Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / What happened to Rebekah? (Part 1 of 2)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
- 0:05Speaker 2: The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
- 0:07Speaker 2: the speaker and do not necessarily represent the Knife or
- 0:10Speaker 2: Exactly Right Media.
- 0:15Speaker 3: We used to watch Dateline and 2020 and all those
- 0:20Speaker 3: shows and I'd go, how in the world did somebody
- 0:23Speaker 3: go missing? How does that happen?
- 0:25Speaker 4: And then here I found myself living it.
- 0:42Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife. I'm Patia Eaton.
- 0:44Speaker 2: This week, we have part one of a two-part series.
- 0:47Speaker 2: Part two will air next week. Today, I'm speaking with
- 0:50Speaker 2: Angela Mastrovito, the mother of Rebecca Barsotti. In the summer
- 0:54Speaker 2: of 2021, Rebecca went missing in the small town of Superior, Montana.
- 0:59Speaker 2: a place she'd only briefly returned to at the request
- 1:02Speaker 2: of her estranged husband, David Barsotti. Rebecca's mother, Angela, tells
- 1:06Speaker 2: us about her daughter, Rebecca, her life, and the events
- 1:09Speaker 2: leading up to her strange disappearance. For Angela, the search
- 1:13Speaker 2: for Rebecca that followed would leave more questions than answers.
- 1:17Speaker 2: What really happened to Rebecca? Let's get into the interview.
- 1:25Speaker 1: Hi, Angela.
- 1:26Speaker 2: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak
- 1:28Speaker 2: with me today.
- 1:29Speaker 4: Certainly.
- 1:30Speaker 3: I really appreciate the opportunity, Pasha, to be able to
- 1:35Speaker 3: share awareness about Rebecca's story and about Rebecca's legacy and
- 1:40Speaker 3: getting the information out there.
- 1:43Speaker 2: So I want to start just back at the beginning.
- 1:46Speaker 2: If you could tell us a little bit about yourself.
- 1:49Speaker 4: A little bit about myself.
- 1:51Speaker 3: I'm almost 70 years young and I am a wife
- 1:56Speaker 3: and and a mom and a grandma. I myself was
- 2:01Speaker 3: one of five siblings growing up. I lived in a
- 2:06Speaker 3: blended family. My parents were divorced and used to go
- 2:11Speaker 3: back and forth between mom's house and dad's house. I
- 2:14Speaker 3: did grow up with what they would today call abuse.
- 2:17Speaker 3: I mean, there was fighting and hollering and throwing objects
- 2:21Speaker 3: and all kinds of stuff and taking my age into consideration.
- 2:25Speaker 4: At that point in time, people did not talk about this.
- 2:28Speaker 3: And you didn't even know what was normal and what
- 2:31Speaker 3: was abnormal because no one spoke of it.
- 2:33Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:34Speaker 3: So I went into my adulthood with no real concept
- 2:39Speaker 3: of what a normal relationship looked like. I... I've been
- 2:43Speaker 3: married three times. The first one was emotionally abusive. The
- 2:48Speaker 3: second one also emotionally abusive. And now I have a
- 2:54Speaker 3: really good man. So I'm very thankful.
- 2:57Speaker 2: During her first marriage, Angela gave birth to her son, Antonio.
- 3:01Speaker 2: But the marriage ended and when Antonio, or Tony, was two,
- 3:05Speaker 2: Angela remarried. But her second husband also became abusive, especially
- 3:10Speaker 2: to her son, Tony.
- 3:12Speaker 1: This was the.
- 3:12Speaker 2: Early 1980s, and they were living in rural Virginia. Angela
- 3:16Speaker 2: asked for help from local organizations, churches, and school counselors,
- 3:20Speaker 2: but the help that she needed never came. So she
- 3:23Speaker 2: and Tony found other ways to survive.
- 3:26Speaker 3: It was at a time where you would go for
- 3:29Speaker 3: help and no one would help you.
- 3:31Speaker 4: The police would come and say, you look like a
- 3:33Speaker 4: great family, work it out.
- 3:36Speaker 1: Was there physical abuse then?
- 3:38Speaker 3: Yeah, there was excessive spanking and there was abuse there.
- 3:43Speaker 3: Tony and I went to counseling and basically we were
- 3:47Speaker 3: told how to learn all the warning signs. Don't put
- 3:51Speaker 3: yourself in a corner. Make sure you're out of the
- 3:53Speaker 3: house as often as you can be. So that was
- 3:56Speaker 3: pretty much how we lived our life. We slept at home,
- 3:59Speaker 3: but we didn't stay at home. And You know, when
- 4:03Speaker 3: I had been trying to find ways to leave, and
- 4:07Speaker 3: then when I found out I was pregnant, it was like,
- 4:10Speaker 3: oh shit, what do I do now?
- 4:12Speaker 4: I just took it as a.
- 4:13Speaker 3: Sign that, you know, Rebecca was going to be my
- 4:16Speaker 3: gift from God and that things were going to work out.
- 4:21Speaker 3: Rebecca was and is my gift from God. When I
- 4:24Speaker 3: was pregnant with her, I used to sit and sing
- 4:27Speaker 3: to her even before she was born. So when she
- 4:31Speaker 3: was in the womb. And I would sing a song
- 4:34Speaker 3: after we chose her name. I would sing the song
- 4:36Speaker 3: Rebecca Grace Rose is a gift from God. And I
- 4:40Speaker 3: would sing that over and over and over to her.
- 4:43Speaker 3: And unlike her brother who took like 20 some hours
- 4:49Speaker 3: in labor, Rebecca was just like, I'm here and I'm
- 4:57Speaker 3: here now and I'm not waiting. She was born on
- 5:00Speaker 3: December 28th, 1987, in the middle of a wicked snowstorm,
- 5:05Speaker 3: an ice storm. And she just wasn't going to wait.
- 5:08Speaker 3: She arrived and she arrived screaming her lungs off and
- 5:12Speaker 3: demanding attention from the world.
- 5:14Speaker 2: Exactly what you want and what you hope for.
- 5:17Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
- 5:19Speaker 3: She truly brought a lot of joy into our life.
- 5:22Speaker 3: She and Tony, her brother, were bonded right from the get-go.
- 5:27Speaker 2: Rebecca and Tony had a special relationship, but even growing
- 5:31Speaker 2: up in the same household, their childhoods were starkly different.
