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Will There Ever Be Justice for Murdered Molly Bish: 25 Years Unsolved · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:07
Speaker 2: June twenty seven, two thousand. Every time June twenty seven
0:14
Speaker 2: rolls around, I think about Molly Bish. Why what happened
0:23
Speaker 2: to a beautiful, beautiful young girl, Molly Bish.
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Speaker 3: It's been twenty five years since teen lifeguard Molly Bish
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Speaker 3: disappeared just minutes after her mother dropped her off at
0:34
Speaker 3: Commons Pond for work. Molly's remains were found three years later.
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Speaker 3: Twenty six of her two hundred and six bones were
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Speaker 3: found five miles away from this swimming area, but her
0:46
Speaker 3: murder remains unsolved. Rodney Stanger, a Southbridge man who was
0:50
Speaker 3: convicted of murdering his girlfriend, was once a potential suspect,
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Speaker 3: but more recently Da Joe Early said another man, Frank Sumner,
1:00
Speaker 3: ex offender who died in twenty sixteen, is a person
1:03
Speaker 3: of interest.
1:04
Speaker 1: Let's just revisit what happened.
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Speaker 2: Joining me right now is a special guest, Maggie Bish
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Speaker 2: and her daughter Heather. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
1:18
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us. It was Molly's eighth
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Speaker 2: day at a brand new job as a lifeguard. She
1:28
Speaker 2: was just sixteen. It was a hot summer day. Do
1:35
Speaker 2: you remember that day, Maggie.
1:39
Speaker 4: Oh, how I do again. We had just gotten out
1:43
Speaker 4: of school. I'm a school teacher and had cleaned your
1:47
Speaker 4: room and I had I actually was a special led teacher,
1:50
Speaker 4: and I had some ip some work to complete, and
1:55
Speaker 4: so we were all kind of buzzing a little bit.
1:57
Speaker 4: You know. Molly had a new job. My son had
1:59
Speaker 4: just trained her, and I had taken her to work
2:04
Speaker 4: the day before, and it was kind of a little unsettling.
2:08
Speaker 4: We had seen a car that day parked in a
2:12
Speaker 4: parking lot and there was only one white vehicle, and
2:17
Speaker 4: Molly got out and she was very excited and said, hye, Mom,
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Speaker 4: I love you, see you later, you know, when she
2:23
Speaker 4: had to get some supplies ready and go down to
2:25
Speaker 4: the beach. It was the first week of the swimming
2:30
Speaker 4: lessons for the town kids. So we live in a
2:32
Speaker 4: very small community, only four thousand folks. One traffic light,
2:37
Speaker 4: a beautiful town in the central Massachusetts. Well, Molly went
2:41
Speaker 4: off and I see this vehicle on this man and
2:44
Speaker 4: he ends up kind of staring at me, and I
2:47
Speaker 4: get kind of unnerved, and I said, I can't leave
2:50
Speaker 4: Molly here. What is this guy doing here? So I
2:53
Speaker 4: head to the beach and meet her and we sit
2:55
Speaker 4: and it is a very lovely little place and it's
2:58
Speaker 4: kind of again it's down a main street, but it's
3:00
Speaker 4: also kind of isolated. And we sit, we talk and
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Speaker 4: I really we haven't talked a whole lot about danger,
3:09
Speaker 4: but we talked about you know, I said, I noticed
3:12
Speaker 4: there's more men around maybe and she says, oh, it's
3:15
Speaker 4: just fisherman mom, not concerned at all. I talk about
3:18
Speaker 4: how nice the beach is, and then I said, I
3:20
Speaker 4: got to get back and do my reports. So I
3:23
Speaker 4: go to the car and this individual is still there.
3:26
Speaker 4: I am so kind of awestruck, like what is he doing.
3:30
Speaker 4: He's just sitting there smoking a cigarette. There's nothing to view,
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Speaker 4: it's goods. And I get into my car and I'm looking.
3:39
Speaker 4: I had not even taken my purse before, so when
3:41
Speaker 4: I go in, I'm pretending I'm getting something, and prior
3:46
Speaker 4: to that, I'm walking and he stares at me. And
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Speaker 4: I have to tell you, it's like a mother bear.
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Speaker 4: You just want to protect your child. You just say,
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Speaker 4: what are you doing here? Go to work. It's ten
3:56
Speaker 4: o'clock in the morning. And that just got me nerved.
4:00
Speaker 4: So when I went to the car to get my purse.
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Speaker 4: He pulled out so fast that I didn't even think.
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Speaker 4: I just got relieved. It was one of those immediate
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Speaker 4: gut feelings. I just was uncomfortable, and that white car
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Speaker 4: still to this day, we've never found We never found
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Speaker 4: the individual who was driving it. Our case remains unsolved.
