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Megan Trussell's Mysterious Death - Family NEEDS Our Help! · Curious Cat - where science & supernatural collide

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Curious Cat, the podcast that examines the shadowy space where science and the supernatural collide.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jennifer Holtz, and this week we're diving into a true crime story that I feel has an urgent timer behind it.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I need you on this one, folks.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I need your love, your shares, your ears, your eyes, your heart to help Megan Trussell's family.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: February 2027 is, believe it or not, right around the corner.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the parents of Megan Trussell are up against a clock.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their daughter died under suspicious conditions.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: She was a freshman at CU Boulder and she went missing.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But before her remains were even found, local authorities were writing off her missing as being sofa surfing.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: They told the parents of very concerned and very involved parents that they needed to check her social media feed.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the parents said she's not into social media, over and over they were treated like idiots by local authorities.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Later, and very quickly, rather quickly, they closed the case, calling it a suicide.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: As usual, I've gotten over my skis on this, so uh, but I have to because you're gonna understand why.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so passionate about Megan Trussell's case and her parents and her loved ones' wish to have this looked at with outside eyes and ears and brains.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be mentioning this throughout the telling.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've got places that you can put your anger, your frustration, and deep empathy into action for Megan Trussell and her family.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So now let's get into it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: First, credit where credit is due.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: There are a couple podcasts that are doing a phenomenal job of following this case from the very beginning.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the premier interview on this case, which I've linked to in the show notes, and a lot of my background comes from the excellent podcast called Mile Higher and their comprehensive interview with Megan's parents, Vanessa Diaz and Joe Trussell.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are possibly the most real and relatable parents that I've come upon in my time being a podcaster.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So here is the scoop on Megan Trussell.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: She's the young woman behind this entire thing.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And she is so much more than her missing persons case and the mystery around her death.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: She was the kind of person that if I encountered her when she had been working at Maud Pizza and she had made a little comment that was just sharp, smart sarcasm underneath her breath, I would have snuck in another five bucks in the tip jar for her specifically.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: She loved being bright.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: As much as she could be an extrovert with the people she loved best, she was also an introvert.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: She loved movies, she loved live music, she was stylish, she cared a lot about the shoes that she wore.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was the only place that she let herself spend a little money because she always really kept track of her dollars.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Her mom is proud to say that even in college, as a freshman in college, she had put away$3,000 in her bank account.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: This was a responsible, smart, savvy young woman that was really looking forward to going to college.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she fell in love with Siou Boulder the weekend that she and her family moved her older sister into the campus three years prior.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of those perfect August days in the foothills where all of the trees were a myriad of those perfect PSL colors, like these vibrant yellows, these leafy greens that are just larger than life, butted up against these crimson reds.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's gobsmacking how beautiful the foothills are.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're actually right behind my back shoulder, if you were here with me right now, because that's my backyard.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: The flat irons that end up taking you into Boulder.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So to say that she was excited to go off to college is an understatement.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: She had met her roommate a few times socially before they moved into the dorm together, and they got along fine.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: She, I think she maybe had an idea, according to her parents.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: She was hoping for that experience of this person being maybe her new best friend.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was lucky enough to move in with my actual best friend from childhood.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you, when I hear stories like other people's, I realize what a blessing that was.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it at the time, but wow, I mean, it's just the truth.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So she and her roommate made the best of it, but her roommate had this thing about boundaries, yet not, it seems like, respecting Megan's boundaries because they had a rule.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The house rule was that you don't have sex in the room, in the dorm room.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's attributed to what her roommate has put out there on Reddit as having issues and PTSD involving sexuality.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she says that, you know, this is a reasonable request, according to her.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that is what it is, except for the fact that her roommate was bringing another person into the room often, a friend that was staying the night a lot of times.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if Megan wasn't there, she was even sleeping in Megan's bed at times.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So where are the boundaries?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much hypocrisy with that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Megan herself was a film student and she really loved the college experience.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even her dad sort of delighted in the fact that there's going to be a little drama with your roommate.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You met a boy that you happen to like.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of the experience.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Her mom and dad were very sex positive people.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: They were very much, we have daughters that we want to raise in a way that they feel strong and capable and desiring, taking, you know, risks, but not like crazy risks, but just living life and life as experienced by doing stuff, feeling stuff, being stuff, trying stuff.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So these were like, I'm not when you watch some of these videos at the end, and I highly recommend the ones that are in the feed, but you're gonna find other ones as well.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see they cared a lot.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: They still care a lot about both of their daughters.