- 5:34Speaker 2: Rebecca's father, who was Tony's stepdad, was never abusive to Rebecca,
- 5:39Speaker 2: but was consistently abusive to Tony. Asking a survivor of
- 5:42Speaker 2: domestic violence, why didn't you just leave? It shifts the
- 5:45Speaker 2: blame from abuser to victim. It's an oversimplification of the
- 5:48Speaker 2: control that an abuser can have over someone and the
- 5:51Speaker 2: added danger that statistically comes with leaving. Angela and her
- 5:56Speaker 2: family lived in a small town. They had very little money.
- 5:59Speaker 2: And as Tony and Rebecca got older, Angela went so
- 6:01Speaker 2: far as to seek out women's shelters, but none would
- 6:05Speaker 2: take Angela, Rebecca, and her son, because at the time,
- 6:08Speaker 2: Tony was over 10 years old. He would have had
- 6:10Speaker 2: to go into foster care, and understandably, she wasn't going
- 6:13Speaker 2: to let that happen. Angela kept the children busy and
- 6:17Speaker 2: out of the house. For Tony, there were sports and extracurriculars.
- 6:20Speaker 2: For Rebecca, there were horses.
- 6:24Speaker 4: Rebecca's passion had always been horses.
- 6:28Speaker 3: And although she tried many, many different things throughout her childhood,
- 6:33Speaker 3: the horses is what she loved. Rebecca got lessons and
- 6:37Speaker 3: learned how to ride and helped on the farm with
- 6:40Speaker 3: baling hay and things like that in exchange for the
- 6:44Speaker 3: opportunity to ride.
- 6:46Speaker 2: Riding horses can be really expensive. And Angela didn't have
- 6:50Speaker 2: the money to pay for Rebecca's lessons, so together, she
- 6:53Speaker 2: and Rebecca worked doing chores at the barn in exchange
- 6:56Speaker 2: for time for Rebecca to ride. Rebecca was used to working,
- 7:00Speaker 2: and she could talk to anyone, so as she got older,
- 7:03Speaker 2: she got jobs waiting tables and became more involved in
- 7:06Speaker 2: her local church. Rebecca went on mission trips that allowed
- 7:10Speaker 2: her the opportunity to see more of the country, and
- 7:12Speaker 2: soon she was ready to think about leaving her small
- 7:15Speaker 2: hometown of Partlow, Virginia.
- 7:18Speaker 3: So Rebecca had taken some missions trips through church and
- 7:24Speaker 3: had gone to different areas. One was Denver, Colorado. She
- 7:28Speaker 3: went to do some street ministry in inner city, things
- 7:31Speaker 3: like that. In 2006, her grandfather died and she was very,
- 7:38Speaker 3: very close to her grandfather.
- 7:40Speaker 4: It really hit her hard.
- 7:42Speaker 3: And even though she really didn't share it with me
- 7:44Speaker 3: at the time, it was a little bit later, like
- 7:47Speaker 3: a year later that she said, you know, she just
- 7:49Speaker 3: came home from work one day and she said, the
- 7:52Speaker 3: world's too big to stay in part low.
- 7:54Speaker 4: I'm leaving.
- 7:54Speaker 3: And I'm like, what? You know, that just totally floored me.
- 8:00Speaker 3: And I'm looking at her and I go, well, where
- 8:02Speaker 3: are you going? And at first she was like, I
- 8:04Speaker 3: don't know. I'll think someplace, probably out west. And she goes,
- 8:08Speaker 3: I really liked it out West.
- 8:09Speaker 4: And I said, okay.
- 8:11Speaker 3: And so then she would come home and say, a
- 8:14Speaker 3: girlfriend and I are going to drive across country. And
- 8:17Speaker 3: I don't know if you ever heard of Alicia Scholl Walter,
- 8:20Speaker 3: but she was a young woman that went missing in
- 8:22Speaker 3: Virginia about two hours from our home. And I just,
- 8:25Speaker 3: I looked at Rebecca and I said, I.
- 8:27Speaker 4: Don't think so. Two girls travel across country by themselves.
- 8:31Speaker 4: That's not safe.
- 8:33Speaker 3: So she would come home with a different story and
- 8:36Speaker 3: a different idea on a regular basis. And then finally
- 8:40Speaker 3: she came home and she said, the dishwasher is going
- 8:42Speaker 3: to ride across country with me.
- 8:44Speaker 4: And I was like, she's going to go. I mean,
- 8:47Speaker 4: I'm not going to be able to stop.
- 8:48Speaker 3: Her, right?
- 8:50Speaker 2: The dishwasher is literally the dishwasher that Rebecca worked with
- 8:54Speaker 2: at the restaurant where she waited tables.
- 8:55Speaker 1: And his name is Jeff.
- 8:57Speaker 2: Neither Rebecca or Jeff or their families had the money
- 9:00Speaker 2: to send them off on a cross-country road trip. So
- 9:03Speaker 2: they spent the summer raising funds and making sure one
- 9:05Speaker 2: of them had a car that was safe to drive.
- 9:08Speaker 3: And his family and Rebecca's family, we pulled so many
- 9:14Speaker 3: things together to have so many yard sales for these
- 9:17Speaker 3: two young kids to be able to make it across country, right?
- 9:22Speaker 3: So it was a long process, but they did it.
- 9:25Speaker 3: They left and they drove across country and they stopped
- 9:29Speaker 3: at all of the state parks and played frisbee disc
- 9:32Speaker 3: golf all along the way. That was where they stayed
- 9:35Speaker 3: was at the national parks and the state parks. And
- 9:40Speaker 3: so it was about 2007 and they broke down in Cody,
- 9:45Speaker 3: Wyoming and.
- 9:47Speaker 4: Needed a car park.
- 9:49Speaker 3: Between the two families, we got some money to them
- 9:51Speaker 3: and they got their car fixed and they continued on.
- 9:56Speaker 3: Both of them were very idealistic. They thought they were
- 9:59Speaker 3: going to go to San Diego. Idaho and become snowboard instructors.
- 10:03Speaker 3: But they got to Sandpoint in September, the end of
- 10:06Speaker 3: September of that year, before snowfall, right? And so this
- 10:12Speaker 3: is a community that's very dependent on the tourists and
- 10:17Speaker 3: the snow season. And so the local people told them,
- 10:20Speaker 3: you know, I think you'd be happier in Missoula, Montana.
- 10:24Speaker 3: There's a university there. So there's more kids your age.
- 10:28Speaker 3: So they backtracked and ended up in Missoula. They both
- 10:32Speaker 3: went their separate ways. I'm going to say... Within a
- 10:36Speaker 3: year or two, Rebecca knew that that was where she
- 10:39Speaker 3: wanted to be.
