Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / New Evidence Renews Mom's Search for Daughter's Killer
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a grieving mother is hoping
- 0:14Speaker 1: and praying that new evidence will shed light on her
- 0:20Speaker 1: daughter's murder. I'm Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank
- 0:25Speaker 1: you for being with us here at Fox Nation and
- 0:27Speaker 1: Sirius XM one eleven. I'm talking about a gorgeous young girl,
- 0:33Speaker 1: Brittany Phillips. First of all, take a listen to our
- 0:38Speaker 1: friends at k j R H. New evidence discovered by
- 0:42Speaker 1: her own family is breathing home back into this eighteen
- 0:46Speaker 1: year old cold case. Her mother, Maggie Zeman, says she
- 0:49Speaker 1: got a call from Brittany's father recently that left her
- 0:52Speaker 1: stunned all of a sudden. About a month ago, I
- 0:56Speaker 1: got this call from him and he said, I need
- 1:00Speaker 1: to show you something, but don't be upset with me.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Britney's father told Maggie that he had recently discovered a
- 1:05Speaker 1: birthday card Brittany had sent to him in two thousand
- 1:08Speaker 1: and four to mail to her grandfather. It had a
- 1:11Speaker 1: mechanized white post office step, meaning it came out of
- 1:16Speaker 1: a machine that somebody EISI bought at a kiosk or
- 1:20Speaker 1: a post office desk. Okay, why would finding that card
- 1:26Speaker 1: shed light on the murder of her daughter and why
- 1:30Speaker 1: would she be angry at its discovery. First of all,
- 1:36Speaker 1: let's explain what happened to this teen girl, Brittany Phillips.
- 1:41Speaker 1: Take a listen to Ashley Holt child to Like many parents,
- 1:45Speaker 1: I thought this will never happen to me. She remembers
- 1:48Speaker 1: how it started. And I opened the door to this
- 1:50Speaker 1: young sheriff standing in the rain, and he had a
- 1:54Speaker 1: piece of paper in his hand, and he just quickly
- 1:56Speaker 1: said to me, are you maggizing. When I said yeah,
- 1:58Speaker 1: he said, you need to call Tulsa police. Your daughter
- 2:00Speaker 1: has been murdered. She had left Brittany a voicemail days before, Britty,
- 2:05Speaker 1: please call me. I know you're okay that I just
- 2:08Speaker 1: need to hear from you. Next thing she knew, she's
- 2:11Speaker 1: standing in Brittany's apartment, swarming with investigators. Britty dropped the
- 2:16Speaker 1: friend off at her apartment complex. At first memorial, Britney
- 2:20Speaker 1: drives home the last time her friend saw her. Then
- 2:24Speaker 1: go ahead and checked well being and find Brittany deceased
- 2:26Speaker 1: inside her apartment and joining me right now is Britney's mom,
- 2:31Speaker 1: Doctor Maggie Zengman. She's a trauma psychologist, and you can
- 2:36Speaker 1: find her at Brittany Phillips murder dot nett. On Facebook,
- 2:41Speaker 1: you can find her at mom dot missing dot Brittany. Maggie,
- 2:47Speaker 1: thank you for being with us, well, thank you for
- 2:49Speaker 1: once again giving us a voice in this time period
- 2:53Speaker 1: that I could have never imagined would be. We'd be
- 2:56Speaker 1: going through this now, you know, doctor Maggie, doctor Maggie
- 3:00Speaker 1: Zing when this is Britney's mom. Do you still remember
- 3:05Speaker 1: that moment when you opened the door and there's a
- 3:09Speaker 1: sheriff standing there? Oh yeah, I mean, just as I
- 3:12Speaker 1: was listening to it again, even at eighteen years you know,
- 3:15Speaker 1: it brought tears to my eyes because I remember that shock.
- 3:20Speaker 1: I remembered not leaving it, and then I remembered this
- 3:23Speaker 1: sheriff just based in Chandler abandoning me. So yeah, I
- 3:29Speaker 1: still remember that, you know with me, founder and director
- 3:33Speaker 1: of the Coal Case Research Institute and now star of
- 3:37Speaker 1: a hit podcast, Zone seven, Cheryl McCollum. You know, by
- 3:42Speaker 1: the sound of it, that may have been that sheriff's
- 3:44Speaker 1: first time at ever advising a family that they had
- 3:50Speaker 1: a dead loved one. You know, just tumbled out and
- 3:54Speaker 1: he just took ran for it, and he was probably
- 3:57Speaker 1: here to debt. I mean, those are the worst things
- 4:01Speaker 1: that you can do. I think in this profession they
- 4:04Speaker 1: know to get easier. You know, you're fixing a knock
- 4:07Speaker 1: on her door and destroy somebody's world. So it's a
- 4:11Speaker 1: difficult assignment for sure. Guys. Take a listen to our
- 4:15Speaker 1: friends at crime Online. After graduating from Union High School,
- 4:18Speaker 1: Britney Phillips is off to Saint Petersburg, Florida and Eckard College.
- 4:23Speaker 1: The eighteen year old chemistry student is homesick and decides
- 4:26Speaker 1: to move back to Tulsa. Enrolling in Tulsa Community College,
- 4:29Speaker 1: Phillips gets an apartment across from her old high school.
- 4:33Speaker 1: Is was that her personality, Maggie. She was so homesick
- 4:37Speaker 1: for you and home. She's like, yeah, I want to
- 4:40Speaker 1: go to college, but not just far away from home. Yeah,
- 4:43Speaker 1: I mean, you know, she actually finished a whole year,
- 4:46Speaker 1: but you know, she was a year younger than everybody,
- 4:50Speaker 1: so I wasn't surprised. At the end of the year.
