is something that
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: is really stressful. Also, all of these abandonment issues are
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: likely coming up, traumas from the past are resurfacing, and
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: so she would be in a very vulnerable place. And
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: then if you also add the potentially pregnancy on top
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: of it, it could be a scenario where somebody applies
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: her with drugs and Missy potentially wouldn't do drugs, but
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: because of all the stress of the situation, she does,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: and then they're able to traffick her because it's really
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: scary to think that she would end up in a
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: situation like that. And the police aren't doing the proper
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: investigative steps in order to either confirm or deny that
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: it is miss Stee, and they're not telling Anne and Steve,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: and that is wild. I guess they're just still doubling
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: down on Steve being the guy that did this.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. And it's like, can you imagine
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: being in their shoes, like receiving information that your adoptive
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: daughter may have been trafficked into sex work, and you
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: know that the police aren't even bothering to search for
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: They're already convinced she's dead, even though there is a
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: chance that you could rescue her and bring her home
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: while she was still alive. So I can only imagine
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: the outrage and frustration. There were also some eyewitness sightings
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: of a girl matching Misty's description in Toronto, which is
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: where her biomm Darlene happened to live, and because the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: police weren't doing anything, Darlene decided to perform her own
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: independent investigation and started searching the streets of Toronto, and
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: she interacted with a number of people who thought that
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: they had cross paths with Miste. And what was particularly
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: interesting is that she was introducing herself by the name
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: jim Ree, which was actually Misty's birth name, and that
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: was a detail that had never been released publicly, that
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the nobody had known that Misty was not a birth
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: name and that she was born under the name Jean Marie.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: So Darlene thought that was credible and added credence to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the idea that this girl that they had seen really
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: was Misty. And she also spoke to some Toronto police
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: detectives who thought they had seen Misty on the streets
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: begging for money, but they did not realize who she
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: was until they saw her missing poster shortly thereafter. But
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: by that point they searched around for her again and
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: were unable to find her. So now you have actual
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: police detectives who are unfortunately not part of the official investigation,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: who are believing that they've seen Misty on the streets,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and yet the Ontario Provincial Police are still convinced that
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: she's dead.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: This is so heartbreaking to think that Darlene has probably
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: got a lot of guilt with regards to how she
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: lived her life and having to give up Missy, and
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: then she worked so hard to get sober to get
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: to a place where she's going to reunite with her daughter,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: and then that's taken away from her and the police
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: aren't investigating thoroughly that she's got to take it upon herself,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: and then to find out that people have seen her
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: on the street and she's introducing herself by Jean Marie,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: her birth name. It feels like it has to be Misty,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Like who else could it be at this point and
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: the police still aren't investigating. I don't know how that
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: would feel for both Anne and Steve and for Darlene,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Like that is just it's apparent's worst nightmare, is what
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it was a very complicated situation for Darlene
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: because even though they were the police were directing the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: suspicion towards Steve and Anne, thinking that they killed Misty
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: or recovering it up, they were apparently very compassionate and
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: sympathetic with Darlene because they had this idea in their
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: heads that, oh, maybe Steve was getting jealous because Misty
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: was spending more time with her biological mother and maybe
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: she was going to go live with her or something,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and Steve became so angry that he decided to kill her,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: and Darlene was just finding it frustrat It's kind of like,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think she ever directly accused the Maras of anything.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think she believed they were response for what
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: happened to Misty, but she's feeling, well, I'm glad you're
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: being very sympathetic towards me, but I would like it
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: better if you actually did your job and started searching
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the streets and potentially finding Misty alive.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: That's valid.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I can understand how there would be a variety of
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: feelings on both sides, and how Darlene would have certain expectations,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: But I feel like whose job it is is the
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: police's job, and they've really failed the families here.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Definitely, So I think this would be a great place
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: to end Part one. But join us again next week
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: for Part two as we continue discussing the disappearance of Misty.
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: Murray Robin, do you want to tell us a little
• 45:42
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• 45:45
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• 45:47
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• 45:57
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• 46:00
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• 46:04
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• 46:07
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• 46:11
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• 46:50
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• 47:10
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