- 10:40Speaker 4: She loved the outdoors. She loved the river. She loved
- 10:45Speaker 4: the mountains.
- 10:46Speaker 3: She loved the big sky, which is actually, you know,
- 10:50Speaker 3: part of what Montana is known by.
- 10:52Speaker 4: She just loved the whole atmosphere.
- 10:55Speaker 2: Rebecca and Angela spoke on the phone when they could,
- 10:58Speaker 2: but sometimes their respective work schedules and the time difference
- 11:01Speaker 2: made it difficult to sync up. Angela missed Rebecca and,
- 11:05Speaker 2: like any mother, worried about her making a new life
- 11:08Speaker 2: for herself so far away from home. But overall, Rebecca
- 11:11Speaker 2: seemed happy and excited about her future. In 2013, after
- 11:16Speaker 2: nearly six years in Missoula, Rebecca met a man named
- 11:19Speaker 2: David Barsotti, and she was excited about him.
- 11:23Speaker 3: So she said that she was dating somebody and that
- 11:26Speaker 3: they met at the river and that she really liked him.
- 11:29Speaker 3: He traveled a lot for his job. It sounded like
- 11:33Speaker 3: one of those things where somebody came in and swept
- 11:35Speaker 3: you off your feet.
- 11:36Speaker 2: What did you hear about their relationship from her?
- 11:41Speaker 3: I mean, at that point in time, everything was wonderful.
- 11:44Speaker 3: The biggest thing was that he would have assignments scheduled.
- 11:48Speaker 3: quote unquote, where he would be gone for six weeks
- 11:50Speaker 3: and then come home for a week or two and
- 11:52Speaker 3: then gone for six weeks and come home for a
- 11:54Speaker 3: week or two. At one point in time, he was
- 11:57Speaker 3: working in the oil industry in.
- 12:00Speaker 4: One of the Dakotas.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Was he older than Rebecca?
- 12:02Speaker 3: Yeah, he's older than Rebecca.
- 12:04Speaker 4: He is, I want to say five years older.
- 12:07Speaker 1: Did you have any sort of feeling about their relationship?
- 12:12Speaker 3: She didn't really, you know, elaborate on him a lot.
- 12:16Speaker 3: And we never did get the opportunity to meet him.
- 12:20Speaker 3: So we went out in 2008. And then Jerry and
- 12:23Speaker 3: I went out in 2013. And David was in an
- 12:28Speaker 3: oil field somewhere. So we didn't get to meet him.
- 12:31Speaker 3: She would just say, you know, he likes the outdoors.
- 12:35Speaker 3: He likes to do what I like to do. We
- 12:38Speaker 3: share a lot of the same interests. Yeah. She wouldn't
- 12:43Speaker 3: truly like go beyond that in elaboration.
- 12:48Speaker 2: If you're wondering how is it possible that Angela never
- 12:50Speaker 2: met David in person, there's a simple answer.
- 12:53Speaker 1: Money and time.
- 12:55Speaker 2: Trips from Virginia to Montana were thousands of dollars between hotels,
- 13:00Speaker 2: flights and time off work. Angela told me she saved
- 13:04Speaker 2: money with the hopes of making a trip every five years.
- 13:07Speaker 2: But she and Rebecca still spoke regularly by phone, and
- 13:10Speaker 2: Rebecca's brother Tony was able to make his own trips
- 13:12Speaker 2: out to visit her. Then in 2015, Rebecca and David
- 13:16Speaker 2: got married. David had initially promised Rebecca this big wedding,
- 13:22Speaker 2: but that big wedding never happened.
- 13:26Speaker 3: And then this big, huge wedding turned into a day
- 13:31Speaker 3: at the chapel. With a $ 75 imitation, a cheap imitation, right?
- 13:37Speaker 1: What did she think they were going to be doing?
- 13:40Speaker 3: Well, she thought it was going to be on a
- 13:41Speaker 3: farm and horseback because those were the things she loved.
- 13:46Speaker 1: And then it wasn't.
- 13:47Speaker 4: And then it wasn't.
- 13:49Speaker 2: And how often did you and Rebecca speak on the phone?
- 13:52Speaker 3: Well, before her and David got married, we would speak
- 13:55Speaker 3: quite a bit. When I say quite a bit, for us,
- 13:58Speaker 3: I mean, we were probably speaking once a week. Once
- 14:02Speaker 3: she got married, that all changed. In fact, after she
- 14:05Speaker 3: got married, I didn't hear from her for three weeks.
- 14:08Speaker 3: And I thought, okay, honeymoon, you know. But then I
- 14:13Speaker 3: finally reached out after the third week. I emailed her
- 14:16Speaker 3: and I said, are you okay?
- 14:25Speaker 2: A few days later, Rebecca calls her mom and tells
- 14:28Speaker 2: Angela she's okay. She's just been working a lot and
- 14:31Speaker 2: things have been a little rocky with David. One thing
- 14:34Speaker 2: Rebecca and David seem to be going back and forth
- 14:36Speaker 2: about is health insurance. They were married, and David, who
- 14:40Speaker 2: told Rebecca that he was a veteran, would not put
- 14:43Speaker 2: Rebecca on his health insurance. Rebecca voiced some frustration with this,
- 14:47Speaker 2: but ultimately trusted David when he said that he simply
- 14:50Speaker 2: couldn't do it. It was out of his hands. Angela, however,
- 14:54Speaker 2: had a hard time with this. Angela's husband, Jerry, was
- 14:57Speaker 2: a veteran himself, and Angela knew this didn't make sense.
- 15:03Speaker 3: Rebecca would say, well, David's a veteran, but Rebecca would
- 15:07Speaker 3: be without health insurance. And I would say, Rebecca, if
- 15:13Speaker 3: David's a veteran, now that you're married, you can have
- 15:17Speaker 3: CHAMPUS or TRICARE, whatever they called it then. And she goes, oh, no,
- 15:22Speaker 3: it's not that way. It's not that kind. And I said...
- 15:25Speaker 3: It is that way and it is that kind. You
- 15:28Speaker 3: just need the marriage certificate and David needs to go
- 15:31Speaker 3: with you to the closest VA office and get you
- 15:36Speaker 3: signed up. And he never did that. He never did that.
- 15:42Speaker 3: I kept telling Rebecca, I said, it doesn't matter that
- 15:44Speaker 3: you weren't married to him because he professed to have
- 15:47Speaker 3: been a disabled veteran. And she would often tell me,
- 15:51Speaker 3: that's not how it works out here on a lot
- 15:53Speaker 3: of things. You know, and I would just shake my
- 15:55Speaker 3: head and go, we're in the 21st century.