- 4:52Speaker 1: It was like she didn't have a lot of contact
- 4:54Speaker 1: with her dad, so she wanted to be near family,
- 4:57Speaker 1: And of course I'm more than happy to let to
- 5:00Speaker 1: do that, you know, And I'm thinking about Brittany. I
- 5:03Speaker 1: want all of you to hear more about her in life.
- 5:08Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friend Vincent Hill kJ RH.
- 5:12Speaker 1: Maggie says she had her hands full when she had
- 5:14Speaker 1: her second child, Brittany, so much so that she gave
- 5:17Speaker 1: her this nickname Accident because by the time she was three,
- 5:21Speaker 1: I think she had been to the emergency room three times.
- 5:24Speaker 1: As Brittany got older, Maggie says she worried for a
- 5:27Speaker 1: different reason. She was a typical teenager, yeah, running around
- 5:31Speaker 1: with her friend. Brittany was a great student. She graduated
- 5:34Speaker 1: a year early and headed off to college in Florida,
- 5:37Speaker 1: but quickly became homesick. She decided at the end of
- 5:41Speaker 1: the second semester to move back to Tulsa. Brittany enrolled
- 5:47Speaker 1: at Tulsa Community College and got her own apartment in
- 5:49Speaker 1: a location they thought would be safe where we had
- 5:53Speaker 1: never heard about anything bad happening. You know, I want
- 5:56Speaker 1: to go to Karen Start and joining me. Not only
- 5:58Speaker 1: longtime colleague, longtime friend. Karen Start renowed psychologist in the
- 6:04Speaker 1: Manhattan Jurisdiction. She's a trauma and crime expert at Karen
- 6:09Speaker 1: dot Com. That's Karen with a See Karen, you know,
- 6:14Speaker 1: we lived in New York for so long raising the
- 6:17Speaker 1: children there, and moved and then recently you and I
- 6:22Speaker 1: were talking about coming back and visiting. I'm like, the
- 6:24Speaker 1: crime is so awful, the crime is so terrible. I'm
- 6:28Speaker 1: afraid to even bring the twins back to go ice
- 6:30Speaker 1: skating at Rockefeller Center or go see a Broadway show.
- 6:35Speaker 1: You know, you do your best as a parent, and
- 6:39Speaker 1: you think about every decision how it will affect your children.
- 6:43Speaker 1: And here Maggie thought it was a great idea from
- 6:46Speaker 1: Britain to come back home. She got an apartment across
- 6:49Speaker 1: the street from her old high school for Pete's sake.
- 6:51Speaker 1: What could be safer than that? I need to tell him.
- 6:54Speaker 1: Men say that exactly what he said is true. Karen's
- 6:58Speaker 1: an effectively months for their children. They do everything they
- 7:03Speaker 1: can to make sure their children survive in their states.
- 7:06Speaker 1: You see it in the animal Things are right Like
- 7:08Speaker 1: Mother Dear is as good example. So when your child
- 7:12Speaker 1: dies before you, this use is unavailable and sounds with
- 7:17Speaker 1: compounded by thoughts of the other of them, and it's nonsensical.
- 7:22Speaker 1: But he did like he fails to do your job
- 7:25Speaker 1: to protect them. It's not logical, but feelings are not logical.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Maggie will never get over her daughter's film and sense
- 7:34Speaker 1: with stuff. It's conflict, and you know, I want to
- 7:38Speaker 1: go to Maggie again, Doctor Maggie Zimmerman, Britney Small. What
- 7:41Speaker 1: was running through your head regarding her safety when she
- 7:44Speaker 1: moved back home? Well, yeah, being a trauma survivor myself
- 7:48Speaker 1: being a trauma psychologist, you know, I taught her a
- 7:51Speaker 1: lot of things about safety and stuff, and we checked,
- 7:55Speaker 1: you know, the history of the apartment and stuff, and
- 7:59Speaker 1: so I felt pretty safe. I mean, I was more
- 8:02Speaker 1: worried about her when she was, you know, two thousand
- 8:04Speaker 1: miles away in Florida, you know, and so you know,
- 8:09Speaker 1: I mean, luckily, the other side of it is, I've
- 8:12Speaker 1: met a lot of parents who blame themselves in early
- 8:15Speaker 1: in the early first years. I really had to get
- 8:18Speaker 1: past that because her killer was going to get another
- 8:21Speaker 1: destroyed life if I kept in that. Let's fast forward.
- 8:25Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friend Jackie Howard. On September
- 8:29Speaker 1: twenty seventh, Phillips plays chauffeur for a friend, taking them home,
- 8:33Speaker 1: and then talks to her mom on the phone. Over
- 8:36Speaker 1: the next couple of days, mother Maggie Zingman calls her
- 8:38Speaker 1: daughter to no answer. Getting worried, she leaves a message
- 8:42Speaker 1: for her to be in contact, But Zingman is not
- 8:44Speaker 1: the only one who's worried. During the same period of time,
- 8:47Speaker 1: Phillips miss his appointments in classes. One of the friends
- 8:51Speaker 1: requests the Tulsa City Police Department to do a wellness
- 8:54Speaker 1: check on Britney and more. A late night knock on
- 8:57Speaker 1: the door wakes Maggie Zingman on the other side of
- 9:00Speaker 1: her door, a homicide detective with the Tulsa Police Department.
- 9:04Speaker 1: When police perform their welfare check, they find Philip's body
- 9:07Speaker 1: and clear evidence of a struggle in her room. Police
- 9:10Speaker 1: say it is evident that Phillips tried to fight her attacker.
- 9:14Speaker 1: It's thought at one point the killer slammed her against
- 9:17Speaker 1: the wall. The medical examiner determines Phillips is raped and
- 9:21Speaker 1: strangled or suffocated. Her estimated time of death is between
- 9:24Speaker 1: nine pm on September twenty seventh and eight am on
- 9:28Speaker 1: September twenty eighth. To Britney's mom, doctor Maggie Zenglan, Doctor Maggie,
- 9:34Speaker 1: when did you learn about how your daughter's body was found?