4:22
Speaker 4: And anyway, the next day happened. Took Molly to work
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Speaker 4: the same talked to her that night about being safe,
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Speaker 4: even offered her a little cubaton stick, which my husband
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Speaker 4: had as a provation officer. She said, Mom, I don't
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Speaker 4: need it. It's just fishermen. Don't worry. And that next morning,
4:43
Speaker 4: after I drove over to work, there wasn't a single
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Speaker 4: car in the parking lot. She said, goodbye, Mom, I
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Speaker 4: love you. Our routine kind of farewell, and that was
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Speaker 4: the last time I ever heard my Molly. And I
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Speaker 4: would have never, ever in my wildest dreams or sadness,
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Speaker 4: has imagined that three hours later I would get a
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Speaker 4: phone call from the Assistant Chief of police that Molly
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Speaker 4: had not been at the pond all morning. Her things
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Speaker 4: were left on the beach, an open first aid kit,
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Speaker 4: the police radio, her shoes, and her backpack, all remained
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Speaker 4: on the beach, and nobody knew where she was at
5:26
Speaker 4: that point. It just was an unusual event for us.
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Speaker 4: Molly was very conscientious, very kind of nervous. It's a
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Speaker 4: new job. They told me she probably went with friends.
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Speaker 4: It didn't make sense. She left her shoes, she left
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Speaker 4: her backpack, but she left the job at ten o'clock
5:43
Speaker 4: when she just was starting. It just didn't make sense
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Speaker 4: at all. So I called my daughter, Heather, and Heather
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Speaker 4: said she would meet me at the beach, and I
5:52
Speaker 4: immediately got in my car went to the beach and
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Speaker 4: I went I'm still in belief, and I'm calling her
6:01
Speaker 4: and screaming her name. On the beach, Molly, Molly, and
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Speaker 4: people were coming. There was no Molly, and people had
6:09
Speaker 4: said that she hadn't been there. There had been no
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Speaker 4: lifeguard all day. And I knew I dropped her off.
6:15
Speaker 4: I've seen her things, so I was very very frightened.
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Speaker 4: For me. The first gut reaction was something that is
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Speaker 4: really wrong here. I started to go toward the police station.
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Speaker 4: There comes Heather with our new little granddaughter, and we'd
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Speaker 4: go into the police station and I say, something's very wrong.
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Speaker 4: I need this chief. The assistant chief because he called
6:39
Speaker 4: me and my husband, and because he was a probation
6:42
Speaker 4: in the local area at the local court, I said
6:46
Speaker 4: call him. That's how upset I was already. I knew
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Speaker 4: in my heart that this was not how Molly operated.
6:54
Speaker 4: And they told us to go in a little room.
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Speaker 4: It was two young officers and they figured out that, oh,
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Speaker 4: she just went with friends. They weren't concerned. And that's
7:02
Speaker 4: when Heather.
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Speaker 5: And I, well, they told you to go in the room,
7:06
Speaker 5: and I took off looking for MOLLI friends. Well then
7:11
Speaker 5: so I went from there.
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Speaker 4: And then I went also to look for her other
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Speaker 4: friend in the next town that was a good friend,
7:20
Speaker 4: and she was accounted for, and then I got my
7:23
Speaker 4: son returned to we returned to the beach, and when
7:26
Speaker 4: we got to the beach, we were aghast. I mean,
7:29
Speaker 4: people in a small town heard Molly was not at
7:33
Speaker 4: the beach. It was on the scanners and there were
7:35
Speaker 4: people starting to come. And Molly's friend's father was the
7:39
Speaker 4: head of the fire department, and nobody, I think this
7:43
Speaker 4: was the hard partnerancy. Nobody knew. Everybody felt something, but
7:46
Speaker 4: they didn't know what to do. And I really didn't
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Speaker 4: see the priests. As I got there, it was the
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Speaker 4: fireman had actually entered the pond thinking Molly drowned swimming,
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Speaker 4: and that was very frightful. They had those special dogs
8:00
Speaker 4: to determine if there was a body. I mean, it
8:03
Speaker 4: was like you are now really in a surreal, unbelievable
8:07
Speaker 4: place that you've never been, and it's heartbreaking because you
8:12
Speaker 4: don't know where your daughter is. Nobody knows where she is,
8:15
Speaker 4: and you're just watching this show progress and it was
8:20
Speaker 4: scary and sad and you worry what she's thinking. You
8:24
Speaker 4: don't know what. Now that you have children, I know
8:27
Speaker 4: you can imagine how hard what would your child do?