- 15:58Speaker 2: Angela had reservations with David and the stories he told
- 16:01Speaker 2: about his life, but she treaded lightly. Angela never wanted
- 16:05Speaker 2: Rebecca to feel judged or like she couldn't come to
- 16:08Speaker 2: her with how she was feeling. And regardless of his past,
- 16:11Speaker 2: these days David was also working in an oil field
- 16:14Speaker 2: and seemed to travel a lot. It all seemed to
- 16:16Speaker 2: be wearing on Rebecca, so finally she did decide to
- 16:19Speaker 2: make a trip home. Angela thought maybe Rebecca would share
- 16:23Speaker 2: more with her in person.
- 16:26Speaker 3: She came home in 2016, like end of summer, first
- 16:30Speaker 3: part of fall. All she would tell me was things
- 16:32Speaker 3: weren't working out. That's all she would say.
- 16:36Speaker 2: So would you ask her to elaborate or how would
- 16:38Speaker 2: those conversations play out?
- 16:40Speaker 3: I would, you know, ask her, you know, is there
- 16:42Speaker 3: anything you want to tell me is, you know, and
- 16:45Speaker 3: she goes, it's just not working out. She goes, we're
- 16:48Speaker 3: just not getting along right now. And then after she
- 16:53Speaker 3: stayed here for a month with us and David would
- 16:56Speaker 3: call her sometimes several times a day. She finally relented
- 17:01Speaker 3: to go home. You know, I told her, I said,
- 17:03Speaker 3: you've always got a place to come back to. Yeah.
- 17:06Speaker 4: You know, if you need to. She never did elaborate.
- 17:10Speaker 4: But then after she left, she had.
- 17:12Speaker 3: Told her brother that David had shot the TV while
- 17:16Speaker 3: she was watching it one day.
- 17:18Speaker 1: With a gun.
- 17:19Speaker 4: With a gun. Yeah.
- 17:21Speaker 3: And she had already left. And I'm like, well, what
- 17:23Speaker 3: do I do with this information now?
- 17:25Speaker 4: You know?
- 17:27Speaker 2: Although Angela had never met David in person, they spoke
- 17:30Speaker 2: fairly often by phone. David called a lot and seemed
- 17:33Speaker 2: to want to connect with Angela. He called her mom,
- 17:36Speaker 2: but some of their conversations left Angela with an uneasy
- 17:40Speaker 2: feeling about the man her daughter had married.
- 17:42Speaker 3: Oh, he used to call all the time. So David
- 17:45Speaker 3: was a charmer. David was a storyteller. He could wrap
- 17:50Speaker 3: you into a scene of a play and have you
- 17:55Speaker 3: believe pretty much anything he said.
- 17:58Speaker 2: Did it feel like, oh, my son-in-law wants to get
- 18:01Speaker 2: to know me?
- 18:02Speaker 4: Yeah, get to know me.
- 18:04Speaker 3: And then, you know, like, oh, he's just trying to
- 18:07Speaker 3: get to know us and find out who we are
- 18:09Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And then as time went on,
- 18:12Speaker 3: they would get really like crazy conversations, like, He'd talk
- 18:17Speaker 3: about it was time to kill his dog because his
- 18:19Speaker 3: dog was too old and he was going to wrap
- 18:22Speaker 3: it up in an Indian ceremonial cloth and send it
- 18:25Speaker 3: down the river.
- 18:26Speaker 4: And I'm like, who does this? There would be things
- 18:30Speaker 4: he would say that I would just get.
- 18:31Speaker 3: Off the phone and go tell Jerry. I said, Who
- 18:34Speaker 3: says these things? And he would be always very boastful
- 18:39Speaker 3: about military escapades. I don't know what to call them,
- 18:44Speaker 3: but different things that he said he achieved in the
- 18:46Speaker 3: military or different things he said he did.
- 18:49Speaker 4: And Jerry's been over to Iraq twice. And Jerry said,
- 18:53Speaker 4: you know, when you're over there, you don't come back
- 18:55Speaker 4: and talk about it like that. Yeah.
- 18:57Speaker 3: But David would like expound on it and boast about it.
- 19:03Speaker 3: You know, and I just never understood that.
- 19:06Speaker 2: So 2016 is when Rebecca flies out, spends a month
- 19:10Speaker 2: at home, says we're not getting along. But ultimately, after many,
- 19:14Speaker 2: many phone calls from David, she decides to return to
- 19:18Speaker 2: Montana and return to their relationship.
- 19:21Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 19:21Speaker 2: Did you hear from her often after that? Or what
- 19:24Speaker 2: did your communication look like with her and David once
- 19:26Speaker 2: she returned to Missoula?
- 19:28Speaker 3: So it gradually just got further and further apart.
- 19:33Speaker 4: We would talk about that.
- 19:35Speaker 3: We would say, well, it's been a long time since
- 19:37Speaker 3: I talked to you, Rebecca. And we'd talk about her schedule,
- 19:41Speaker 3: my schedule, how they just didn't jive.
- 19:44Speaker 2: And so over the course of those conversations, did you
- 19:49Speaker 2: ask her at all about... how things were going with David?
- 19:52Speaker 2: And what did she tell you?
- 19:53Speaker 3: Yeah, I really didn't have to ask because after Rebecca
- 19:58Speaker 3: returned back to Montana and to the marriage, there was
- 20:03Speaker 3: always a tumultuous call. At first, it was like every
- 20:07Speaker 3: four months and then it became every three months. And
- 20:10Speaker 3: the three month calls, you could almost like bank on
- 20:13Speaker 3: like clockwork. David kicked me out of the house. We
- 20:17Speaker 3: had another fight. I don't know where to go or
- 20:20Speaker 3: what to do. In 17 and 18, they were always
- 20:24Speaker 3: on the move.
- 20:25Speaker 4: I never had a permanent address for them.
- 20:28Speaker 3: And looking back now, before Rebecca and David got married,
- 20:32Speaker 3: Rebecca could be counted on.
- 20:34Speaker 4: She had a strong work ethic.
- 20:37Speaker 3: She would show up on the schedule, be there, do
- 20:40Speaker 3: her job. But after her and David got married, there
- 20:44Speaker 3: was a lot of interference with her ability to be
- 20:48Speaker 3: at work. on the scheduled days and to do a
- 20:52Speaker 3: good job while she was there. So after her and
- 20:55Speaker 3: David got married, it wasn't that her work ethic changed.