- 9:39Speaker 1: About the scenario. We just laid forward the thinking as
- 9:43Speaker 1: to how she was killed. Well, when I was given
- 9:48Speaker 1: that information, I mean, one of my worst fears is
- 9:51Speaker 1: whenever Brady got upset, would go mommy, mommy, mommy, even
- 9:55Speaker 1: at eighteen years old. And so when I first heard
- 9:58Speaker 1: that information, I fell like that. You know, my concern
- 10:03Speaker 1: was that, you know, she had done that when she
- 10:05Speaker 1: was being killed, And the detective told me that most
- 10:10Speaker 1: likely by the evidence they found, it looked like she
- 10:12Speaker 1: died instantly. So but you know, I mean, it's just
- 10:16Speaker 1: it's something you can't fathom. Hearing crime stories with Nancy
- 10:34Speaker 1: Grace to Cheryl McCollum, a forensic expert and founder of
- 10:40Speaker 1: the Cold Case Research Institute, explained to me Brittany's injuries
- 10:45Speaker 1: and how she was killed. Well, they believed that she
- 10:48Speaker 1: was either strangled or suffocated. She was found on the floor.
- 10:52Speaker 1: She was wearing a T shirt. And you know, there
- 10:57Speaker 1: was no fourth injury to the home. And you know,
- 11:01Speaker 1: she had some evidence under her fingernails and she they
- 11:05Speaker 1: look like, you know, even when they first all be
- 11:08Speaker 1: in that she had been thankfully assaulted. So when you
- 11:12Speaker 1: think of no fourth injury, you think, well, perhaps she
- 11:15Speaker 1: let somebody in too, Doctor Kendall, Crown's chief medical Examiner,
- 11:21Speaker 1: Tarrant County. That's Fort Worth Lecturer, University, Texas Austin and
- 11:26Speaker 1: at Texas Christian University Medical School, Dodgor Kendall Krouse, thank
- 11:31Speaker 1: you for being with us. What do you make off
- 11:34Speaker 1: her injuries? So, in the individuals that are strangled or suffocated,
- 11:39Speaker 1: you can you can with suffocation you can actually have
- 11:42Speaker 1: no injuries found. And then with strangulations you're usually looking
- 11:48Speaker 1: for hemorrhages in the musculature of the neck and possibly
- 11:52Speaker 1: fractures of two specific locations, which is the highway bone,
- 11:56Speaker 1: which is a structure of the neck, and a Byroy carlage.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Often in younger women these are still very carlagnus or
- 12:04Speaker 1: they still have a lot of ben to them, so
- 12:06Speaker 1: you don't find a lot of findings with those. So really,
- 12:09Speaker 1: if you don't see injuries to the neck, you're looking
- 12:13Speaker 1: more for a suffocation. Okay, you say with a suffocation
- 12:17Speaker 1: like putting a pillow over someone's face, that you don't
- 12:21Speaker 1: see injuries, you'd still see the burst particular in the eye. Correct, No,
- 12:29Speaker 1: So to give particular hemorrhages you have to actually have
- 12:32Speaker 1: compression the next structure, specifically the juggular vein. You do
- 12:38Speaker 1: about four point four pounds of pressure to block off
- 12:41Speaker 1: the jugular vein, and then what happens is the crowd
- 12:44Speaker 1: it's still push blood into the head, but because the drain,
- 12:48Speaker 1: the drainage of the blood by the juggular is blocked,
- 12:51Speaker 1: the capillary start bursting and you see the particular hemorrhages
- 12:55Speaker 1: and you won't get that in a pillows type suffocation
- 12:59Speaker 1: because the basculture is not blocked off. You know, every
- 13:02Speaker 1: time I speak with you, doctor Kendall Crowns, I learned
- 13:07Speaker 1: something new. I thought that would any type of asphyxiation,
- 13:12Speaker 1: be it suffocation, strangulation, manual or lucator, that there would
- 13:16Speaker 1: be hemorrhage, particular the blood vessels in the eyes. But
- 13:21Speaker 1: that's only with strangulation, not suffocation. That's what you're saying, right, Okay.
- 13:27Speaker 1: In this case, Cheryl McCollum, was it strangulation or suffocation? Again, Nancy,
- 13:34Speaker 1: they didn't really make that determination, but it would have
- 13:37Speaker 1: appeared to me if she's taken from the bed and
- 13:42Speaker 1: thrown up against the wall and then she's fighting him
- 13:44Speaker 1: somewhat There was no pillar. There was nothing like that.
- 13:48Speaker 1: I would think strangulation. Doctor Maggie Seeman joining US trauma psychologist,
- 13:52Speaker 1: but she's Brittany's mom. Was it ever made clear to
- 13:56Speaker 1: you which mode of death? Now? From what I remember,
- 14:01Speaker 1: I remember they said something about that muscle or that
- 14:06Speaker 1: bone that he mentioned that that could have been a possibility.
- 14:10Speaker 1: They said there was a very faint unmark on one
- 14:14Speaker 1: side of the neck that you know, after her being
- 14:16Speaker 1: dead for four days. But you know, I think generally
- 14:21Speaker 1: they were saying suffocation, but they said, you know, there
- 14:24Speaker 1: were some minimal things to lead it to possitive being strangulation.
- 14:28Speaker 1: So I've always said both. And the reason I ask
- 14:31Speaker 1: is because I would think Cheryl McCollum, crime scene expert,
- 14:35Speaker 1: that if it had been manual strangulation, we might be
- 14:38Speaker 1: able to get touched DNA. Yep, that's a great thought.