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're amazing people, very strong people that raised and created some amazing daughters, Megan being one of them.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So at the time, her sister was a senior at CU Boulder.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was nice because the sister, she could pretty easily leave her dorm room and walk to her sister's apartment and they could spend time together.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's this controversy about the day of Megan going missing.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to get too far ahead of myself again, but I'm going to remind you there are two calls to action in the show notes.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So give them some love and please share this episode with somebody that you know loves true crime and maybe doesn't necessarily listen to my podcast because maybe they don't want to hear about the ghosty stuff, but they care deeply about true crime.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a case that should be lighting up the nation.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into the timeline of the day that Megan went missing, I just wanted to reiterate this is a young woman that is a film student at CU Boulder.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: She's smart, she's sharp, she has a sarcastic sense of humor.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to say, she feels like my own father's superpower is embedded in her as well.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe she's an honorary Riley girl because my dad was like that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: His sense of humor was always sharp, smart.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So many people didn't get his jokes.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were on another level.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But also, it's this dark humor that serves us well to this day as Rileys.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a long-winded way of saying I would have liked Megan.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: If she was one of my kids' friends, I would have said, oh, what a good person.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would have championed her life.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It just breaks my heart because I just wonder what she would have created in the filmmaking sphere.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: She loved live music.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: She loved movies.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: She loved traveling, epic shoes, and by all accounts, she loved life up until the day that she went missing.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: She was in love with living.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Bank that though, especially the life part, as I share the details of her disappearance and the infuriating snap conclusions that were made by local authorities.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's the lead up.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was February 9th.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was the weekend before um Valentine's Day.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, Megan had a new boyfriend.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think his name was Keon, which um they have transitioned since then.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they're they there.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if they go by Keon right now.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: But on February 9th, Keon and Megan were in her dorm room.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: They were being romantic when Megan's roommate was supposed to be on shift at a um, you know, a little market that is within the um campus.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And her roommate is not allowed to leave her job even on the break.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: She has to stay close.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But her roommate, for some reason, showed up and walked in on them being romantic and made a big stink about it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is my one thing.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is my one thing, something like that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, her roommate went back to work and Megan and Keon, it didn't go well.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Kian has had regrets about how that was handled in the moment and even afterward, is like, I wish we'd stuck to our guns and said, why the hell do we care what this roommate thought?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were not in the room.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But um, despite this, at the moment, it broke Kian and Megan apart.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they pretty much broke up, is the consensus.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Megan sent a text to her roommate at work that it was over, meaning that her relationship with Kian was over.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's how her roommate took it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: After they had this kind of breakup conversation, they kept talking.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then Kian's decision was to take a break because of all of the drama.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Kian left the room, which um, I guess where Kian lived, there would be a bus ride because I guess the buses are really good in Boulder.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You may not know that because you may not be from here, but their transportation system is really good.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently it was far enough that Kian probably wouldn't walk, it would probably be a bus ride.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: But because of the drama and because the way it all probably felt to Megan, and I'm just speculating here.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Megan wanted to get some fresh air, head out, and so she did.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: She was dressed at the moment, and this is so important.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: She was wearing red pants that the media was repeating what the Boulder police were saying were pajama pants.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't really pajama pants and they weren't really yoga pants.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, there's a different class of saying that she was wearing pajama pants that kind of goes with what their narrative was, that it feels like they were pushing.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But Megan was wearing a light uh coat, like a, you know, not a thick down coat that you would expect if Megan was planning to be out for very long.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: She was wearing a band t-shirt underneath her favorite band, TV Girl.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was this bright blue t-shirt.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Megan's hair was bright red at the time.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that was a problem in the future because they were passing around uh pictures of her where she was wearing her blue hair, but she had had it re-dyed to red when she was going home.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, when she had last been home, she had gotten her hair done, which my kids always did when they came home from college too.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so her hair at the time was red.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: She had on her one of her prized pairs of platform white tennis shoes.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: They had like a three-inch heel on them, very iconic to match the purse that she was always wearing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It has been told by her mother who made it for her.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a circle purse with a star on it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's iconic.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's blue and pink.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Her mom bought a specific heavy-duty sewing machine in order to stitch it to last forever.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was like upholster, upholstery um fabric.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it could go through 15 layers of denim, this sewing machine.