Latest / Crime Night / Britney Wallace Shank vanished in the fog

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Britney Wallace Shank vanished in the fog · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to just picture this scene for
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: a second. Okay, I'm ready. It's November thirtieth, twenty eighteen.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You're in a highly rural, snow covered farming community in Michigan. Yeah,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and the freezing fog on Fond River Road is like
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: so unbelievably thick that you can barely see the hood
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of your own car.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, that sounds completely miserable, right.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It's blinding white darkness out there, and out of that fog,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a twenty three year old woman steps onto the back
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: porch of a total stranger.
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  Speaker 2: Just completely out of nowhere exactly.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing. She is completely barefoot. She has
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: no coat on at all, and she's actually bleeding from
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: these small sharp cuts across her arms and like the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: soles of her feet.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, barefoot in the snow.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But when the homeowner, this guy named John, when
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: he opens the door, she doesn't panic. She's actually remarkably calm.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: She just asks for medical help and says that her
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: boyfriend just wrecked their car down the road and took
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: off running.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, so a car crouch, I'm that sort of explains
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the cuts.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe, well, John Hanser, this heavy green John Deere sweatshirt
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to keep her warm, right, and he immediately calls nine
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: to one one. But and this is where it gets crazy.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: In the few short minutes before the sheriff's deputies arrived,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: she literally turns her back to the safety of the house,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: walks off the porch, and just vanishes completely back into
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the freezing fog.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Wait, she asks for help and then just left before
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: it arrived.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, welcome to the deep dive. Today. We are digging
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: into a massive pile of investigation timelines, police reports, and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: case files to untangle in an incredibly convoluted, just deeply
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: unsettling story.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is, it's really something else.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is to reconstruct this night, dissect this
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: massive web of bizarre alibis, and try to understand how
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a young mother named Britney Walla Shank could just evaporate.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: And you know, as an investigator, the physical evidence at
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: the core of this inciting incident, it immediately contradicts the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: entire narrative she gave that homeowner right because of the
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: car exactly. Responders arrive at the property. Brittany has already gone, obviously,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: but they easily locate the vehicle she mentioned just down
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: the road. It actually belongs to her current boyfriend, a
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: guy named Sheldon Ashbrook.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And looking at the state of that vehicle, it really
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: forces you to completely re evaluate what actually happened in
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: those moments before she knocked on that stranger's door.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the narrative she gave John was that they
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: had a wreck. But when officers examine the car, it
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: hasn't been wrecked at all, not even a little bit.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, it had veered off the shoulder into what
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: locals describe as a very very shallow drainage ditch. We're
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: talking about like a minor divot in the earth. The
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: vehicle wasn't heavily damaged, it wasn't even severely.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Stuck, so it was still drivable.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: It was entirely drivable, which you know, brings the nature
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: of her physical injuries into really sharp focus.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Because you don't get all cut up from sliding into
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a tiny ditch.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Right If a car barely slides into a shallow shoulder,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the kinetic energy involved does not produce bleeding cuts on
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: your arms, in your feet. And furthermore, when Sheldon eventually
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: recovers the car from the impound lot, he discovers the
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: interior is completely demolished.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Demolished how like from the impact.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: No, No, the glove box is ripped open. Britney's purse
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: has been entirely dumped out, and her personal belongings are
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: just scattered haphazardly across the seats in the floorboards.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: See a dumped purse doesn't happen from a slow slide
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: into some dirt. That points to like a frantic search
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: or physical altercation exactly. And the most glaring hole in
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: her story to John on the porch is that Sheldon
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: wasn't even in the car.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Right, He wasn't there.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: He had lent it to her earlier that evening and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: he was safely back at his own house. So she
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: lied to John about who she was with, and she
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: lied about the severity of the crash.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: We really have to analyze the psychology of her environment
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: at that exact moment, I mean, the temperature was well
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: below freezing. She abandoned a functional heated vehicle, leaving her
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: shoes and coat behind to flee into the.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Pitch dark, which makes no sense.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: People do not abandon a warm shelter in deadly weather conditions,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: unless remaining in that shelter is perceived as the deadlier option.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: If a classic horror movie trope playing out in real life.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't run barefoot into the snowy woods
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: unless whatever is inside the car with you is far
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: more dangerous than hypothermia.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So those small cuts on her feet and arms likely
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: didn't come from a minor fender bender. They came from