- 20:59Speaker 3: It was that the interference to her ability to be
- 21:03Speaker 3: a dependable employee changed.
- 21:06Speaker 1: And so did she lose her job?
- 21:08Speaker 3: Yeah, David would show up at work to watch her
- 21:12Speaker 3: as she interacted with the customers and the clients.
- 21:16Speaker 4: The managers didn't like that, obviously. Right.
- 21:21Speaker 3: And so they would tell Rebecca, look, either he's got
- 21:23Speaker 3: to stop coming here or you have to quit. So
- 21:26Speaker 3: she tried everything. She even tried scrubbing toilets. She thought
- 21:29Speaker 3: she could do house cleaning and she could still be
- 21:33Speaker 3: at David's beck and call. If she had to leave
- 21:36Speaker 3: the house to go home to help him with something,
- 21:39Speaker 3: then she could do that. And it just got weird,
- 21:43Speaker 3: more weird and more weird. So she had to quit that.
- 21:46Speaker 2: After five tumultuous years of marriage, things were getting steadily worse.
- 21:52Speaker 2: David suffered an accident at work, one that left him
- 21:54Speaker 2: reliant on full-time care. And in the state of Montana,
- 21:58Speaker 2: you can hire a family member who will be compensated
- 22:01Speaker 2: in this role.
- 22:03Speaker 3: David had rolled a truck in the oil field. He
- 22:06Speaker 3: had gotten drunk and rolled a truck in the oil field.
- 22:09Speaker 3: And so he was out on workman's comp disability. I mean,
- 22:18Speaker 3: Rebecca was his first caregiver. She was awarded caregiver status
- 22:23Speaker 3: to David a year before they moved into their home.
- 22:28Speaker 3: But that put her under David's thumb 24 and 7
- 22:32Speaker 3: with no relief. And then they bought the house together
- 22:37Speaker 3: in Superior in 2020.
- 22:38Speaker 4: So in 2020, they buy.
- 22:39Speaker 1: A home together and.
- 22:44Speaker 2: You're hearing from her less or more at that point?
- 22:48Speaker 3: Actually, within a couple months after they bought the home,
- 22:52Speaker 3: Rebecca called me and said, I think we're splitting up.
- 22:55Speaker 3: Up until that point, it would be, David kicked me out.
- 23:00Speaker 3: I don't know what to do. She would sometimes say,
- 23:03Speaker 3: I don't know if this is going to work out.
- 23:06Speaker 2: Would she ever give you a reason that, and not
- 23:08Speaker 2: that there's a good reason for it, but a justifiable reason,
- 23:12Speaker 2: but You know, I think if someone called me and said,
- 23:15Speaker 2: my husband kicked me out, I think I would say, why?
- 23:17Speaker 1: What happened?
- 23:19Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, that would come up
- 23:21Speaker 3: in our conversation, but she would always avoid it. After
- 23:25Speaker 3: they bought the house in 2020, when she called and said,
- 23:29Speaker 3: what do we do with the house? I did suggest
- 23:34Speaker 3: to Rebecca, walk away. There will be another house in
- 23:38Speaker 3: your future. Just walk away. This isn't worth, if you're scared,
- 23:46Speaker 3: if you feel unsafe, this isn't worth a house.
- 23:50Speaker 4: Right.
- 23:51Speaker 3: And her words to me were that she would let
- 23:54Speaker 3: the judge decide. Rebecca fully believed that the judicial system
- 24:00Speaker 3: of Montana was going to protect her. It's been my
- 24:04Speaker 3: experience that she would have never had a chance.
- 24:08Speaker 2: Angela knew Rebecca was ready to leave David. But Rebecca
- 24:12Speaker 2: also felt strongly that she should get her fair share
- 24:15Speaker 2: of the house that they had purchased together. She'd been
- 24:18Speaker 2: paying toward the mortgage every month on a humble salary,
- 24:21Speaker 2: and she didn't want to give that up and knew
- 24:23Speaker 2: David probably wasn't going to sell the house and amicably
- 24:27Speaker 2: split the proceeds. On a phone call with Rebecca, Angela
- 24:30Speaker 2: implored Rebecca to leave anyway, to worry about the money later.
- 24:36Speaker 3: And I told her, I said, when your dad and
- 24:38Speaker 3: I split up, I actually gave him the greater portion
- 24:42Speaker 3: of the house because I wanted out so bad.
- 24:44Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 24:45Speaker 3: I said, you know, most adults would start at 50-50. Well, that,
- 24:50Speaker 3: for lack of a better word, that pissed David off.
- 24:54Speaker 4: He was beyond mad. He was listening in the background.
- 24:57Speaker 4: He was listening in the background.
- 24:59Speaker 1: I see.
- 25:00Speaker 4: And he was hot.
- 25:02Speaker 2: Yes.
- 25:02Speaker 4: Just beyond hot.
- 25:05Speaker 3: In fact, here was somebody who would call me once
- 25:09Speaker 3: or twice a week just to quote unquote chit chat
- 25:14Speaker 3: and everything stopped.
- 25:17Speaker 2: David was furious that Angela had encouraged Rebecca to leave
- 25:21Speaker 2: the marriage. He no longer called. And while Rebecca was
- 25:24Speaker 2: still reaching out to her mother, it was clear that
- 25:27Speaker 2: things between she and David were more tense than ever.
- 25:30Speaker 3: And then... December 2020. So December 31st, 2020. I hadn't
- 25:38Speaker 3: heard from David since June because that's when all this transpired.
- 25:42Speaker 3: And the text message said, hey, mom, I know we've
- 25:46Speaker 3: had our differences this year, but I hope you have
- 25:49Speaker 3: a really great 2021.
- 25:52Speaker 4: And I hope it's good to you.
- 25:54Speaker 1: What did you respond?
- 25:56Speaker 3: I mean, I said, oh, well, thank you very much.
- 25:59Speaker 3: You know, I mean, I hadn't heard from him since June, right?
- 26:03Speaker 3: How do you respond to that?
- 26:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 26:05Speaker 3: Little did I know what was going to transpire that year,
- 26:09Speaker 3: but it was almost like for me, it was premeditated.
- 26:13Speaker 3: He knew what was going to happen that year.
- 26:16Speaker 2: In 2021, Rebecca started getting back in touch more often.
- 26:21Speaker 2: She thought of returning home to Virginia to escape David,
- 26:24Speaker 2: but Rebecca made her living in the service industry and
- 26:27Speaker 2: Montana was wide open despite COVID. The town that her
- 26:31Speaker 2: family lived in back in Virginia was not.
