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Max Devries - Nightmare in Paradise · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Aruba, two thousand and four. Picture this turquoise water, those
• 0:05
  white sand beaches sunshining. The Divreese family they're escaping to paradise,
• 0:10
  you know, trying to heal a little bit after losing
• 0:12
  their dad, yeh, fourteen year old Max, his Mommy Vaughan,
• 0:15
  younger sister Dominique. They're just searching for a little peace,
• 0:18
  a little solace. But going on fund it is a getaway,
• 0:23
  it takes a devastating turn. And that's why we're here.
• 0:25
  You brought us this heart wrenching cold case and we
• 0:27
  are diving into paramounts never seen again. We've also got
• 0:30
  some really solid investigative work from W seven's other Catala
• 0:33
  to dig into. Right, so really, what can we uncover
• 0:36
  about Max's disappearance?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Well, and a cold case, by the way, for anyone
• 0:39
  who doesn't know, it's an unsolved crime, often a missing
• 0:42
  person case where that active investigation has ceased. So these
• 0:46
  cases are so difficult to crack. But Yvonne's dedication to
• 0:51
  finding answers, I mean it's both inspiring, frankly, and it's
• 0:54
  the driving force behind this whole deep dive.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, you can feel that unwavering commitment like just radiates
• 1:00
  from Yvonne in this documentary. Oh yeah, she talked about
• 1:03
  Max being so excited for this jet ski trip, practically
• 1:05
  vibrating with anticipation.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine, though, being a mother already dealing with
• 1:11
  the loss of your spouse and then your son vanishes
• 1:14
  during what should have been a fun, care free outing.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: It's just it's unimaginable. And you know, it's easy to
• 1:20
  overlook how vulnerable you are as a tourist, especially when
• 1:22
  you're a family already dealing with grief, right, Like, could
• 1:25
  that emotional state have made them a target? It's a
• 1:28
  question that really hangs over this whole case, especially as
• 1:31
  we get into the details.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let's do that. Let's impact this. Yeah. So
• 1:35
  Max heads out on this jet ski ride with an
• 1:38
  older man, someone they met at the resort. Seems like,
• 1:41
  you know, pretty normal vacation behavior, right right, except this
• 1:46
  man returns alone. Uh oh, and that's where things get
• 1:51
  really complicated.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, complicated and honestly very suspicious. This man, he gives
• 1:57
  all these conflicting accounts to the aeroban authority. First it's
• 2:01
  engine failure on Max's jet ski. Then it's oh I
• 2:04
  was trying to toe Max, but we both ended up stranded.
• 2:07
  And then finally he says he saw Max swimming towards
• 2:10
  the shore. In each version of this story, it seems
• 2:13
  to unravel just a little bit more.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's baffling, like if you were responsible for a young
• 2:19
  teen who was suddenly lost at sea, wouldn't you be panicking,
• 2:23
  wouldn't you be raising the alarm like crazy, desperate for
• 2:25
  any kind of health. Of course, his actions just don't
• 2:28
  seem to line up with the situation at all exactly.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: It makes you wonder was he genuinely trying to help
• 2:33
  or were these inconsistencies, you know, were they an attempt
• 2:37
  to cover up something much more sinister? Right? And those
• 2:39
  are the questions that have just lingered for twenty years.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And it makes you think about what the media landscape
• 2:46
  was like back then. This was two thousand and four,
• 2:48
  pre social media cases. They didn't instantly get blasted across
• 2:53
  the globe, right. Imagine if this happened today, the immediate outcry,
• 2:57
  you know, the social media salutes, all that pressure on
• 2:59
  the authorities.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Oh totally.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Could that have actually made a difference here? It's a
• 3:03
  chilling thought. Did this case, did it slip through the
• 3:07
  cracks because it didn't have that instant global spotlight.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It's possible.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: We're talking what a year later, same location, Natalie Holloway
• 3:15
  disappears and it's a media frenzy instantly. It makes you
• 3:19
  wonder how much impact does that public pressure have on
• 3:22
  these investigations.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean, media attention it can
• 3:25
  be a double edged sword, make sure, but it can
• 3:27
  also be a catalyst. And you look at the difference
• 3:30
  in the response, you know, between Max's case and Natalie's.