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: plunging through thorns and frozen brush in the dark, or,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: like we said, from a violent struggle inside that trashed interior.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And if the threat was inside the vehicle and we
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: know Sheldon was at home, we have to reconstruct the
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: timeline to determine who else she allowed into that car.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, the physical evidence transforms this from a routine
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: accident response into an active, escalating crime scene.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: So tracing this timeline requires looking really closely at a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: very tight window of time. According to Sheldon, Britney leaves
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: his house somewhere between five zero zero and six to
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: zero zero PM, and shortly after she calls him comple
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: plaining about the fuel gage, saying she needs to stop
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: for gas. We then have a confirmed sighting of her
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: arriving at her Grandmother Vicki's house between six point thirty
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and seven pointy PM to do laundry.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: But she doesn't arrive alone, does she.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: No, she does not. She is accompanied by an unidentified
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: individual who really becomes central to this entire mystery. Witnesses
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: at the house describe a thin, white male in his
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: early to mid.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Twenties, and he had a very specific look.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Right is short blonde hair and highly distinct thick mutton chop.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Sideburn like Elvis sideburn.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Literally, and he is wearing this yellow tracksuit style outfit
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: featuring stark black details. But it's the behavioral dynamic between
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: this man and Brittany that is described as just visibly
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: strained and tense.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Grandma Vicki noted that this we'll call him the
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: mystery man, was pacing around and just rushing Brittany. He's
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: acting like he had somewhere much more important to be
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and was just openly irritated that they were stopped to
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: wash clothes.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And the tension was so high that Britney didn't even
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: wait for the laundry to finish. No, she didn't. She
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: pulled damp, totally unwashed clothes out of the machines. Stuffed
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: them into a basket, and they both left the house
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: abruptly at eight thirty pm.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And the mathematics of the timeline from this point forward
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: they leave virtually no room for alternate passengers. Like they
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: leave the grandmother's house at eight thirty pm, the location
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: where the car slid into the ditch is only a
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: five minute drive away.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they're right there.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the nine to one to one call placed
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: by the stranger on the porch happens at eight fifty pm. Wow,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: that twenty minute window barely accounts for the driving time,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: the altercation that trashed the car, and Britney's flight through
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  Speaker 2: the woods to the back porch.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: So she simply didn't have the time to drop off
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the mystery man and pick up an entirely different attacker.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: The man in the yellow track suit was almost certainly
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the person inside that car, definitely, and the events that
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: unfold immediately after she walks away from the stranger's porch,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you know, wearing that barreled green sweatshirt, proved that this
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: man wasn't just in the car, he was actively hunting her.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the subsequent sighting is arguably the most disturbing
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: element of the evening's chronology. A short distance away from
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: the initial house, there's a young teenager who is home alone,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: just a kid, right, And this teenager observes a woman
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: matching Britney's description, now wearing a large green coat, pacing
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: around his property. She is peering frantically through the ground
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: floor windows, moving from the backyard toward the front.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And this is the terrifying part. As the teenager is
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: watching her look through the glass, he simultaneously hears someone
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: else aggressively pounding on the front door.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: The teen is entirely alone and too terrified to answer,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: so he just stays hidden. But think about the spatial
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: logistics of that moment. You have a bleeding, freezing woman
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: circling the perimeter looking in the windows while someone else
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: is violently knocking at the main entrance.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: It indicates a coordinated pursuit. She was seeking entry or
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: refuge through the windows because the person chasing her had
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: already intercepted the front door.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It's so scary.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: It really is. The dumped purse, the argument over the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: damp laundry, the frantic window peering. That these are not
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: the actions of someone avoiding a traffic citation. These are
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the actions of someone trying to survive a predator in the.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Dark, so identifying the mystery man as obviously the only
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: way to solve this. But as investigators finally start pulling
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: at the threads of Brittany's social circle, they don't find
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: clarity at all. They uncover an incredibly toxic ecosystem where
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: everyone seems to be manipulating the truth.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And to understand the people around Brittany, we really have
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: to look at the immense vulnerabilities in her own life
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: at that time.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: She was a twenty three year old mother of four
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: who had recently been stripped of her custody rights. She
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: was battling a severe active addiction to methamphetamine, and she
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: was carrying an active warrant for her arrest on a
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: larceny charge.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: That is a lot to be dealing with all at once.