- 14:41Speaker 1: There's no question about it. And that's why we believe
- 14:45Speaker 1: she bought him off and there was some evidence of
- 14:47Speaker 1: that under her fingernail exactly joining me now. Award winning
- 14:53Speaker 1: investigative reporter Andy Copsa. You can find Andy on Twitter
- 14:59Speaker 1: at Andy so with ak Andy, thank you for being
- 15:02Speaker 1: with us. Tell me what you know about the case
- 15:06Speaker 1: up to the point of the discovery of her body,
- 15:09Speaker 1: the area, Who has access to the pharmacy, anything you
- 15:13Speaker 1: can tell me. So you know, she is going back
- 15:17Speaker 1: and forth to Tulsa Community College, and it's not very far.
- 15:22Speaker 1: Tulsa is not a huge town, and she's going back
- 15:26Speaker 1: and forth with her friends. She's also in their months.
- 15:29Speaker 1: And looking at it from an investigative standpoint, I want
- 15:32Speaker 1: to know where she was even in the months leading up.
- 15:35Speaker 1: So she had a job at an Applebee's in June
- 15:39Speaker 1: and July. Did somebody see her potentially at Applebee's where
- 15:42Speaker 1: there are other workers there. She had a job at Cheddars.
- 15:46Speaker 1: You know, she had these different jobs plus going to school,
- 15:51Speaker 1: and it was all in the and Maggie can correct
- 15:54Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, all pretty much in the centralized
- 15:56Speaker 1: area of Tulsa, And so you know, between school and
- 16:03Speaker 1: doing her work and going home every once in a
- 16:05Speaker 1: while on the weekend, she was pretty much in that
- 16:08Speaker 1: central area. But in the days, so like in the
- 16:13Speaker 1: immediate days leading up to and up to the day
- 16:16Speaker 1: of her her death or supposedly, I think we have
- 16:21Speaker 1: some questions about that. But you know, she spent time
- 16:26Speaker 1: that last dam the twenty seventh, going to school. Then
- 16:31Speaker 1: she spent time an hour and a half to two
- 16:34Speaker 1: hours at an urgent care center. And I've detailed time.
- 16:39Speaker 1: I'm trying to help Maggie kind of put this all
- 16:41Speaker 1: on a map, so we jog memories. But they spent
- 16:44Speaker 1: time at an urgent care center. She wasn't feeling well,
- 16:48Speaker 1: this area down by being clover Leaf Intersection with all
- 16:52Speaker 1: these businesses around with a friend. Then she went to
- 16:55Speaker 1: a Bank of America, and then to the best of
- 16:58Speaker 1: our knowledge, she got home that night around eight or
- 17:02Speaker 1: nine pm and then talked to Maggie. Now that's where
- 17:08Speaker 1: the timeline stopped. But there's some questions now as to
- 17:14Speaker 1: whether or not that was maybe the last day that
- 17:16Speaker 1: she was actually alive. But it is the last day
- 17:19Speaker 1: that we know that she was in contact with Maggie
- 17:24Speaker 1: and doctor Maggie. Isn't it true that? Well, let me
- 17:27Speaker 1: ask you, how often did you guys speak? We spoke
- 17:31Speaker 1: usually at least a couple of times a week, and
- 17:33Speaker 1: more near the end of the week, because I lived
- 17:35Speaker 1: about forty fifty miles away, and so we would always
- 17:39Speaker 1: call and talk and plan the weekend. So after I
- 17:42Speaker 1: talked to her Monday and she was frustrated about not
- 17:45Speaker 1: getting into the doctor. I said, well, i'll talk to
- 17:47Speaker 1: you Thursday or Friday, and you know, we'll set up
- 17:51Speaker 1: a time. But like any mother, I called her Tuesday
- 17:54Speaker 1: and Wednesday and Thursday. Well why was she going to
- 17:57Speaker 1: the doctor. What was wrong? She had a lot of
- 18:00Speaker 1: stinus problems and she was just miserable all the time.
- 18:04Speaker 1: And she waited there for like two hours and it
- 18:06Speaker 1: was an evening hour, so she hadn't getting in. You know,
- 18:10Speaker 1: Matthew T. Mengino is joining me. High profile lawyer joining
- 18:13Speaker 1: us out of Lawrence County, the author of the Executioner's Toll, Crimes,
- 18:18Speaker 1: Arrest Trials, Appeal's Last Meal, final Words and executions of
- 18:23Speaker 1: forty six people across the US. Matthew Mangino, thanks for
- 18:27Speaker 1: being with us. You know, I was just thinking, Matthew,
- 18:29Speaker 1: about all the potential suspects. She works at Appleby, she
- 18:33Speaker 1: works at Cheddars. She was in school that day, in
- 18:36Speaker 1: all of her classes, walking back and forth. She was
- 18:39Speaker 1: at a dock in the box, you know, like a
- 18:42Speaker 1: first aid station. Hundreds of people could have seen Brittany
- 18:48Speaker 1: Phillips that day. But what we have learned in the
- 18:53Speaker 1: recent case of the four Idaho students murdered that attended
- 19:00Speaker 1: University Idaho. We now believe their eleged killer, Brian Coburger,
- 19:06Speaker 1: had been stalking them for some time. This was someone
- 19:11Speaker 1: outside of their sphere, someone that wasn't where they worked
- 19:15Speaker 1: or where they went to school. He was at Washington
- 19:18Speaker 1: State University, about fifteen miles away across the state line,
- 19:22Speaker 1: so he would not have fallen into the normal category
- 19:26Speaker 1: of who she worked with at Applebee's. It shatters who
- 19:29Speaker 1: was at the dock in the box, who was in
- 19:31Speaker 1: her class, So it doesn't necessarily have to be someone
- 19:37Speaker 1: in their outer sphere. Well, no, it doesn't, Nancy, although
- 19:42Speaker 1: I think, uh, you know, investigators or are going to
- 19:46Speaker 1: you know, follow through on every possibility. So at the outset,
- 19:50Speaker 1: you're going to begin to canvas the neighborhood you're going
- 19:53Speaker 1: to be, You're going to go to the places that
- 19:56Speaker 1: she frequently went. You're going to go to her classes
- 19:59Speaker 1: in her uh college and try to piece together a
- 20:04Speaker 1: timeline of where she was or who she interacted with.