8:31
Speaker 4: And you know each child has their own personality. Molly
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Speaker 4: was funny and silly, but she was also very shy
8:38
Speaker 4: and if someone would hurt her, but she would also
8:40
Speaker 4: trust somebody because she was a good kid and she
8:44
Speaker 4: had no reason not to. You know, if they dressed
8:46
Speaker 4: like a police officer, or they dressed in some you know,
8:51
Speaker 4: authoritative she would go. And that's how I know that
8:56
Speaker 4: we looked there was no nobody had Molly, and we
9:00
Speaker 4: had everybody that she was a friends with accounted for.
9:05
Speaker 4: And that was really a beginning of our horrible nightmare.
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Speaker 6: Everyone with me.
9:09
Speaker 2: Maggie Bish, this is Molly Bish's mother. Molly goes missing
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Speaker 2: one warm June morning two thousand to search still on
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Speaker 2: for Molly's killer. And when I hear you talking, I
9:28
Speaker 2: can't help it. It takes me straight back to when
9:32
Speaker 2: my fiancee was murdered. And there's that feeling you. I
9:38
Speaker 2: felt like a wild animal. This is the only way
9:41
Speaker 2: I can describe it. I felt like a wild animal that.
9:46
Speaker 6: Couldn't form words.
9:48
Speaker 2: I wanted to break the window with my bare hands,
9:52
Speaker 2: and just how I didn't even know words to say.
9:59
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking. I remember one night, right before I
10:03
Speaker 2: was supposed to go on the air, my longtime makeup artist,
10:07
Speaker 2: Shazon was with me and she got a call and
10:11
Speaker 2: she had her hands in my hair at the moment
10:14
Speaker 2: and put it on the speaker and her son was missing,
10:19
Speaker 2: Arlington was missing, and everything just went berserk. And I mean,
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Speaker 2: I've covered all these cases. I know what to do,
10:28
Speaker 2: I know who to call, but when it happens to you,
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Speaker 2: it's a whole whole another can of worms in her story.
10:39
Speaker 6: He was found, Oh thank goodness.
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Speaker 2: And I'm just thinking about you at that pond and
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Speaker 2: they're looking in the water and you see the first
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Speaker 2: aid kid and you see her shoes, and everything's there.
10:57
Speaker 2: Everything's right, everything is present. But Mollie, when did you
11:04
Speaker 2: find out what happened to Molly?
11:08
Speaker 4: It took three long years before we knew anything, and
11:13
Speaker 4: they were hard, and it was really tough for our
11:16
Speaker 4: whole family, and family suffer. You know where we used
11:19
Speaker 4: to have fragile fridays. If we made it another week,
11:24
Speaker 4: you know, how are we doing? Checking in with each other?
11:27
Speaker 4: It was tough. We didn't have small children my children.
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Speaker 4: My son was just in this rist year of college
11:32
Speaker 4: and Heather was just had their first child. So we
11:35
Speaker 4: were a little older, which in some ways is easier,
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Speaker 4: but it's still very difficult because every age has its
11:41
Speaker 4: own difficult acceptance.
11:44
Speaker 2: You're so right about that, And there are so many
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Speaker 2: phases you go through one.
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Speaker 6: When you suffer a loss. My father passed.
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Speaker 2: Away and I'm still a mess. He and I were,
12:02
Speaker 2: I guess soulmates were just. I mean, I love my mother,
12:06
Speaker 2: I'm extremely close to her. I've always talked to her
12:08
Speaker 2: more I guess than I did my dad. But he
12:12
Speaker 2: and I were just two peas in a pod and
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Speaker 2: you go through.
12:17
Speaker 1: It hurts me too.
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Speaker 6: Much to remember what I went through when Keith was murdered.
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Speaker 2: But the thing that that phases you go through when
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Speaker 2: you lose somebody. But I guess I don't know what
12:30
Speaker 2: I'll have to ask you because I knew almost immediately
12:34
Speaker 2: who murdered Keith and what had happened to him.
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Speaker 6: But it was two thousand and three, almost to the day.
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Speaker 6: It was June nine, two thousand and three before you
12:48
Speaker 6: knew what had happened.