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  Speaker 2: It is, and these overlapping crises create a profound systemic vulnerability.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: People in this state often become, you know, in to
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: traditional support systems, making them highly susceptible to manipulation by
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: those in their immediate circle.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the two most chaotic figures in
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: this story. First we have Eric Shank, Britney's estranged husband.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: They were still legally married but living apart, and Brittany
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: was actively preparing divorce papers the week she vanished.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, so tensions are probably pretty high there.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Extremely their dynamic was fueled by substance abuse and described
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: by everyone around them as highly volatile. And then we
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: have Ashley Hughley, a friend from the local drug scene
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: who initially inserted herself into the investigation by lying to
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the police literally claiming she was Britney's biological sister.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Which is such a massive red flag when law enforcement
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: attempts to establish basic whereabouts for the night of November thirtieth,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Eric and Ashley immediately locked together to form a mutual shield.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: How so well, Eric claims he was at Ashley's apartment
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: for the entire duration of the night. Ashley corroborates this,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: providing his alibi while he provides hers.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I see, but the strength of that alibi completely falls
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: apart when you look at how they behave in the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: weeks following the disappearance. I mean, I want to highlight
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a traffic stop that occurs on December twenty third, so
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: just over three weeks after Britney vanished into the fog.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Right the day before Christmas Eve.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly, local police pull over a black Ford suv. Eric
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Shank is behind the wheel, driving on a restricted license,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: which means he is legally only permitted to drive to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: specific locations like work or court. Yet he is out
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: deep in the rural woods and the suv belongs.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: To Ashley and the body camera footage of this encounter
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: is just a masterclass in deflection, it really is. The
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: vehicle contains used syringes, noodle caps, and a tactical police baton.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: When the officer asks Eric what they are doing out
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: in the woods, Eric assumes the role of this grieving spouse,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: claiming he's out looking for my wife. However, just moments
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: before this, when explaining why he is driving the vehicle
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: in the first place, he casually refers to Ashley as
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: his girl.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Wait, he calls her his girlfriend and then says he's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: out looking for his wife. And sitting in the passenger
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: seat is Eric's friend John Fox Junior, who goes by
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: jj JJ. Is holding a notepad filled with random names
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and confidently tells the officer he is conducting his own
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: investigation into a local sex trafficking ring.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: It is just an absurd scene.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: It's chaotic. You have weapons, drug paraphernalia, a restricted license violation,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and wild conspiracy theories. But because it is the day
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: before Christmas Eve, the fatigued officers decide they just don't
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: want to process the paperwork and they literally let them
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: drive away.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And that decision represents a catastrophic failure in standard police procedure.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: They lost a critical opportunity to interview to prime individuals
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: while they're separated. Yep, But the actions of Eric and
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Ashley only escalate from there. They transition from merely deflecting
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: police attention to actively producing highly suspicious physical and digital evidence.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: This is where their behavior reminds me of like a
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: squid deploying ink and it's threatened.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good comparison.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: They aren't trying to solve the mystery of what happened
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: to Brittaney. They are just aggressively muddying the water so
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: law enforcement can't see what is right in front of them.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the sheer statistical absurdity of the clues
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they managed to find. First, Ashley openly admits to logging
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: into Brittany's Facebook account after she goes missing.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, friends suddenly notice the missing woman's account is active online.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Right, and critical messages between Brittany, Ashley, and Eric are
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: permanently deleted or altered.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: And Ashley attempts to justify this digital tampering by claiming
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: she was simply hunting for clues and that the messages
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: were already missing when she logged in convenient very and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: this claim is vehemently disputed by Britney's family. So we
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: then move from digital manipulation to the miraculous discovery of
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: physical evidence. We know Britney's cell phone was not in
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the abandoned car. During a disorganized civilian surge party, Eric
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Shank separates himself entirely from.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: The group, always a bad sign.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Always. He wanders alone into an empty field near the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: crash site and miraculously discovers the backplate of a Samsung