- 20:07Speaker 1: But but you know, just like in the Idaho cases,
- 20:12Speaker 1: this wasn't This doesn't appear to be something that would
- 20:14Speaker 1: just be random, exactly right. This this is something where
- 20:19Speaker 1: at least this person knew where she was going to
- 20:22Speaker 1: be when she would probably be there. Who apartment was
- 20:26Speaker 1: her apartment? This wasn't just someone at least I think,
- 20:29Speaker 1: who says on a whim, I'm going to follow this
- 20:32Speaker 1: young woman into her apartment and uh, you know, sexually
- 20:36Speaker 1: assault and kill her. I think this is this is
- 20:39Speaker 1: someone who had planned and had stalked her, and so
- 20:44Speaker 1: there's the possibility with that that someone observed him doing
- 20:49Speaker 1: what he was doing. Guys, let's move forward. Take a
- 20:53Speaker 1: listen to our friend Ashley Holt to Tulsa. Please say
- 20:57Speaker 1: there were signs of an altercation before she was raped
- 21:00Speaker 1: and strangled to death. It's all I could think of
- 21:02Speaker 1: was how long she was heard, how long she was dead.
- 21:06Speaker 1: Investigators tested DNA from the scene. Any kind of crimes
- 21:10Speaker 1: that are even remotely similar we're looking into, but came
- 21:13Speaker 1: up with nothing. Doctor's Ingman's final goodbye to her daughter
- 21:18Speaker 1: through a blanket. I basically had pat her head as
- 21:21Speaker 1: I always had. I just rubbed my finger down her
- 21:26Speaker 1: nose and just yeah, I just said I'm sorry, pretty,
- 21:31Speaker 1: and I'm sorry. This happened. I'm sorry I didn't protect you.
- 21:34Speaker 1: I'm sorry that they won't even let me touch you.
- 21:38Speaker 1: You know, it's probably the case. I spend most of
- 21:41Speaker 1: my time on police figured the murderer could be anywhere.
- 21:44Speaker 1: Just thinking of you, doctor Maggie Singman touching her through
- 21:49Speaker 1: a blanket is just breaking my heart. On the other hand,
- 21:55Speaker 1: I know that DNA was found at the crime scene,
- 21:59Speaker 1: and it has been tested against thousands of guys. It
- 22:05Speaker 1: has been run through every possible DNA data bank. I
- 22:11Speaker 1: want to go forward with the investigation. Let's go to
- 22:15Speaker 1: our cut eight, our friend Vincent Hill, Tulsa County share.
- 22:20Speaker 1: Vic Reggolotto was a homicide detective with Tulsa Police at
- 22:23Speaker 1: the time. Reggolatto says Britney's killer had likely stalked her before.
- 22:27Speaker 1: Whoever murdered her that night more than likely had seen
- 22:31Speaker 1: her before and knew that she lived in that apartment.
- 22:34Speaker 1: Reggolatto had a long list of suspects. Were talking individuals
- 22:37Speaker 1: that had backgrounds that would lead you to believe they
- 22:40Speaker 1: were potentially able and willing to do a crime such
- 22:44Speaker 1: as that two hundred and seventy six to be exact,
- 22:47Speaker 1: that either lived in the apartment complex or close by.
- 22:50Speaker 1: I'm talking you know, theft of women's underwear, I'm talking
- 22:56Speaker 1: of peeping tom's, I'm talving of rates. And to top
- 23:01Speaker 1: it all off, Cheryl McCollum tell us about a secret
- 23:05Speaker 1: door in Britney's closet. Yeah, so this little trap door,
- 23:09Speaker 1: if you've climbed up through it and dropped down behind
- 23:13Speaker 1: the closet, it was almost like this little cloister where
- 23:16Speaker 1: you could enter several of the apartments just from that
- 23:20Speaker 1: little center where you would drop down from. So if
- 23:24Speaker 1: you were an apartment A and you drop down into
- 23:27Speaker 1: that center, you get in her apartment B, C or
- 23:30Speaker 1: D through their trap door. So essentially this perpetrator could
- 23:35Speaker 1: have been laying in wait and therefore there would have
- 23:39Speaker 1: been no forced entry. However, it you know, may not
- 23:42Speaker 1: have appeared that way that what any does on the floor,
- 23:45Speaker 1: or there was no evidence to anybody had been drinking
- 23:48Speaker 1: or smoking or you know, eat anything back there and
- 23:51Speaker 1: told of being so warm. I don't know that you
- 23:54Speaker 1: could have stayed in that area. It's kind of like
- 23:56Speaker 1: an attic type temperature for a long period of time.
- 23:59Speaker 1: But it was something that what law enforcement noticed. It
- 24:03Speaker 1: became a concern to doctor Maggie Zengman, and you can
- 24:07Speaker 1: find her at Brittany Phillips and murder dot net. Doctor Maggie,
- 24:12Speaker 1: what is your gut feeling? Do you think the killer
- 24:14Speaker 1: came through the secret trap door in the closet. I
- 24:18Speaker 1: don't know, because I agree with Cheryl. You know, that
- 24:21Speaker 1: was a very hot time of year. But I it's
- 24:25Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's either that or years before
- 24:28Speaker 1: she was killed, or months before she was killed, she
- 24:31Speaker 1: had a friend shimmy himself up on her balcony because
- 24:35Speaker 1: she had locked herself out, and her balcony doors, you know,
- 24:41Speaker 1: were easy to open, and so you know, I'm thinking
- 24:44Speaker 1: they possibly came that way, although I just recently, after
- 24:48Speaker 1: a bunch of stories I did, had a friend called
- 24:51Speaker 1: me and she said, you know, I had to keep
- 24:54Speaker 1: reminding Britty to knock to lock her door, and you know,
- 24:58Speaker 1: I thought I had taught her. But yeah, okay, guys,
- 25:02Speaker 1: a photo composite is created. How did they do that?