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's important because later you're gonna find out why it's important.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I did a little research and the temperatures, the high in Boulder was about 40 degrees, and the low um was 19 degrees.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So pretty darn cold.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, she went for her walk at 9:36 p.m.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: She was caught on camera leaving her dorm, Howlett Hall.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Again, red hair, dark red pants, light coat, not heavy down coat.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: These are all really important to note.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is the video that you'll find online and linked into the show notes with these other shows is she has a straight, steady gait.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would call it a sober gait, not wiping away tears, not like on her phone emoting to anybody.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: She's just simply walking in a straight path.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I say this because CU Boulder later stated that she was walking quote unquote aimlessly, which is absolutely inaccurate.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they said this in another report that Megan was visibly distressed, which again, I have to call BS on.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was not the case at all.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: People wondered where she was going to.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some speculated that she was going to see if Keon was at the bus stop.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Others said that maybe she was going to Folsom or to uh the Circle K to get Diet Coke because she was a Diet Coke fanatic, which I can totally relate to.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she couldn't go to the closest market on campus because her roommate that she just had this awkward kind of thing with, not a fight, but just this awkward interaction with, was still working.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So why would you want to go there?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: At 9:52, cameras on campus caught her near Champion Center, which is not far from Howlett Hall.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same route that takes her to her sister's apartment and that Circle K.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: The cameras on that path were out at that time.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: For the rest of the path, there were like seven or eight cameras.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was seven cameras that were completely out at that time, which is near impossible to fathom.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: The streets were really empty.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody was finishing up watching the Super Bowl.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it concluded at like 8 45.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people are pretty much tucked in after the Super Bowl for a little while.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Probably if they went to friends' house, they're sobering up and visiting.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're just doing their thing.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're that people were getting caught up on the puppy bowl, but the streets were pretty empty.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: There is one car that's very odd in the last camera that catches Megan on her route that crosses in front of her.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's thought that that sh car shows up in other places in another piece of uh surveillance video that the family has.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they have friends that are looking into this as well.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I found out from AI Research FYI that Boulder Police have real-time access to what public surveillance cameras are down in any given area.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels ominous to me when I look that up.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's 1045 p.m.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Her phone pings near Evan G.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Fine Park, which is a few miles uphill and away from campus.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is towards the foothill.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then at 11:55 p.m., her phone pings near mile marker 40 in Boulder Canyon, where her remains would later be found.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it's important to note her purse when she's found and her phone are found miles away from her remains.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: On February 13th, Justice from Megan Trussell says this search teams, rangers, search dogs, and drones search the Boulder Canyon area.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Drone footage from February 13th did not show Megan's body at the location where she would be discovered two days later.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't she located during the initial searches?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: On February 15th, Megan's body was discovered on Ripwrap, which is sharp indescript stones below the outlet of a drainage culvert near mile marker 40 on Boulder Canyon Drive.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, they had to rappel down to be able to retrieve her body.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a place that you would just naturally fall.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have looked at this for hours online.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you fell from the roadside, you would fall onto the only flat rock closer to that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she's over to the right of this flat rock and down a bit.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't make sense.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, authorities reported publicly there was no indication of foul play.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: The public is safe, they announced.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the subsequent autopsy would show the exact opposite.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Megan had, I don't know if I can do this without crying.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Megan had damaged teeth.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: She had severe injuries on her body, especially her left side.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: She had scalp hemorrhages, facial injuries, and abrasions.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I knew that there was a missing person from CU Boulder.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't miss it locally.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was on the news stations, and I have a very old car here, and I don't have any Bluetooth hooked up to it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I do listen to the local, you know, radio stations, and they were talking about it.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I was going to my very nearby park called Crown Hill and I would walk the park.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, it was weird because it was a very cold period of time.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there was this SUV.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was a black Audi SUV that was just abandoned in the parking lot.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so obvious because it was there for weeks.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually gonna look up the image right now and I'll try to find a way to share it with you.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it took me way too long to find this, and I even had even marked it in a special way to find it quickly.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is an Audi Q5, and I can't read the other part, but the um, and it's black.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was an S a mid-size SUV, and the license plate on it was CBX G24, and it was uh clearly it was obvious that it was there for a long friggin' time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was sometimes the only person that was actually in the parking lot because other people weren't crazy enough to go walking.