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: phone that perfectly matches his missing wife's device.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't call the search party over to document
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: where it was found, right, He just pockets it and
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: turns it in later exactly, And then we have the
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: gas receipt. Remember the phone call Brittany made to Sheldon
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: about needing gas earlier in the night. Yeah, two full
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: months after she vanishes, Ashley claims her SUV is temporarily
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: stolen by JJ. When she recovers the vehicle, she claims
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: she is digging through a random trash bag left inside it,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: supposedly looking for proof of who took the car. Inside
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that random trash bag, she just happens to find a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: gas receipt from a marathon station on Fawn River Road,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: stamped at November thirtieth, six point one one pm, paid
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: for with Britney's account, And rather.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Than preserving this crucial piece of forensic evidence and submitting
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: it to detectives, wait for it, Ashley takes a photograph
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: of the receipt with her phone and throws the paper away.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: You have got to be kidding me.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Nope. She later claims she didn't realize its importance until
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: after the garbage was collected.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: We have to step back and just look at the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: impossibility of this. I mean, Eric finds the only piece
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of the missing phone completely alone in a massive field.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Ashley finds the only proof of the timeline in a
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: stolen trash bag and destroys the physical copy. Ashley logs
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: into the Facebook account just as messages disappear.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It's too much.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: It is statistically impossible for one tiny friend group to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: accidentally insert themselves into every single evidentiary discovery.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: What you are observing here is a well documented survival
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: mechanism within insular, illicit communities. When individuals involve in substance
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: abuse realize that justice system is suddenly paying attention to
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: their circle, they flood the zone with noise, the squidd
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: ink exactly the squidding. They manufacture clues, they point fingers,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and they amplify paranoia to ensure the police are constantly
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: chasing ghosts instead of looking at the most obvious us.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And the paranoia they generated was incredibly effective. Yeah, Ashley
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: actively tried to cast suspicion on Britney's own mother, Jessica.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a whole other MESSI layer.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Now, to be impartial, it is true that the relationship
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: between Brittany and her mother was highly volatile. They had
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a history of fierce arguments over Britney's addiction, the custody
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the children, and a deeply complicated situation involving a man
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: named Daniel, whom both women had been romantically involved with.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: At different points and this familial toxicity was weaponized when
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: highly disturbing private voice memos between Brittany and Jessica were
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: leaked to the public.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these recordings feature a vicious, painful argument where Jessica
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: says deeply hurtful things to her daughter. Ashley admits she
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: had access to Jessica's old Facebook account where these memos
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: were stored, but she denies being the person who actually
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: lead them to the Internet to frame the mother.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Sure she does. But the darkest revelation, the one that
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: proves this was far more than just a random encounter
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: in the fog, comes from a newly uncovered prison phone call.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, this part is wild.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: On the exact night she vanished, likely while she was
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: in the car heading to Grandma Vicky's to do laundry,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Brittany was on the phone with an incarcerated man named
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Zachary Bowman.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And prison phone systems record every single conversation.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Rest Zacly and inmates know this. Consequently, our conversations involving
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: illicit activities are heavily coated. In this recording, Brittany lowers
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: her voice and whispers to Zachary that a man known
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: as Pocket had been arrested the previous night.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's pause and map this out for a second.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: We have Britney's friend Ashley. Ashley is currently dating this
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: man known as Pocket. On the recorded call, Brittany tells
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Zachary that she is hanging around Eric, Ashley, and Pocket's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: lady meaning Ashley, right. She heavily implies she has explosive,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: dangerous information about this group, but she explicitly refuses to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: say it out loud. She tells Zachary she doesn't want
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: anything to come back on me, and she is terrified
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that Pocket will seek revenge for returns allegation if for
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: words a.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: River repeated and analyzing that transcriptive elevates the threat level entirely.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: This was not a crime of opportunity committed by a
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: stranger passing through a rural town. This was a targeted silencing.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Brittany possessed leverage or knowledge concerning Ashley, Eric and Pocket,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: and she was acutely aware that this knowledge placed her