12:51
Speaker 4: Well, you know it is. Oh, I can tell you,
12:54
Speaker 4: it's awful. My We actually we had did the Missing
12:58
Speaker 4: Children's Day May at the end of May, and we
13:02
Speaker 4: had come home and John had gotten a call, my husband,
13:06
Speaker 4: and he said, we have to get home. And usually
13:08
Speaker 4: I'm saying thank you to all the people. We have
13:10
Speaker 4: two bustles of people that we take with us to Boston,
13:13
Speaker 4: and so I'm very grateful. We put flowers we could
13:15
Speaker 4: forget me not you don't go out there. We do
13:18
Speaker 4: a big, beautiful program. So we were coming home with
13:21
Speaker 4: all this stuff and John is saying, get home, We're going,
13:24
Speaker 4: We're going, and he was pushing me. I was getting
13:25
Speaker 4: a little agitated. But what happened is one of the
13:28
Speaker 4: news reporters came to our house and they had the
13:31
Speaker 4: pictures because somebody did not believe. Well, how it went
13:36
Speaker 4: is there was a hunter that had spotted something that
13:38
Speaker 4: he wasn't familiar with, but he mentioned it to this
13:42
Speaker 4: person who used to be a police officer, and so
13:45
Speaker 4: they went and they were kind of on their own
13:47
Speaker 4: doing this. And then I guess this police officer didn't
13:52
Speaker 4: believe that the you know, he was afraid the police
13:55
Speaker 4: would take credit for his fine, I guess, and so
13:58
Speaker 4: he wanted someone to take pictures. He called them the press,
14:02
Speaker 4: and the press did it, and so guess what they do.
14:04
Speaker 4: They show it to us before the police even called
14:07
Speaker 4: us and told us anything. So I'm in my driveway
14:10
Speaker 4: and you know how in the press car like the vands,
14:12
Speaker 4: they have all the TVs. Oh no, there's Molly's. Yeah,
14:16
Speaker 4: this is how Molly's. I seen her bathing suit in
14:19
Speaker 4: the rust in the leaves, the old leaves, and John
14:23
Speaker 4: didn't remember, you know, my husband. You know, it's so funny.
14:27
Speaker 4: I actually went out with her to buy this special
14:28
Speaker 4: bathing suit because they didn't have the colored ones. The
14:32
Speaker 4: recreational person who was going to order them, so I
14:34
Speaker 4: knew exactly what it was. It was a blue one,
14:37
Speaker 4: but it was a special one, and I knew right
14:40
Speaker 4: then and there my knees almost crumbled and I ran
14:43
Speaker 4: up the stairs and to our home. And I mean
14:47
Speaker 4: there was three days that I could say. And when
14:48
Speaker 4: you were talking earlier, you do, it's like a primal cry.
14:52
Speaker 4: It's from the depths of your soul. I knew, and
14:56
Speaker 4: I didn't want it, you know, you want to find Molly.
14:59
Speaker 4: But it wasn't the way we had hoped, you know,
15:02
Speaker 4: and my I mean I cried, and it just that
15:07
Speaker 4: was one of the worst I have to say days.
15:09
Speaker 4: And I hollowed and every piece of meat was spent.
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Speaker 6: And say, you know that you say it was a
15:21
Speaker 6: special swimsuit. That and the moment you saw you.
15:25
Speaker 1: Knew what it was.
15:26
Speaker 2: What was it that you knew beyond a doubt that
15:30
Speaker 2: was Molly's swimsuit?
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Speaker 4: No, I really I don't know to analyze it. I
15:38
Speaker 4: think it's just that I was the mother. I picked
15:41
Speaker 4: it out. It was the color, and I think there
15:43
Speaker 4: was a little bit she was going to the training
15:45
Speaker 4: for the lifeguards and she needed a certain kind of
15:49
Speaker 4: you know, a tank suit type, so I knew that material,
15:52
Speaker 4: and it was blue, but it had some you know,
15:55
Speaker 4: it had to be a little bit cool, so it
15:57
Speaker 4: had some mixed colorings in the middle of different things.
16:00
Speaker 4: And I've seen it. I knew, I just knew. And
16:04
Speaker 4: you know, again, they had to send the police in,
16:06
Speaker 4: they had to send the search party, and they had
16:09
Speaker 4: and I mean that began a really another whole experience
16:13
Speaker 4: because the first day they came home with one bone,
16:17
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, it was a shitten bone, but it
16:19
Speaker 4: could possibly be someone in Molly's age range. The next
16:23
Speaker 4: day they had rib bones, and then by the third
16:25
Speaker 4: day they had her skull. I mean what mother sees.
16:30
Speaker 4: You know. We actually did say goodbye to Molly and
16:32
Speaker 4: kissed her good bye, but we only had twenty four
16:36
Speaker 4: bones that were found. But because of that, we were
16:39
Speaker 4: able to get our dental records, you know, so that's
16:42
Speaker 4: they had to certainly make sure it was Molly's and
16:46
Speaker 4: I think that was the only way we were able
16:49
Speaker 4: to They were able to fake the police, but I knew,
16:52
Speaker 4: you know, and it was just.