- 25:08Speaker 1: Take a listen to Sarah Whaley Pots twenty three police.
- 25:12Speaker 1: We're able to get DNA of Brittany's killer at the scene,
- 25:15Speaker 1: but that DNA has been sitting through the years until
- 25:19Speaker 1: now when long awaited technological advances have finally given detectives
- 25:24Speaker 1: their first lead in a very long time. Sergeant Shane
- 25:27Speaker 1: Toole says, recently, Para bond nano labs use the DNA
- 25:31Speaker 1: to come up with a phenotype report. They can narrow
- 25:34Speaker 1: down to a very good certainty of hair color, freckles, ethnicity,
- 25:40Speaker 1: and it ultimately led to this computer generated picture. Ziemann
- 25:44Speaker 1: says she now has new hope of having a visual
- 25:47Speaker 1: possibility is opening a big door, because it's not just
- 25:52Speaker 1: going to be some theme or some idea that somebody's
- 25:55Speaker 1: going to tampas on. It's going to be the way
- 25:57Speaker 1: the person looks now. I remember seeing the photo, Maggie, Cheryl,
- 26:06Speaker 1: remember how thrilled we all were when a photo composite
- 26:11Speaker 1: was made based on pheno typing. A lot of hopes
- 26:17Speaker 1: were raised, only to be dashed. But Cheryl McCollum explain
- 26:24Speaker 1: what is ceno typing pe n O T Y P
- 26:31Speaker 1: I n G phenotyping. They are able to extract basically
- 26:36Speaker 1: features of a perpetrator with this phenotyping, so they can
- 26:42Speaker 1: tell hair color, skin color, eye color, whether or not
- 26:47Speaker 1: you've got dimples, whether or not you've got freckles, and
- 26:50Speaker 1: they come up with a composite it looks like the
- 26:54Speaker 1: person from the sample. And in this case, they came
- 26:58Speaker 1: up with a Caucasian male, one headed, blue eyes, and
- 27:02Speaker 1: Maggie did something extraordinary with that composite. I'll let her
- 27:05Speaker 1: tell you about it. Tell us, Maggie Sieingman, what did
- 27:08Speaker 1: you do well? For about fourteen years, I had traveled
- 27:14Speaker 1: in three different cars with caravan to katcha killer. I
- 27:18Speaker 1: took my story nationwide because I too believed her killer
- 27:21Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily in Oklahoma, then maybe he was Syria whatever.
- 27:26Speaker 1: But on my fourth third car, I took that picture
- 27:30Speaker 1: and got it wrapped. Because my car was rapped with
- 27:32Speaker 1: pictures of her. I put his picture on the front
- 27:36Speaker 1: of my hood. I didn't want to look at him,
- 27:38Speaker 1: but wherever I was, I wanted people to see that face.
- 27:42Speaker 1: And it did. It generated tips. For about three or
- 27:45Speaker 1: four months, we got seventy five tips of people saying, well,
- 27:49Speaker 1: it looks like him, it looks like him. Crime Stories
- 28:05Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace explained to me Cherylt. McCollum, how everyone's hopes,
- 28:13Speaker 1: including yours mine, Doctor Maggie's, were dashed. Explain oh gosh,
- 28:20Speaker 1: so ccmore got involved. Who's one of the best there
- 28:25Speaker 1: is as far as you know, looking at somebody's ancestry
- 28:27Speaker 1: and connecting them to crimes. And she'd got a perfect match.
- 28:31Speaker 1: She said, I know the person, and it was somebody
- 28:34Speaker 1: that law enforcement had already cleared. And so the composite
- 28:40Speaker 1: that she had placed on her car from Parabind had
- 28:43Speaker 1: to be removed. It wasn't the guy according to law enforcement.
- 28:46Speaker 1: So you know, here she had spent all these years
- 28:49Speaker 1: believing this was the person, this was his face. How
- 28:53Speaker 1: did they clear him? Because the sample was from the
- 28:57Speaker 1: home of a person that gave an explanation of why
- 29:00Speaker 1: his sample would have been there, and law enforcement accepted, including, Okay,
- 29:04Speaker 1: you know what, what are you trying to say? Do
- 29:07Speaker 1: you mean this was a person a male, that male
- 29:11Speaker 1: from that DNA that had been phenotyped that C. C. Moore,
- 29:16Speaker 1: who is brilliant, had isolated this is the guy. But
- 29:21Speaker 1: his DNA was there innocently. Is that what you're trying
- 29:24Speaker 1: to say, Sheryl, I'm not saying it was there innestly.
- 29:27Speaker 1: I want to be real clear. You've got a person
- 29:29Speaker 1: that left more than one biological sample. He left feminal
- 29:33Speaker 1: fluid owned the bedspread, and he left blood in the
- 29:37Speaker 1: sink in the kitchen, and law enforcement accepted his you know,
- 29:42Speaker 1: the explanation of how that happened. What was his explanation,
- 29:46Speaker 1: Doctor Maggie, Well, his explanation is that he was there
- 29:51Speaker 1: with one of Britty's best friends. And I knew that
- 29:55Speaker 1: Britty let some of her younger friends sleep over there.
- 29:57Speaker 1: But and he Eddie Majors, who is the detective, and
- 30:02Speaker 1: never gave me a full explanation. He said he has
- 30:05Speaker 1: a good albit. He never told me the alibi. He said, oh,
- 30:08Speaker 1: you know, probably I said, blood and seamen. He said, well,
- 30:12Speaker 1: you know, somebody could have bloody nose or cut themselves
- 30:16Speaker 1: with a knife. And I said, well, but they would
- 30:18Speaker 1: remember it. I mean, I don't necessarily think he's the killer.