- 26:35Speaker 4: And I told her, I said, you can come home.
- 26:37Speaker 3: You won't be able to get a serving job because
- 26:39Speaker 3: they only have cooks in the restaurant and people are
- 26:41Speaker 3: ordering by Uber and DoorDash, you know. And I said,
- 26:46Speaker 3: so you can deliver food, but you're not going to
- 26:48Speaker 3: be able to serve it.
- 26:49Speaker 4: And she goes, oh, we're wide open here.
- 26:51Speaker 3: And then in 2021, so you have January and February,
- 26:57Speaker 3: Rebecca's calling, upset, concerned, things might not be working out.
- 27:03Speaker 3: I think we're splitting up. I'd let a couple of
- 27:05Speaker 3: days go by and I'd call her back. And I said,
- 27:08Speaker 3: what's going on? We're going to try to work it out.
- 27:11Speaker 3: She was caught up in those promises. So David says
- 27:14Speaker 3: he's going to work on it. He says he's going
- 27:16Speaker 3: to stop drinking. He says he's going to stop doing this.
- 27:20Speaker 3: You know, she was caught up in those promises that
- 27:24Speaker 3: lead nowhere except to give false hope in a relationship.
- 27:29Speaker 3: Then in March, on March 9th, she called and she said,
- 27:33Speaker 3: I filed domestic violence charges against David. So that was
- 27:37Speaker 3: March 9th, 2021.
- 27:39Speaker 1: Did you ask her what happened?
- 27:42Speaker 3: I did. I specifically asked her, Rebecca, what happened? And
- 27:46Speaker 3: all she told me was, I can't take it anymore.
- 27:49Speaker 3: That was all she would ever tell me.
- 27:51Speaker 2: Was she able to go somewhere that she knew she
- 27:54Speaker 2: would be safe after she filed those charges?
- 27:57Speaker 4: Rebecca stayed in the house. David was removed.
- 28:00Speaker 3: He was supposed to be in jail for three days,
- 28:03Speaker 3: but I think he got out on bond, but he
- 28:06Speaker 3: was not allowed to go back to the house. So
- 28:09Speaker 3: he stayed in a hotel in town for a month
- 28:12Speaker 3: because Rebecca had filed domestic violence charges on the 9th
- 28:16Speaker 3: and either on the 10th or 11th. The very next
- 28:19Speaker 3: day court was open. She filed a standing order of
- 28:22Speaker 3: no contact, which has no teeth. So a standing order
- 28:26Speaker 3: of contact just makes people mad. It has no teeth.
- 28:30Speaker 3: And if they break it, law enforcement typically has.
- 28:35Speaker 4: More important things to do. So they don't enforce it.
- 28:37Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
- 28:38Speaker 4: Especially in Mineral County. I mean, there's four deputies.
- 28:42Speaker 2: The personal family matter assault charge filed on March 9th, 2021,
- 28:47Speaker 2: had come after phone calls to local law enforcement about
- 28:49Speaker 2: domestic disputes between Rebecca and David. Even with the standing
- 28:54Speaker 2: order of no contact, the town of Superior, Montana, where
- 28:57Speaker 2: they lived, it has less than a thousand residents. Rebecca
- 29:00Speaker 2: had a feeling that it would be nearly impossible to
- 29:03Speaker 2: avoid David, and she had little faith that the no
- 29:06Speaker 2: contact order would be enforced. She wanted to come home,
- 29:09Speaker 2: and she almost did. But Rebecca had a dog that
- 29:13Speaker 2: she loved dearly, a Belgian Malinois named Cerberus. She couldn't
- 29:18Speaker 2: bear the thought of leaving Cerberus or flying him in
- 29:21Speaker 2: cargo under the plane.
- 29:24Speaker 3: Oddly enough, Cerberus is a Greek mythology figure that means
- 29:28Speaker 3: keeper of many secrets. And she loved that dog. She
- 29:34Speaker 3: wasn't going to leave him. In fact, David at one
- 29:37Speaker 3: point had threatened to kill the dog.
- 29:39Speaker 1: She told you that?
- 29:40Speaker 3: Yes. She sent me a text message that she had received.
- 29:44Speaker 3: The text message said, he's threatened to kill me, kill
- 29:50Speaker 3: my dog, burn the house down.
- 29:52Speaker 2: Oh, so he threatened to kill her at the same time.
- 29:55Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 29:56Speaker 3: So.
- 29:58Speaker 3: He said that he was going to kill Rebecca, kill
- 30:01Speaker 3: her dog, burn the house down, and drive her truck
- 30:04Speaker 3: into the river.
- 30:06Speaker 2: What did it feel like as her mother to know
- 30:09Speaker 2: that this person was so close to her in her life,
- 30:12Speaker 2: threatening her this way?
- 30:14Speaker 4: I was overcome with anger. I was overcome with.
- 30:18Speaker 3: Trying to figure out how do you protect a 33-year-old
- 30:21Speaker 3: woman who has the right to make her own decisions
- 30:24Speaker 3: and has her own autonomy? Yeah.
- 30:26Speaker 2: And how do you protect her from Virginia to Montana?
- 30:30Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't because as a 33-year-old of sound mind,
- 30:35Speaker 3: maybe of a broken heart and a broken spirit, but
- 30:39Speaker 3: of a sound mind, you can't tell another adult what
- 30:43Speaker 3: to do and how to do it. You can let
- 30:47Speaker 3: them know you're there. You can be there for them.
- 30:51Speaker 3: You can offer assistance in whatever form that they'll accept.
- 30:57Speaker 3: But you can't even make them accept the assistance. And
- 31:02Speaker 3: I said, okay, that's fine. But if you change your mind,
- 31:04Speaker 3: let me know. I mean, literally, I would send Rebecca
- 31:08Speaker 3: a couple hundred dollars every week because every apartment application
- 31:13Speaker 3: required a $ 50 deposit. So I just kept sending her
- 31:18Speaker 3: money so she could apply at different places to live
- 31:21Speaker 3: with the dog. She finally found a place and signed
- 31:25Speaker 3: a lease.
- 31:26Speaker 4: On April 1st.
- 31:28Speaker 2: Angela sent me a video that Rebecca had taken, a
- 31:30Speaker 2: tour of her new home, a new beginning.
- 31:34Speaker 4: Sink, oven, and.
- 31:35Speaker 1: Then a little living room. But all new windows in Montana.
- 31:42Speaker 4: That is huge.