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, it's sunny in Colorado in the winter, so I can bundle up and the dry uh cold doesn't really get to me.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am such an eastern Washington girl in that way, and I need that sunshine for my mental health.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine I would pull up and it was right in a front and center parking space in the lot.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the Jefferson County Open Space folks, they put a tag on it and they warned that they were going to impound this vehicle, but it remained there for another month and it really disturbed me.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I do not know if it is related to this case, but I just know I got a creepy sensation when I saw that car over and over and over, and when I realized it was completely abandoned.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: This really nice car was completely abandoned.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: But back to the timeline.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: On March 2nd, Megan's cell phone, which was a violet blue Samsung that had been given to her by her mother Victoria, was sold at an eco ATM by a man who said he got it from another man.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Both of those guys, by the way, have dubious criminal pasts.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's very creepy, and their stories do not gel.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are problems with them.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: But did the authorities look deeply at that?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, they did not.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: On March 5th, Megan's purse was finally recovered, and it was recovered five miles away from where Megan's body had been found.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: The strap, and remember, I told you her mother had used upholstery fabric and a heavy duty machine that she had bought specifically to make this purse that could sew through 15 layers of denim.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the strap was torn.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a sure sign.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: This purse was her favorite thing in the world, besides her actual family and friends.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: But like in possession wise, this purse was always with her.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was called her security blanket, and the strap was torn.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was on her left side.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, I told you about the autopsy.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Her left side sustained a lot of damage.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Her family notes that her missing right shoe has yet to be recovered.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: She was found and labeled a suicide, case closed, and she has a shoe missing.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Damage to her face, the back of her hands, the back of her scalp, and her prize possession purse was clearly tried to be ripped out of her, away from her body.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was found separate from her actual body.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Separate not by feet, by miles.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Same with her phone.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know where the phone was actually found because it was being sold at this Eco ATM.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Next comes the toxicology, which I can tell you firsthand as a local.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: This was specifically twisted by authorities to make it seem she had illegal drugs in her system, the way that they handed this off to reporters, and reporters just reported it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: They read it verbatim.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the media was malicious in this, but they were reading these statements from the Boulder Police verbatim.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it was her ADHD medicine.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And her levels were considered therapeutic since Megan had been on this medicine Adderall for her ADHD for four plus years.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was under the supervision of a doctor she'd had her entire life and under her, you know, the supervision of her psychologist that she loved dearly.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Also in the autopsy, they mentioned this big ball of pill material in Megan's esophagus.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that pill material, it was inconsistent with her actual pills.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And was also noted that her esophagus was expanded or stretched due to the mass of it, which I picture in a creepy way as proof of someone just stuffing them into her body.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: The toxicology was the basis of the authorities, ruling Megan's death a suicide.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: They said it was due to Adderall and hypothermia.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Case closed.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Megan's family and close friends resoundingly dispute this.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Megan had no documented history of suicidal ideation or self-harm.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, her text threads, her phone calls with her cousin that she was so close to, and others in her family were looking forward to future events, future as in a matter of days.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing fits into the box of suicide.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I have to bring up that you will find when you do a deep dive on this case is Megan was more of a cozy cabin girl.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: She was cozy cabin, fuzzy things, cozy, warm, not going for hikes.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hikes are not a place that she went for therapy, for you know, comfort, for I gotta go air it out and walk five miles.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: This was never her ever.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: She liked creature comforts.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: She did.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And she liked her pretty things and she took care of her beautiful shoes.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't do that by going on this sojourn up to the mountains in the dark, alone, where it's known that a lot of unhoused people are actually camping out on this part of the Boulder Canyon.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there are lingering questions.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why the hurry by the authorities to rule her death as a suicide and close the case?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some have speculated that they had a need for this college town to protect its reputation, or worse, I mean, there's others that go even deeper onto this because this was at the time that Boulder was being considered as one of the new places where the Sundance Film Festival would be held and it would be a bad look.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do also know that from uh interviews with the family, people that were a part of looking for Megan in the early hours, the early days after she went missing, they were putting up flyers, and those flyers were being taken down by people with the university because they felt it was a bad look to have missing person things on the poles of their boulder town when prospective families were coming into town to give it a look.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: There was also blood, fresh blood that was found in the culvert that emptied out into the place where Megan's body was found.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: That blood was collected.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was pointed out by Rangers, and it was from what the family has said begrudgingly, but it was collected and they never tested it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I have scoured and I have now not found anything about this, but a rape kit was done on Megan, and from all that I have found, I haven't seen that it was ever tested.