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: life in imminent danger.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And how did the local Saint Joseph County Sheriff's office
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: handle this intricate web of prison codes, tampered digital evidence,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and fake alibis with a truly staggering level of investigative appathy.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: It's infuriating.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: They looked at a young woman with a meth addiction
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and a larceny warrant, and they just immediately adopted the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: narrative that she simply ran away to avoid jail. They
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: allowed Sheldon to tow his trash car out of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: impound lot without ever processing the interior for fingerprints, blood,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: or DNA.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: The lack of basic forensic curiosity is difficult to comprehend.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, they did not officially sit down to interview
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Eric Shank, the estranged husband who miraculously found the phone
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: back plate and was driving around the woods with weapons,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: until nearly five years after Britney disappeared.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Five years, and they actively pacified the family with misinformation
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: during that time. Detectives actually told Britney's father that both
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Eric and Ashley had taken and passed polygraph examinations.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: But that wasn't true, not at all.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: When Ashley was later interviewed by an independent investigator, she
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: stated unequivocally that she never took a polygraph. She explained
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that she went to the station for a three hour
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: pre screening, but the examiner sent her home without hooking
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: her up to the machine because she just hadn't gotten
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: enough sleep.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: This systemic failure highlights exactly why poverty and addiction create
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: such an impenetrable barrier between a vulnerable community and law enforcement.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: When marginalized victims are ignored by the authorities, the community
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: realizes no official help is coming.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And then the rumor miil takes over.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Yep, trust completely collapses and the vacuum is immediately filled
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: by localized rumors.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And those rumors paralyzed whatever tiny bit of momentum the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: police had left. The town became obsessed with an abandoned
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: house on Fonn River Road that mysteriously burned to the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: ground shortly after Britney vanished.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Oh right, people.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Swore she was held captive there as part of a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: trafficking ring. Police actually sifted through the ashes and found
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: women's underwear and a stained knife, but it yielded absolutely nothing.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Then there was the viral ring camera footage of a
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: woman stealing gas and a white Cadillac a few weeks later.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: The audio quality was terrible, but the entire town convinced
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: themselves they could hear Britney screaming for her life. In
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the background of the video.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It's like mass hysteria, it really is.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: These rumors act like static on a radio dial. They
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: create so much chaotic noise that underresourced, apathetic police departments
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: simply give up trying to find the actual signal.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And Britney walla Shank was swallowed by that static. A
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: young mother was hunted into the freezing fog, and the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: mystery man in the yellow tracksuit who drove her into
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: that ditch has never been named.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It's awful.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: The people who you know exactly what happened to her
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: or still out there walking around, insulated by a town's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: paranoia and a police force's failure.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating portrait of how a person's circumstances
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: can be weaponized against them, ensuring their disappearance is treated
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: as an inconvenience rather than a tragedy.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It really is. But before we finish up today, I
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: want you to think about your own phone right now.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Think about the apps you have open, the messages you've
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: sent today, the private thoughts you've typed out. If you
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: were to vanish tonight and tomorrow morning someone else had
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: your passwords, how easily could they rewrite the last few
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: days of your life.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: The digital ghost, because Ashley logging into Britney's account wasn't
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: just tampering with evidence. It was the act of erasure
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: of a victim's final thoughts before the search for her
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: had even begun.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly, we will never know what secrets, what arguments, or
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: what desperate pleas for help were permanently deleted from Britney's
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: digital life while her physical body was still missing in
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the woods.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: It's chilling.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: A twenty three year old woman knocked on a stranger's door,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: bleeding and terrified, she asked for help, stepped back off
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the porch into the whiteout conditions and evaporated. And the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: people who erase her are still hiding in plain sight.