- 31:44Speaker 1: And I'll probably end up frosting this for privacy, even
- 31:50Speaker 1: though you.
- 31:51Speaker 4: Can see the mountains kind of from my porch.
- 31:56Speaker 2: This was April of 2021. Rebecca found a job waiting
- 31:59Speaker 2: tables at a local brewery. She worked 12 to 18-hour shifts,
- 32:03Speaker 2: as many as they would give her. She rented her
- 32:05Speaker 2: own place, which even had a small outdoor space for Cerberus.
- 32:09Speaker 2: And shortly after that, she landed another job, a better job,
- 32:12Speaker 2: serving at an upscale restaurant in town. It was better
- 32:15Speaker 2: hours for better money, and they loved her there. She
- 32:19Speaker 2: also applied to begin taking a paralegal course at a
- 32:21Speaker 2: local college. Rebecca was finding her footing again, separating herself
- 32:26Speaker 2: from David. Did she seem happier when you would speak
- 32:36Speaker 2: with her on the phone?
- 32:38Speaker 4: Yes. Yes, she did. She seemed much happier. Still afraid.
- 32:43Speaker 4: Still afraid of David.
- 32:45Speaker 2: But to your knowledge, in those conversations, was David kind
- 32:48Speaker 2: of leaving her alone?
- 32:50Speaker 3: No, David was like, he would text me and he
- 32:53Speaker 3: would say, ask Rebecca if she wants this. And, you know,
- 32:58Speaker 3: I'd asked Rebecca, I said, Rebecca, he's asking if you
- 33:01Speaker 3: want this, that it belongs to. She goes, I don't
- 33:04Speaker 3: want anything. I don't want anything. She goes, he has
- 33:08Speaker 3: to stop. And then one time she texted me because
- 33:13Speaker 3: they were on the same phone bill. And it was
- 33:17Speaker 3: like $ 300 and Rebecca didn't have $ 300 and half of
- 33:21Speaker 3: it was David's. So she said, please ask David to
- 33:25Speaker 3: pay this because I, you know, are part of it.
- 33:28Speaker 3: And I'm like, do you have a CVA? And she
- 33:31Speaker 3: did have a CVA, a crime victim advocate. And I said,
- 33:35Speaker 3: can you talk to her about what you're supposed to
- 33:38Speaker 3: do with bills that are in both of your names?
- 33:43Speaker 3: And can she guide you since Montana is so different,
- 33:47Speaker 3: you know, and she would never. I think when you're
- 33:51Speaker 3: going through that and now that I've gone through Rebecca's
- 33:54Speaker 3: process of missing and and all that, you're just trying
- 33:58Speaker 3: to survive every day. You don't have the capacity to
- 34:03Speaker 3: think beyond survival to how else can you handle this?
- 34:08Speaker 3: I know that she would reach out to her CVA
- 34:11Speaker 3: on occasion, but Rebecca always said, I don't want to
- 34:14Speaker 3: bother her.
- 34:16Speaker 2: Rebecca loved spending free time with her dog, Cerberus, out
- 34:19Speaker 2: enjoying the nature in Montana. And since it was now
- 34:22Speaker 2: into summer, they often went to a place called Council
- 34:25Speaker 2: Grove Park in Missoula County. It's a quiet and serene
- 34:29Speaker 2: place on a river. But on July 2nd, 2021, during
- 34:33Speaker 2: a trip to Council Grove, Rebecca had an eerie feeling
- 34:36Speaker 2: like she was being watched. And then a rock flew
- 34:39Speaker 2: in their direction.
- 34:40Speaker 1: And then another.
- 34:41Speaker 3: And Rebecca was there giving Cerberus some free time in
- 34:46Speaker 3: the water. You know, walking him and playing with him
- 34:49Speaker 3: and stuff. And someone threw a rock at Cerberus. More
- 34:55Speaker 3: than one. And Rebecca got mad about it. Went back
- 35:01Speaker 3: to her car. There was one other vehicle in the
- 35:05Speaker 3: parking lot, a van. Rebecca's windshield was cracked on her van,
- 35:11Speaker 3: so somebody had maybe thrown a rock at her car
- 35:14Speaker 3: to break her windshield.
- 35:16Speaker 2: Rebecca didn't know if she should immediately suspect David, but
- 35:19Speaker 2: of course it was on her mind. She'd been keeping
- 35:22Speaker 2: her distance from him, but David had been insisting that
- 35:26Speaker 2: she come by to pick up her remaining belongings, something
- 35:29Speaker 2: Rebecca never felt safe doing, and so she didn't. But finally,
- 35:33Speaker 2: Rebecca did agree to meet David's new caregiver in a
- 35:36Speaker 2: public location, and she would collect her belongings there. She
- 35:39Speaker 2: hoped it would be one less thing for David to
- 35:41Speaker 2: contact her about.
- 35:43Speaker 3: So the purpose of the meeting was for Rebecca to
- 35:46Speaker 3: retrieve items that she really didn't want. There were several
- 35:50Speaker 3: text messages, do you want these, do you want these,
- 35:52Speaker 3: do you want these, on her phone. And she said, no, no, no.
- 35:56Speaker 3: And then finally, she relented and said, I'm sure she
- 36:00Speaker 3: just relented because, you know what, you're not going to
- 36:02Speaker 3: stop bothering me until I get them.
- 36:05Speaker 4: So they made.
- 36:06Speaker 3: Arrangements to meet, her and Bevan made arrangements to meet
- 36:11Speaker 3: at Town Pump in Superior, Montana.
- 36:15Speaker 2: This meeting takes place on July 20th, 2021. The Town
- 36:19Speaker 2: Pump is a gas station and convenience store, and Bevan
- 36:23Speaker 2: is Bevan Cook, David's caretaker at the time that this
- 36:26Speaker 2: is happening. Text messages revealed this plan that Rebecca had
- 36:29Speaker 2: made with Bevan, and a grainy security camera photo did
- 36:33Speaker 2: show what looked like people meeting up in an adjacent
- 36:35Speaker 2: parking lot, but the quality of the footage is so
- 36:38Speaker 2: bad that it's really impossible to confirm if it was Rebecca.
- 36:42Speaker 2: But if it was, it's the last footage that exists
- 36:45Speaker 2: of her. Because in less than a week, Angela's life
- 36:48Speaker 2: and the lives of so many that love Rebecca were
- 36:51Speaker 2: turned upside down in a tornado of grief and confusion.
- 36:56Speaker 2: something Angela described to me as a pain so deep
- 36:59Speaker 2: you forget to breathe.