- 30:21Speaker 1: But I never was told any of the alibis. I
- 30:24Speaker 1: never I was told possibly there were some issues with
- 30:27Speaker 1: the investigation when they interrogated him. I don't know what
- 30:31Speaker 1: you're saying. Issues with the investigation when they interrogated him,
- 30:36Speaker 1: Speak English to me, Please, what are you trying to say?
- 30:39Speaker 1: Hold on, Andy, COPSA do you know what she's trying
- 30:42Speaker 1: to say? Yes, somebody could say better than me. Well,
- 30:46Speaker 1: I mean I think that the problem is is that
- 30:48Speaker 1: there something is, something doesn't smell right, and so that's
- 30:52Speaker 1: when my ears go up. I think that there's a
- 30:57Speaker 1: lot that told the police department has done right. Okay, guys,
- 31:02Speaker 1: b Frank Cheryl, what happened? He said that he and
- 31:06Speaker 1: a girlfriend were using Britney's bedroom for a little trip,
- 31:10Speaker 1: and then he said, yeah, I probably got hurt sometime,
- 31:13Speaker 1: probably cut my finger, and that's why my blood's in
- 31:15Speaker 1: the kitchen. So that's how he explained away. How's the
- 31:19Speaker 1: woman corroborated his story? The friend, the roommate. Yeah, yeah, guys.
- 31:27Speaker 1: Despite the setback in the phenotyping, Doctor Maggie Zeman, Britney's mother,
- 31:34Speaker 1: has moved forward. Take a listen to our cut twenty
- 31:37Speaker 1: our friends at k j RH. But this setback hasn't
- 31:41Speaker 1: deterred Zeman. She's put forty three thousand miles on her SUV,
- 31:45Speaker 1: driving from coast to coast, trying to drum up leaves
- 31:47Speaker 1: and what she calls caravan to catch a killer. I'll
- 31:50Speaker 1: keep putting them on. Yeah, I feel like I can't
- 31:53Speaker 1: stop this case. You know, it was horrific you know,
- 31:56Speaker 1: and it really weighs heavy in my heart, and you know,
- 31:59Speaker 1: I'm at home with me all the time and think
- 32:01Speaker 1: about the case and what I can do with Detective
- 32:03Speaker 1: Jeff Felton's just as determined to find Brittany's killer. He
- 32:06Speaker 1: says even the smallest hip from someone close to the
- 32:09Speaker 1: case could be the key to solving it. Would appreciate
- 32:12Speaker 1: calls from anybody that knew Brittany, Calls from anybody that
- 32:16Speaker 1: may have been around the complex that they thought were suspicious.
- 32:19Speaker 1: You know, anybody that we could check out, because you know,
- 32:21Speaker 1: at this point it could be anybody. Guys, we are
- 32:24Speaker 1: desperate to help find Brittany's killer. There is no statute
- 32:30Speaker 1: of limitations on martyr. This is another that has shrink
- 32:36Speaker 1: wrapped her car with information and driven across the country.
- 32:43Speaker 1: She drove here to our studio. She's driven across the
- 32:48Speaker 1: country trying to get help. Won't you help us? Please?
- 32:56Speaker 1: The tip line nine eight seven nine eight nine four
- 33:00Speaker 1: seven seven repeat nine one eight seven nine eight nine
- 33:07Speaker 1: four seven seven. There's also an email Sarah Poet th
- 33:12Speaker 1: e r a poet theah Poet at email dot com. Guys,
- 33:19Speaker 1: is their new breath breathe into an old investigation. Take
- 33:27Speaker 1: a listen to our cut twenty six. The date on
- 33:30Speaker 1: the card is September twenty ninth, which is postmarked after
- 33:35Speaker 1: her death. Could be that pretty scented, meaning her timeline
- 33:39Speaker 1: is wrong on her death because the police have said
- 33:43Speaker 1: consistently for eighteen years that she died sometime between September
- 33:49Speaker 1: twenty seventh that Monday night, and I had talked to
- 33:52Speaker 1: her about nine, so they assume it's after nine and
- 33:55Speaker 1: eight am the next morning, the twenty eighth, Maggie is
- 33:58Speaker 1: asking anyone who may have mailed the card to come
- 34:02Speaker 1: forward because that could possibly change the timeline of her death.
- 34:06Speaker 1: Doctor magiz Engman, tell me about when you learned of
- 34:11Speaker 1: this card being postmarked. My ex husman, who hadn't talked
- 34:14Speaker 1: to in years, called me in said you need to
- 34:17Speaker 1: look at a picture I'm going to send you, and
- 34:18Speaker 1: then I will send you this. And he sent me
- 34:21Speaker 1: a text picture of an envelope with and this was
- 34:25Speaker 1: just a month and a half ago, with a mechanized
- 34:29Speaker 1: stap meaning a stamp printed by either a kios or
- 34:32Speaker 1: a post office that had the date of September twenty ninth.
- 34:37Speaker 1: And he told me that he received this about a
- 34:41Speaker 1: week and a half after the funeral in Florida, and
- 34:45Speaker 1: it was a card that every year Britty would send
- 34:49Speaker 1: to him to send to her grandfather because she couldn't
- 34:52Speaker 1: remember his address, and he was so devastated. He said
- 34:56Speaker 1: that he put it away in a box for eighteen
- 34:58Speaker 1: years and suddenly decided that he should be starting it.
