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1986 Disappearance of TSU Student Among Three Unsolved Cases · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ever get that that shiver down your spine, feeling like
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  if you just took one wrong turn, things can go
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  really sideways.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
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  Speaker 1: Today we're dealing with that kind of vibe diving into
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  some disappearances from Tennessee State University. These cases, they're like
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  stuck in time. Yeah, you know, and you know how
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  you guys always ask for deep dives on missing persons. Yeah,
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  this is that times a thousand. Oh wow, Okay, these
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  are the ones that really get to you.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: These cases there are especially eerie because they're spread out
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  over years, but all on the same campus, right, you know,
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  young people just living their lives and then gone poof.
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  Speaker 2: And it's important to remember we're not just talking about
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  files on a desk, you know, these were real lives,
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  full of potential.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely so. First up, nineteen eighty six, imagine like the
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  energy of a college campus. Right, Yeah, that was Alice
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  May Sullivan's world. Twenty years old, business major, already a mom,
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  just trying to make a life for herself. She goes
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  to class one morning, never seen again.
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  Speaker 2: And the timeline it's full of these gaps, like chills
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  down your spine gap she's in class. Then she said
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  a friend's dorm room. Later, someone thinks they saw her
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  in your gentry center and that's it. It's like the
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  campus just swallowed her out.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, But here's the thing. It was Alice's parents who
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  reported her missing. Oh wow, not her boyfriend. And this
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  is despite him being the one who told them, supposedly
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  that Alice never came home.
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  Speaker 2: So right off the bat, something doesn't add.
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  Speaker 1: Up exactly, makes you question everything, right.
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  Speaker 2: And it gets, if you can believe it, even more unsettling.
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  Police suspected foul play, they even had persons of interest,
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  but nothing ever came of it, no charges, So you're
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  left thinking what were they missing? What could have been
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  the thing that cracked the whole thing open.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a question that's haunted her family for decades now. Yeah, Sadly,
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  Alice's story isn't the only one. Just three years later,
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  in nineteen eighty nine, we meet Jnald Johnson, another TSU student,
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  also twenty years old, vanishes.
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  Speaker 2: This time it's a young man, and you know he
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  was dealing with some things, financial struggles. He'd even been
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  suspended from classes. You have to wonder was that weighing
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  on him? Was someone maybe taking advantage.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where it gets really eerie. Just like
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  Alice Donald was last seen on campus at Boyd Hall,
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  a dorm. So we've got two disappearances, same campus, both
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  last seen at TSU coincidence or is there something about
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  that place?
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  Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder, doesn't it, Like does the
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  campus itself hold some kind of clue? Or I mean,
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  is it just the nature of college life? Their last
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  known whereabouts are going to be tied to their routines, right, classes, dorms.
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  Speaker 1: For years, that question just kind of hung over the campus.
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  And then almost a decade later, nineteen ninety eight, another
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  student vanishes, Marcus Rutledge, twenty three, a senior.
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  Speaker 2: This case, this one always gets to me. They found
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  Marcus's dog in his apartment alone, but not just alone,
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  shut in the bathroom, no food, just the toilet, water
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  to drink. I mean, come on, that just screw something
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  is terribly raw.
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  Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, his car turns up a
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  month later, abandoned on the other side of the tent.
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  Was it moved? Was it there the whole time? Who
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  left it there? And it's like every new detail just
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  raises more questions, and.
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  Speaker 2: It's just it's heartbreaking. You know, these were young, live
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  and their families are left with nothing but questions. So
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  you have to ask yourself, were these just awful, isolated
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  tragedies or was there something darker going on, something connected
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  to that campus.
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  Speaker 1: That's what makes it so unsettling, right, These weren't just
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  names in a news report. These were real people like you,
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  like me, with hopes and dreams and people who love them.
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  And you know their stories deserve to be told Alice Donald.
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  Speaker 2: Marcus exactly, and maybe, just maybe by telling their stories,
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  by keeping their memories alive, someone out there will remember something,
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  something they saw, something they heard, something that seems small
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  at the time, but could be the missing piece, the
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  thing that finally brings some answers.
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  Speaker 1: So after hearing all of this, what's sticks with you?
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  What would you investigate further if you had the chance?
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  Makes you wonder could one small detail, one little thing
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  be all it takes?
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  Speaker 2: Well? And I don't know if this makes you feel
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  better or worse, but there's still a detective assigned to
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  Alice's case, even after all these years. It's a reminder
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  that these cases they never really close, you know, no hope,
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  even when it's just a flicker and never truly dies
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  out