16:54
Speaker 1: Confirmed crime stories with Nancy Grace.
17:07
Speaker 2: What happened to a beautiful, beautiful young girl, Molly bish
17:14
Speaker 2: Heather bish Is Molly's sister. Heather, what do you recall
17:20
Speaker 2: of this time.
17:22
Speaker 5: Well, I think, you know, I again, it was still
17:26
Speaker 5: that it couldn't be possible that Molly was abducted at
17:29
Speaker 5: you know, I thought that in the beginning that it
17:31
Speaker 5: had to be a mistake, and you know, sort of
17:34
Speaker 5: the same thing, that this could't be right. There's there's
17:37
Speaker 5: got to be an explanation for this. And then as
17:40
Speaker 5: the moments and time kept passing and Molly didn't pop
17:44
Speaker 5: out of anywhere, you know, that's when we realized her
17:47
Speaker 5: her peril. She was in a great day feel of peril.
17:51
Speaker 5: So you know, we became increasingly anxious. I think when
17:55
Speaker 5: even when we found a dating suit for me, you know,
17:57
Speaker 5: I think it just kind of just hold on to hope,
17:59
Speaker 5: like I don't know, maybe they maybe he stripped her
18:02
Speaker 5: and threw the bathing suit in the woods or or something.
18:05
Speaker 5: We just want, I want to believe something as terrible
18:09
Speaker 5: as as her loss isn't isn't going to be what
18:12
Speaker 5: what the final end of the story is. And for me,
18:15
Speaker 5: I can remember the day that the state police actually
18:18
Speaker 5: came up to the house on June ninth, when when
18:21
Speaker 5: they did find this go because people were coming over
18:24
Speaker 5: to my mom's house every day. And I had been
18:26
Speaker 5: living in Western mass at the time and driving out
18:29
Speaker 5: every morning with my three year old, and it was
18:32
Speaker 5: about a forty five minute drive, and for a three
18:34
Speaker 5: year old that has to go potty all the time,
18:36
Speaker 5: that's like two potty stuff. You know, never never an easy,
18:40
Speaker 5: easy trip. But we were doing that daily to ensure
18:45
Speaker 5: that we were we were all together. And I remember
18:48
Speaker 5: we had just gotten there on June ninth, and there
18:50
Speaker 5: are people in the driveway and my mam was talking
18:53
Speaker 5: and in the distance I could see the Districk attorney
18:56
Speaker 5: and the head of our investigation walking up the driveway
19:01
Speaker 5: and they were wearing suits, and it was, you know,
19:03
Speaker 5: the beginning of June, and I was thinking, jeez, it's
19:07
Speaker 5: a real really hot day to be wearing a full
19:09
Speaker 5: suit like that. And then I I just I just knew.
19:12
Speaker 5: I thought, I just knew, like, this is it, this
19:15
Speaker 5: is this is the final they're going to tell us. Now.
19:19
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting ever that you're saying. And I
19:23
Speaker 2: paid to keep projecting, but what you're saying is striking so.
19:26
Speaker 6: Many chords in me. You just when you saw those
19:29
Speaker 6: guys in the suits you knew, and I'm just.
19:33
Speaker 5: I really, I just I just really wanted to run away,
19:36
Speaker 5: to be honest with you, I didn't even want to
19:38
Speaker 5: hear what they were going to going to say. I
19:40
Speaker 5: just thought if I could run, I would be able
19:43
Speaker 5: to outrun the truth or the reality or you know.
19:46
Speaker 5: It just felt like everything's going to change now, our
19:49
Speaker 5: whole life everything. And I was sure, God, Heather, we'd
19:53
Speaker 5: ever feel safe again.
19:55
Speaker 6: That you your mind tries to.
20:00
Speaker 2: Get around it or bend with it, because I remember
20:05
Speaker 2: I would wake up in the mornings and I would
20:07
Speaker 2: think that Keith was still alive and this had been some.
20:12
Speaker 6: Elaborate ruse, and I would dream.
20:15
Speaker 2: I would dream and this is so I don't know
20:18
Speaker 2: exactly what this means, because I never saw a shrink
20:21
Speaker 2: about it.
20:21
Speaker 6: Probably should.
20:22
Speaker 2: I would dream that Keith wanted to get out of
20:26
Speaker 2: the engagement, and so he had faked the whole thing,
20:32
Speaker 2: because you know, this close.
20:33
Speaker 6: To us getting married, he had decided that. In my dream,
20:37
Speaker 6: and I'd wake up and I go, oh.
20:39
Speaker 2: Thank god, he's alive, and it's just you know, and
20:43
Speaker 2: then I'd wait, wait a minute.