• 3:33
  It raises some uncomfortable questions about how we as a
• 3:36
  society prioritize and react to these tragedies. But you know,
• 3:40
  even without that twenty four to seven news cycle, that
• 3:43
  social media pressure, there were people, though, who refuse to
• 3:46
  let Max's case fade away.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: People like his sister Dominique. She was only twelve at
• 3:51
  the time. Wow. And in the documentary she talks about
• 3:54
  just this sinking feeling knowing something was wrong. She says,
• 3:58
  there's that moment where you're just like it's too long,
• 4:00
  something is not right.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Those gut feelings, I mean, they're powerful and for Yvonne,
• 4:04
  that mother's intuition, it only intensified as time went on,
• 4:07
  and she was relentless, you know, dedicated her life to
• 4:10
  uncovering the truth, and that led her to connect with
• 4:13
  a retired detective from Michigan, Corey Williams.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, and this is where it gets really interesting. Corey Williams.
• 4:19
  He starts digging into the background of this man who
• 4:22
  was last seen with Max, and he uncovers this disturbing
• 4:25
  allegation from nineteen eighty one.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is years we're talking before Max was even born, right,
• 4:31
  And this discovery just throws a whole new wrench into everything.
• 4:35
  Williams found that this man had been accused of sexual
• 4:37
  misconduct with the minor decades earlier.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, so we need to be very clear here
• 4:43
  this information. It doesn't directly link him to Max's disappearance, right,
• 4:47
  and he has not been charged with anything related to Max.
• 4:51
  But it's a chilling detail and it's one that Yvonne
• 4:54
  believes warrants a much closer look.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And this is where things get incredibly complex, because
• 5:00
  how much weight can you place on past allegations like that,
• 5:03
  especially when you're trying to build a case decades later.
• 5:06
  I mean, it's a question that investigators and legal experts
• 5:09
  they grapple with all the time.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be so frustrating for Yvonne. She spent years
• 5:14
  years urging the FBI to reopen the case, believing this
• 5:18
  information is a crucial piece of the puzzle.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It just it speaks to the limitations of our legal
• 5:23
  system in some ways, because you need that concrete evidence, right,
• 5:26
  you need that smoking gun to move forward, and that
• 5:29
  can feel impossible to find, you know, years after something
• 5:32
  like this has happened. It's why cold cases are so
• 5:35
  difficult to solve, you know, the trail's gone cold, evidence
• 5:38
  is lost, memories fade, and.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yet Yvonne hasn't given up. In Heaterer Cuttlow's report, you
• 5:44
  could just I mean her frustration and just desperation. It's palpable.
• 5:49
  She asks, was my son set up to be taken
• 5:52
  in Aruba? Oh wow, it's a question that haunts her
• 5:55
  and you can't help but feel the weight of that
• 5:57
  question as a listener.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it really gets to you.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And then you hear Yvonne talk about the lack of closure.
• 6:02
  You know, yeah, she says, for a little boy who
• 6:05
  is lost and taken from his sister, his family, for
• 6:08
  all those who loved and missed him to not even
• 6:11
  still have a death certificate to this day.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's the kind of pain that
• 6:16
  never really heals, amplified by all those unanswered questions. Right,
• 6:20
  but what Yvonne is doing, you know, speaking out demanding
• 6:24
  attention for Max's case, it's so important. She's keeping his
• 6:28
  memory alive and hopefully inspiring someone somewhere to come forward,
• 6:33
  you know, with new information.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And she really does. In the W seven report, she
• 6:39
  makes this really direct. Please, she says, there's an FBI
• 6:42
  file with an active number. If they can just reactivate
• 6:45
  that number and get that case activated again, that's all
• 6:48
  we need. It makes you realize the power of just
• 6:51
  a voice of keeping these cases in.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: The public high It really does, and it highlights something
• 6:56
  so crucial about cold cases. Sometimes the tin needs details
• 7:00
  something someone might not even realize is important. That can
• 7:03
  be the key to unlocking everything.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: That's true. Maybe someone listening right now, maybe you were
• 7:08
  in Aruba back in May of two thousand and four.
• 7:11
  Maybe you were at that same resort. Maybe you saw
• 7:13
  something that seemed just a little bit odd at the time,
• 7:16
  but you dismissed it.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Right even the smallest detail, a conversation overheard, a face
• 7:21
  in the crowd, a vehicle that seemed out of place. Right,
• 7:24
  it could be that missing piece of the puzzle.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It's a lot, and it makes you realize how, I
• 7:30
  don't know, how easily something like this can happen, how
• 7:32
  quickly life can just yeah change Yeah. And this deep
• 7:36
  dive it was about Max his family. They're unwavering fight
• 7:40
  for answers. But it's also just a reminder that even
• 7:42
  after twenty years justice it is possible.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It is. It takes persistence, public awareness, and sometimes all
• 7:49
  it takes is just one person coming forward with information
• 7:52
  they didn't even realize was important.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Don't ever underestimate the impact you could have by simply
• 7:57
  sharing what you know, no matter how small, how insignificant
• 8:00
  you think it might be, your willingness to speak up
• 8:03
  could bring a family some peace.