- 35:03Speaker 1: Matthew team and Gino high profile lawyer joining us. One
- 35:07Speaker 1: of the first things you do and every investigation or
- 35:10Speaker 1: to take a case to a jury is established as
- 35:13Speaker 1: best as you can, down to the minute, if possible,
- 35:15Speaker 1: your timeline. This change and the possible date of the
- 35:21Speaker 1: murderer could change everything. Mangino. Yeah, there's no question, you
- 35:26Speaker 1: know this, this twist, this new piece of evidence could
- 35:29Speaker 1: turn the whole investigation on its head. Um. You know,
- 35:34Speaker 1: a time frame frame that they were looking at in
- 35:37Speaker 1: terms of their investigation may not be accurate. So now
- 35:41Speaker 1: we may have another day or more where Brittany was alive,
- 35:48Speaker 1: and who did she have contact with, and where did
- 35:50Speaker 1: she go and what did she do? So this really, uh,
- 35:55Speaker 1: you know, you know, invigorate some new energy or should
- 35:59Speaker 1: into this investigation to follow up on potentially take a
- 36:02Speaker 1: listen to Sharon Phillips j RH. Because it's now considered
- 36:06Speaker 1: evidence in the case. TU News is not showing the
- 36:09Speaker 1: actual card. But this is a similar stamp. This was mailed.
- 36:14Speaker 1: It came out of a machine on the twenty ninth.
- 36:18Speaker 1: Somebody had to mail it. Maggie says. She hopes this
- 36:21Speaker 1: new piece of evidence will trigger someone's memory and help
- 36:24Speaker 1: her solve her daughter's murder. We reached out to the
- 36:27Speaker 1: Tussa Police Department's Cold case unit, but at this time
- 36:31Speaker 1: detectives are not commenting on this case. As a mother,
- 36:35Speaker 1: even at eighteen years, I am going to do whatever
- 36:38Speaker 1: I can to solve this case. Andy cops. It's not
- 36:41Speaker 1: an abolutely you drop into the mail. This is actually
- 36:46Speaker 1: done by a machine like at the post office. Ye,
- 36:49Speaker 1: that stamps it with that day, which changes everything. This
- 36:53Speaker 1: doesn't mean that oh the postman forgot, didn't missed it somehow,
- 36:57Speaker 1: or didn't pick of the mail that day, or didn't
- 36:59Speaker 1: go into till midnight. It was stamped the next day,
- 37:03Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It didn't get stuck in the back
- 37:06Speaker 1: of a mailbox any of those things. So you know
- 37:11Speaker 1: it and I think too. After Maggie did that some
- 37:15Speaker 1: new witnesses came forward that said, you know, I kind
- 37:20Speaker 1: of remember seeing Brittany the day after they said she
- 37:25Speaker 1: had actually died. And that's a result of this new
- 37:27Speaker 1: evidence coming forward. So not the twenty seventh, but the
- 37:31Speaker 1: twenty ninth, at least to twenty ninth. Correct, Yeah, so
- 37:35Speaker 1: it's the date of the twenty ninth, so it had
- 37:37Speaker 1: to be purchased on the twenty ninth, So that expands
- 37:41Speaker 1: the window right right, Okay, CHERRYL. McCollum. This is a
- 37:46Speaker 1: big break. This is huge. It absolutely changes the investigated
- 37:51Speaker 1: timeline period because only one of three things occurred. The
- 37:55Speaker 1: killer mailed it, which is unlikely that would show his movements. Two,
- 38:01Speaker 1: a friend of hers mailed it for her, which would
- 38:04Speaker 1: change the timeline as far as witnesses and when she
- 38:06Speaker 1: was last seeing possibly and it would show their movement.
- 38:10Speaker 1: No one has come forward so far, or she mailed
- 38:13Speaker 1: it number back. I mean a friend would have remembered.
- 38:17Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I took this to the mail for her.
- 38:20Speaker 1: Last to doctor Maggie Ziemann, this is Britney's mom. What
- 38:25Speaker 1: is your message today? Two things, One, you know I'm
- 38:29Speaker 1: still because I didn't know all her friends and since
- 38:31Speaker 1: I put the story up, friends have come forward, So
- 38:34Speaker 1: I'm saying if anybody knows anything about mailing something, please
- 38:40Speaker 1: come forward. The other thing is, really I'm a good
- 38:44Speaker 1: example of you have to keep having a voice, because
- 38:47Speaker 1: I'm really having to push tells a police on this
- 38:51Speaker 1: envelope evidence. And if you don't have a voice, some
- 38:54Speaker 1: of these cases just end up even going further into
- 38:58Speaker 1: the cold. Charence Art with me, renowned psychologist out of Manhattan. Karen,
- 39:04Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how much time has passed. There is
- 39:08Speaker 1: nothing greater than a mother's love and the pain of
- 39:11Speaker 1: losing your child that must never ever go away. As
- 39:16Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, Maggie, Unfortunately, she will never
- 39:21Speaker 1: get over her daughter's death. It was violent and sense
- 39:24Speaker 1: with an out of sink. She died wrong, that she's
- 39:28Speaker 1: supposed to die after her mother, and the pain will
- 39:32Speaker 1: stay with her. But doing what she's doing it gives
- 39:35Speaker 1: her a sense of purpose. Well, Karen, I feel like
- 39:37Speaker 1: she's never been able to move forward in life because
- 39:41Speaker 1: she hasn't had this case resolved. So instead of having
- 39:45Speaker 1: a chance to grieve, she's still on a quest for
- 39:48Speaker 1: justice that's taken her all the way across the country
- 39:51Speaker 1: many times over. She hasn't ever been able to grieve
- 39:53Speaker 1: in eighteen years. But they didn't agree. Nancy, she's grieving
- 39:59Speaker 1: whilst she's go This is her way of helping and
- 40:02Speaker 1: it's really a great displacement because she's got purpose now. Guys,
- 40:08Speaker 1: if you have any information, please help us. Nine one
- 40:11Speaker 1: eight seven nine eight nine four seven seven. We want
- 40:17Speaker 1: justice for Britain. Goodbye friend.