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know that they were she was intimate with Keon, so maybe, you know, I but I don't know.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they found anything or any trauma done to her body in that way.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So here's where we are now.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Megan's family, they're seeking an independent investigation.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't blame them because everything seems to be falling short.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like this group of people came in with a preconceived notion of what, oh, it's just it's just sofa surfing.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then, oh, it just must be drugs.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: She just, you know, did a bunch of drugs and she killed herself.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they never really looked at it as a potential murder or foul play in any way, shape, or form.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't preserve a lot of the evidence that was found around her body.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't pick up a tarp that was jammed into the rocks by her body.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: The family themselves were shocked that that was, they told the sheriffs, please come and collect this.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when they didn't, the family just finally went and did it themselves.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: They had a friend who's in the legal sphere that said, don't touch it.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, put it in a Ziploc bag.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you shouldn't have it on your person, you know, you because you have a a stake in this case, but they did everything they could to preserve it and they still have it to this day.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: They just want to understand how and why their loved one died.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: They won't rest until this happens.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: The family is up against the clock on this.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned it at the top because the case was called closed.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Boulder PD isn't obliged to preserve Megan's tissues and other key evidence beyond February 2027.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I find her death tragic.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I see this doggedly strong, determined, loving family that are they're already making an impact.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they could have just curled up in a ball, and the rest of the world would have said, we understand why, but they are making an impact.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: They are making connections to politicians, and they have a new law in effect across Colorado that is a direct result of their passion and their love for their daughter.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is all about missing college students and making sure missing college students in Colorado are reported.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: They have a six-hour window now.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's called SB26-120.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it went into effect August 12th.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Senator Janice Marchman, who's up for re-election, was the prime sponsor of this new bill.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a Colorado resident, please vote.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Vote, vote, vote.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Things like this matter.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: People like Janice Marchman matter because they care.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Janice Marchman is even looking at uh further legislation that could possibly help be um, it could be impactful to college students that fall into these gaps with law enforcement.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: The law, uh SB 26120, requires that all higher ed institutions have better training in general and have quicker steps to alert the university community and families.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And many colleges in the state are already in compliance.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even CU Boulder, I did some deep diving this afternoon.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: They implemented the new law.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've linked to their compliance page in the show notes.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So give it a little bit of foot traffic, a little bit of web traffic, just to let them know that people are watching them and their actions.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no happy wrap-up for this except to say that it isn't happy.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just this could have been my daughters, you know, it could have been my kids, that people are trying to make it seem weird that the family didn't know for two days or three days that Megan was gone.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they are at a stage in their life where they're demanding for a reason that they have more independence.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And a daily check-in and uh, you know, having life 360 on their phone probably isn't realistic when they're in college.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they're gonna leave their phone behind and be even less safe.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I just have deep empathy for their entire family, and I'm really disturbed by how by her looks, by looking a bit um different with her beautiful, you know, bright colored hair and her nice vibrant style, and maybe her dark eye makeup, snap judgments were made about her.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And even being a college freshman and having this opinion that, oh well, people are known to do this around here.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: They party, they go missing, they're found in uh, you know, another guy's closet a few days later because they were so drunk they passed out there.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we should never take this lightly.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that the new law is gonna really hold these university institutions accountable.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna start with the RAs and it's gonna start with the dorm roommate as well.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really encourage you to, if you feel it in your heart, to give their calls to action a click and take a look at them and see if you want to give anything towards their um, you know, they're trying to um put aside money so that if it comes down to it, they can actually do the testing that these labs are refusing to do.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: They can do it on their own and they come with a six-figure price tag.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So any dollar counts.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't do that, and I understand it because things are hard right now, then maybe be generous in um, you know, letting others know about Megan Trussell's case, uh, sharing some of this information, maybe sharing a podcast episode, even if it's not mine, other people's uh that I've linked to in the show notes, and give them some exposure so that more and more people can become aware of Megan Trussell's case.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would love for uh the heavy hitter out there, crime junkies, to actually cover Megan's case because it is so deserving of their attention.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if all of that sounds like too much for you, maybe just close your eyes and give some love to the Trussell family and the community and the community in Boulder, and maybe even people that they know something and they are terrified to come out from the shadows to tell it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe with a little nudge from our hearts, they'll do the right thing.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: So until next week, stay curious and stay safe.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.