20:45
Speaker 5: I would want it. Oh, I would have dreams that
20:48
Speaker 5: Molly was still alive, but she would be you know,
20:50
Speaker 5: she would have gone off with her friends to Florida,
20:53
Speaker 5: or she went on you know, she went on a
20:55
Speaker 5: trip and she was just back and she was going
20:57
Speaker 5: to see her old boyfriend, and I would be I
21:00
Speaker 5: remember in the dreams feeling like, no, you can't go.
21:03
Speaker 5: I desperately want to be with you and hang out
21:05
Speaker 5: with you. And generally that's not how twenty year olds
21:08
Speaker 5: feel about their teenage sisters. So I've always sort of
21:13
Speaker 5: thought about those dreams later now in life and thought, jeez,
21:16
Speaker 5: you know, maybe Molly was trying to tell me in
21:18
Speaker 5: some capacity that she was okay, you know, and it
21:21
Speaker 5: was just me feeling this desperate feeling.
21:24
Speaker 1: Listen to this to the man who took Molly dish.
21:27
Speaker 7: Does June twenty seventh, two thousand mean anything to you.
21:32
Speaker 7: I remember it as a warm summer day. We left home,
21:36
Speaker 7: we picked up the police radio, and then we arrived
21:38
Speaker 7: at the pond.
21:40
Speaker 4: The sand truck was there.
21:41
Speaker 7: We watched, mesmerized like little children, as the sand fell
21:45
Speaker 7: gently to the ground.
21:47
Speaker 4: Molly and Mom for the last time.
21:50
Speaker 7: Mollie said goodbye, I love you, and man off it
21:54
Speaker 7: was her eighth day on her new job as a lifeguard.
21:58
Speaker 7: That was the last time I saw or heard from
22:01
Speaker 7: my Molly. I have held those words wrapped around my
22:05
Speaker 7: heart to sustain it from breaking into a million broken pieces.
22:10
Speaker 4: Her remains were found on a central Massachusetts mountain side
22:13
Speaker 4: three years later.
22:15
Speaker 1: The case remains unsolved.
22:17
Speaker 8: It's an open investigation. We're constantly getting tips and leads
22:23
Speaker 8: on it. We're moving forward and going through the beginning
22:27
Speaker 8: to now. We started talking to some of the original investigators,
22:31
Speaker 8: just bring them in as a group, and we also
22:32
Speaker 8: have a disc attorney assigned to the case. So they
22:35
Speaker 8: came in and we just started going over there observations
22:37
Speaker 8: that notes their feelings, you know, things like that Maggie
22:41
Speaker 8: Bush could never imagine a moment that she'd never see
22:44
Speaker 8: her daughter Molly ever.
22:46
Speaker 7: Again, Molly could be very shy and she could be
22:50
Speaker 7: very silly. There was two sides of her in her
22:53
Speaker 7: comfort zone. She was silly like Lucy, I mean, goofy silly.
22:59
Speaker 5: We were just getting our adult relationship when Molly disappeared,
23:02
Speaker 5: So I often wonder what that would have been like
23:05
Speaker 5: to have known. Horizon Adults.
23:13
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
23:19
Speaker 2: With me is Maggie Bish. This is Molly Bish's mother.
23:24
Speaker 2: Molly goes missing one warm June morning, two thousand, the
23:34
Speaker 2: search still on for Molly's killer. And I'm trying to
23:39
Speaker 2: imagine your v you know, you pull up and you
23:44
Speaker 2: at a distance see all these guys in suits and
23:47
Speaker 2: your driveway, and.
23:48
Speaker 6: I'm trying to imagine what Maggie that.
23:53
Speaker 2: What that was when press A van pulls up and
23:58
Speaker 2: they run up. What do they have a picture of
24:00
Speaker 2: her swimsuit?
24:01
Speaker 4: Maggie, Well, you know what, I guess this, Like I said,
24:05
Speaker 4: this person didn't believe it. So they had six TV's
24:08
Speaker 4: going on. There were six TV's in that van, and
24:11
Speaker 4: there was every vantage point that they could take the picture.
24:14
Speaker 4: And I mean it truly was a small piece of
24:16
Speaker 4: bathing suit that was peeking out from underneath twigs and
24:21
Speaker 4: old leaves, and it was just taking in different.
24:27
Speaker 2: Views.
24:28
Speaker 4: And I mean it didn't take me the second to
24:31
Speaker 4: gather that information from you know, meno seconds and I
24:35
Speaker 4: ran up the stairs because I knew. I closed my
24:37
Speaker 4: door in my room and I began to howl. I
24:40
Speaker 4: was on my knees and you know, John was down
24:43
Speaker 4: there talking and I just like could this the I
24:46
Speaker 4: mean because again we had just a missing Children's day
24:49
Speaker 4: for the folks in Massachusetts.