- 37:02Speaker 3: So July 20th, I have the grandkids here.
- 37:04Speaker 4: Get them in bed.
- 37:06Speaker 3: I'm in bed right after they're in bed because I'm exhausted.
- 37:09Speaker 3: And after I'd gone to bed, David had sent a
- 37:12Speaker 3: text message stating that Rebecca was missing. I woke up
- 37:17Speaker 3: to that text message the next day. And the text
- 37:22Speaker 3: message proceeded to say, hey, And he still called me mom.
- 37:27Speaker 3: Then he goes, hey, mom, I need to let you
- 37:29Speaker 3: know Rebecca's missing. And I'm tired of all this. The
- 37:33Speaker 3: police came to my door looking for her. And she
- 37:37Speaker 3: probably had a boyfriend or didn't call back her CBA.
- 37:41Speaker 3: It was everybody else. Nothing about, I hope she's not missing.
- 37:45Speaker 3: I hope this isn't true. Nothing about, I still love
- 37:49Speaker 3: Rebecca and only want the best for her. It was
- 37:52Speaker 3: all about him. Other than the fact that Rebecca was missing,
- 37:55Speaker 3: it was all about him. My next move was to
- 37:58Speaker 3: call and text Rebecca.
- 38:00Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 38:01Speaker 3: That was my next move. After I got that, I
- 38:04Speaker 3: just kind of went into shock mode. I remember that
- 38:08Speaker 3: I called Rebecca, called Rebecca, called Rebecca. I remember I
- 38:11Speaker 3: texted her, texted her, texted her. I said, David, David
- 38:15Speaker 3: texted and said, you're missing. Please text me back, you know,
- 38:18Speaker 3: or I'd call her. And then I'm thinking, well, it's
- 38:21Speaker 3: five o'clock here. It's three o'clock there. She's probably asleep.
- 38:24Speaker 3: And that's why she's not answering. Right. Then when it
- 38:26Speaker 3: got to be about seven o'clock here, eight o'clock here,
- 38:29Speaker 3: I called Tony, my son. And I said, when was
- 38:33Speaker 3: the last time you talked to Rebecca? And he goes,
- 38:35Speaker 3: about a week ago. And I'm like, okay, if you
- 38:37Speaker 3: call her, will she answer? And he goes, yeah, she
- 38:40Speaker 3: always does. So I said, well, I need you to
- 38:42Speaker 3: call and text her because I can't get ahold of her.
- 38:44Speaker 3: And I told him why.
- 38:45Speaker 4: And the day just unfolded.
- 38:47Speaker 3: I mean, we still tried to make it as quote
- 38:50Speaker 3: unquote normal a day as we could for the kids.
- 38:54Speaker 3: We had told them that we would take him to
- 38:56Speaker 3: an amusement emporium, sports emporium for the day. And so
- 39:02Speaker 3: we were trying to still create some kind of a
- 39:06Speaker 3: normal day because we didn't know what was going to happen.
- 39:09Speaker 3: And Tony and I were on the phone a lot.
- 39:13Speaker 3: And I said, well, her trailer's in Missoula. Call Missoula
- 39:17Speaker 3: and ask them to do a welfare check. And so
- 39:20Speaker 3: he did. He did that for me. Then Miss Zola
- 39:25Speaker 3: couldn't find her trailer.
- 39:26Speaker 4: And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.
- 39:29Speaker 3: So David told me she was missing. And then Mineral
- 39:32Speaker 3: County told Tony she was missing. And Tony called.
- 39:36Speaker 4: About four o'clock that day, our time here.
- 39:39Speaker 3: And I just crawled, I just like crashed to the ground.
- 39:44Speaker 4: I just, I couldn't even think straight anymore. I just thought,
- 39:50Speaker 4: this can't be happening. You know? I mean, it's every
- 39:54Speaker 4: parent's worst nightmare. Yeah.
- 39:59Speaker 3: We used to watch Dateline and 2020 and all those shows,
- 40:04Speaker 3: and I'd go, how in the world did somebody go missing?
- 40:07Speaker 3: How does that happen? And then here I found myself
- 40:10Speaker 3: living it.
- 40:12Speaker 2: Within days, Angela was on a flight to Montana, a
- 40:15Speaker 2: place where she knew no one except for her daughter,
- 40:17Speaker 2: who was missing... and the man who had threatened to
- 40:20Speaker 2: kill her. All she wanted was to find Rebecca and
- 40:23Speaker 2: bring her home. But Mineral County had a different view
- 40:27Speaker 2: of Rebecca's disappearance, and Angela would soon learn that she
- 40:31Speaker 2: would be fighting tooth and nail to get any attention
- 40:34Speaker 2: on Rebecca's case. And David would be no help at all.
- 40:39Speaker 4: I mean, the whole week was crazy.
- 40:42Speaker 3: I had told David on Thursday I was coming out
- 40:44Speaker 3: because he called, he called, he didn't call my phone.
- 40:48Speaker 3: He called Jerry's phone and he never calls Jerry. He
- 40:51Speaker 3: always called me and he called Jerry's phone. And we
- 40:54Speaker 3: were eating lunch with the boys and with Tylee. And
- 40:59Speaker 3: he asked Jerry to step away. And he said that
- 41:04Speaker 3: Rebecca didn't ever want me to see her dead. And I,
- 41:08Speaker 3: I'm like, that is a crazy call. How does he
- 41:12Speaker 3: know she's dead?
- 41:13Speaker 4: You know, number one.
- 41:15Speaker 3: And then it came up that I was coming out
- 41:18Speaker 3: and David said, let me handle this.
- 41:21Speaker 4: Don't come out. Let me handle it. And I'm like,
- 41:24Speaker 4: I'm her mom. I'm coming out.
- 41:27Speaker 2: This concludes part one of Rebecca's story. Please join us
- 41:31Speaker 2: next week for part two. If you have a story
- 41:36Speaker 2: for us, we would love to hear it. Our email
- 41:38Speaker 2: is thenife at exactlyrightmedia.com. Or you can follow us on
- 41:41Speaker 2: Instagram at The Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at The
- 41:44Speaker 2: Knife Podcast.
- 41:45Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production. Hosted and produced
- 41:48Speaker 1: by me, Hannah Smith.
- 41:50Speaker 2: And me, Patia Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breifogel and
- 41:53Speaker 2: Alexa Samorosi.
- 41:54Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.
- 41:57Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
- 41:59Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport. Artwork
- 42:02Speaker 1: by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark,
- 42:07Speaker 1: and Danielle Kramer.