24:51
Speaker 2: It was a.
24:51
Speaker 4: Beautiful day of great We were coming home feeling at
24:54
Speaker 4: least we're doing something positive, and you know, we always
24:58
Speaker 4: will miss Molly. That's to see. This was it was
25:02
Speaker 4: too close to knowing that this was not good.
25:05
Speaker 2: Molly goes missing one warm June morning, two thousand to
25:16
Speaker 2: search still on for Molly's killer. We are now hearing
25:22
Speaker 2: rumblings that DNA de oxarivo y clay acid tests are
25:31
Speaker 2: stirring little seeds of hope. What do you know about
25:36
Speaker 2: a potential DNA test you want to.
25:39
Speaker 4: Talk out of?
25:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, I have been sort of headlining the investigative
25:44
Speaker 5: efforts with for my family. But about a year ago
25:50
Speaker 5: they took and every so often they'll take pieces of
25:54
Speaker 5: evidence and submit them for DNA testing and they'll try
25:58
Speaker 5: to compare it when they have a U. A few
26:01
Speaker 5: years ago they had a really quote unquote good person
26:04
Speaker 5: of interest down in Florida and they you know, had
26:08
Speaker 5: taken some DNA from there and submitted it and then
26:11
Speaker 5: nothing was sort of a hit. So as so, I
26:15
Speaker 5: guess our hope sort of lies in the science and
26:18
Speaker 5: technology that you know, sort of helping investigators solve these
26:23
Speaker 5: older cases. And so they took twenty four pieces of
26:27
Speaker 5: evidence to retest, and so they don't exactly tell us
26:33
Speaker 5: what they took or where it came from, but we
26:36
Speaker 5: know it was twenty four pieces of evidence, and they
26:39
Speaker 5: resubmitted them for further testing. You know, as they, like
26:43
Speaker 5: I said, that the technology increases in the touch DNA
26:47
Speaker 5: becomes available, they will continuously keep keep resubmitting for particularly
26:55
Speaker 5: these older cases, because they've had they've been able to,
26:59
Speaker 5: you know, solve cases based on the dnaming.
27:02
Speaker 6: See the seeds of hope, aren't that DNA samples have.
27:09
Speaker 2: Been taken and they're being re examined with new techniques
27:13
Speaker 2: that were not possible at that time.
27:15
Speaker 6: I mean that is a huge, big.
27:17
Speaker 2: Deal because I recall trying rape cases, murder cases, you
27:22
Speaker 2: name it, with no DNA.
27:25
Speaker 1: You know what I'd have.
27:26
Speaker 2: I'd have blood, a blood sample, and I could say, well,
27:30
Speaker 2: the suspect is a positive and the perpetrator was a positive.
27:35
Speaker 1: That was it.
27:36
Speaker 6: Or maybe a hair and I could.
27:39
Speaker 2: Say the rapist or the killer is a Caucasian male.
27:45
Speaker 1: With X hair.
27:47
Speaker 6: I mean, that was it? Ei there was no.
27:49
Speaker 2: Nuclear or mitochondrial touch nothing. So this is a major
27:56
Speaker 2: development that they are doing this. I want to ask
27:59
Speaker 2: you about this deep ground sonar.
28:06
Speaker 1: Test that's being done.
28:08
Speaker 5: What do we know about that?
28:10
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we.
28:12
Speaker 5: You know, over the years, we've you know, because law
28:15
Speaker 5: enforcement is uh, you know, they sort of work on
28:18
Speaker 5: their own and and you know, they don't necessarily report
28:21
Speaker 5: to victim family if that can become very frustrating for
28:24
Speaker 5: victim families. And because we, you know, felt very strongly
28:30
Speaker 5: that we wanted this to be solved. We wanted our
28:32
Speaker 5: community to feel safe. We wanted our friends kids to
28:35
Speaker 5: feel safe. You know, we've all grown up here where
28:39
Speaker 5: you know, and some capacities, family to each other.
28:42
Speaker 2: What do you think they hope to find heather with
28:45
Speaker 2: the ground penetrating radar and it's on a private property
28:51
Speaker 2: in an undisclosed location.
28:54
Speaker 1: In Worcester County?
28:55
Speaker 6: What could that mean?
28:57
Speaker 2: What was that where the swimsuit was found mag in
29:00
Speaker 2: Worcester County?
29:03
Speaker 5: No, No, it was where we received it. So I'm
29:08
Speaker 5: just trying to put the backstory here. We some friends
29:13
Speaker 5: in the area, a person who has a PhD in criminology,
29:17
Speaker 5: and I sort of formed this sort of investigated team.
29:20
Speaker 5: It kind of came off to our fundraisers and things
29:23
Speaker 5: like that. We developed this little team. This little team
29:27
Speaker 5: developed these campaigns. So one year we did billboards, another
29:33
Speaker 5: year we did ads. Each time we do one, we
29:36
Speaker 5: do a tip campaign. And so we had a just
29:39
Speaker 5: one Piece campaign because the state police had always said
29:41
Speaker 5: we're one piece away from solving this crime. During our
29:44
Speaker 5: just one Piece campaign, we received a number of tips
29:48
Speaker 5: on a particular person who stayed at this particular campground
29:52
Speaker 5: in Worcester County. This next year, we had another campaign
29:57
Speaker 5: and we called it just one Car because we were
30:00
Speaker 5: trying to identify this light car. Was it tied to
30:03
Speaker 5: this person? That was the location?
30:06
Speaker 2: The location right question, So let me understand the location
30:11
Speaker 2: is the campground where a potential suspect stayed.
30:16
Speaker 6: Okay, got it?
30:18
Speaker 2: And what do you think, Maggie, they are looking for
30:23
Speaker 2: with the deep ground search.
30:26
Speaker 4: Well, I understand that it has the potential to be
30:29
Speaker 4: able to recognize metal or rock or anything, and especially
30:35
Speaker 4: if there was something of some size. You know, bearing
30:39
Speaker 4: got cars quite big, you know, how deep could they go?
30:42
Speaker 4: So this radar has a way to analyze how the
30:47
Speaker 4: depths and how significant that you know, if it's metal
30:52
Speaker 4: or something that you know, I guess that's what they do.
30:56
Speaker 4: They do some kind of a computation and it termins.
31:01
Speaker 4: So from what we understand, there were three places that
31:04
Speaker 4: they felt some interest. Now you know, again they have
31:10
Speaker 4: to hand that information over to the state police, and
31:13
Speaker 4: the state police have to, you know, decide if it's
31:16
Speaker 4: worth digging or going into. Now again, it could be
31:21
Speaker 4: it's like this whole story again. You always get hopeful,
31:25
Speaker 4: but you have to kind of protect yourself from disappointment.
31:28
Speaker 4: You've got to protect you know, you don't really you
31:30
Speaker 4: want it, but you're scared. The emotional battle within is
31:34
Speaker 4: unbelievable because you've been doing this so long now that
31:39
Speaker 4: you want it, but we don't get to choose any
31:42
Speaker 4: of it, you know.
31:43
Speaker 2: So now it's true, Maggie that other girls similar in
31:51
Speaker 2: age to Mollie also we're kidnapped.
31:56
Speaker 4: Yes, we have a girl that was ten years old,
31:59
Speaker 4: a little little bit younger in Sturbridge, which is a
32:03
Speaker 4: twenty minute a distance from our home, and she was
32:08
Speaker 4: taken before Mollie, maybe seven years. There had been some cases,
32:13
Speaker 4: maybe even a little older, that were in northern Michigan
32:17
Speaker 4: and Massachusetts near the New York border, and there was
32:21
Speaker 4: a gentleman that they thought was a serial killer up
32:24
Speaker 4: there that might have been involved. I mean, you know,
32:29
Speaker 4: it's so sad. I mean, you hear these horrible cases,
32:32
Speaker 4: but you don't understand. I mean, certainly I wasn't one
32:36
Speaker 4: that you know, really understood any of this. You know, now,
32:41
Speaker 4: I know all these families who have struggled and who
32:44
Speaker 4: keeps struggling, you know, to find their loved ones on
32:48
Speaker 4: how they deal with it, and it is very, very hard.
32:52
Speaker 4: So you know, again there possibly could be serial killer
32:55
Speaker 4: out there. And that's what worried us because this, to me, Nancy,
33:01
Speaker 4: how does a normal person do something this horrific? And
33:05
Speaker 4: that is so It's like when you throw the rock
33:08
Speaker 4: into the river and the ripples. It has caused so
33:11
Speaker 4: much pain to Molly's friends, our family out into the community,
33:15
Speaker 4: the fear that he's somewhere.
33:18
Speaker 3: If you have information on the abduction and murder of
33:21
Speaker 3: Molly Bisch, contact the DA's office at five O eight
33:25
Speaker 3: four five three seven five seven five one day.
33:31
Speaker 1: This case will be solved. Nancy Gray signing off, good
33:38
Speaker 1: bye friend,