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An Alabama Murder Mystery · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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  Discretion is it by its media murder. Every member of law enforcement has a
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  handful of cases that stick with them for the rest of their career. These
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  cases are full of unimaginable cruelty, making them think, how can someone do
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  this to another person, Cases where the perpetrator managed to dodge the consequences of
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  their actions, or cases that went cold despite the best effort of investigators.
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  For the Sheriff's office in Mobile County, Alabama, there's one case that fits
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  all three of these criteria, the unsolved murder of Renee michel Bergeron. It
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  was nineteen ninety three when the Mobile County Sheriff's Office received a panicked nine one
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  one call from a local motorist who had seen something unusual lying in a ditch.
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  This strange object turned out to be the body of an unknown woman left
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  in a shallow ditch by the side of the road. When emergency responders arrived,
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  they immediately knew that this was no ordinary death. The body's head had
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  been cut off and was missing from the crime scene, leaving only an unidentifiable
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  torso there were clear signs that the woman had been tortured before she was killed.
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  Her genitals had been heavily mutilated and a bladed weapon had been used to
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  make a deep vertical incision between her bare breasts. For the paramedics who were
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  responsible for moving the body, this was one call out that was hard to
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  forget even years later. Sheriff Tom Purvis later described the unknown murderer as being
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  someone who really headed in for the woman, someone who wanted to try to
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  mask the identity, and that was one reason for cutting the head off.
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  In most true crime cases, where a murderer tries to conceal their victim's identity,
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  think like a detective for a moment and tell me why they'd try to
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  do this. It's because they have some kind of connection to the victim which
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  could lead them to becoming a suspect in the case. Like the rest of
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  the investigators involved in the case, Sheriff Purvis was convinced this killer had a
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  reason for wanting his female victim's identity to remain hidden. She had to have
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  personally known her killer. But if this had been the killer's strategy decapitating the
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  body to prevent a positive idea from being made, it failed dramatically. Only
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  twenty four hours passed since the body's discovery when the missing head was found nearby.
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  The head was only in the early stages of decomposition and was able to
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  be identified as twenty seven year old Renee Michelle Bergeron identification of the victim opened
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  up countless leads for investigators to follow, and they began to dive into the
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  question of who Renee was, hoping that the answer would lead them to who
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  killed her. It quickly became clear to the investigators that Renee's life had been
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  a troubled one. She had been a pretty well liked teenager growing up with
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  her five siblings in Louisiana, but in her mid teens, Renee had fallen
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  into the vicious cycle of drug addiction, an expensive habits that she was not
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  able to fund. At seventeen, she gave birth to a daughter, but
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  because Renee was unable to take care of her baby, her family looked after
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  the child instead. Eventually, Renee felt that prostitution was the only way that
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  she was going to be able to support herself. When she turned twenty one,
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  she left her four year old daughter and the rest of her family behind
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  and moved to Mobile County, Alabama. Inmobile, Renee was able to escape
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  from the feeling that she was betrayed her family's traditional Catholic values, and she
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  continued to work as a prostitute under the name Maria Martinez. For the six
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  years that she lived in Alabama, Renee lived with a male acquaintance, Maurice
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  Hill. After she was murdered and identified, investigators became aware of Renee's relationship
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  with Maurice, They quickly began to wonder whether he had been involved in the
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  murder. They didn't have any real evidence against him, and he passed a
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  polygraph, so Maurice was quickly ruled out as a suspect. He did try
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  to help the investigation and shared with officers that he believed Renee had probably been
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  killed due to some kind of dispute over drugs. Her addiction had been leading
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  her into dangerous places for more than a decade, and it seemed as if
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  this time the danger of the life that she had lived caught up to her.
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  Also, there's this Only a few months before she died, she had
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  faced charges for first degree robbery. She had been accused of driving the getaway
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  car during hold up at her nearby motel, but there wasn't enough evidence and
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  the charges were dropped. Renee's attorney, Rick Williams, believed that it was
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  the robbery charge that led her to her death, saying, I think some
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  people involved in her case were major drug dealers. I think she knew too
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  much and they silenced her. During his interviews with authorities, Maurice Hill was
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  able to give investigators more details about Rene's whereabouts in the days leading up to
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  her murder. Prior to her death, Maurice had not seen her for several
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  months. She had been out of state, working in clubs and taking up
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  modeling jobs for extra cash. She had only been back in Mobile for a
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  few days when she was killed, and according to Maurice, her demeanor changed
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  completely after her trip away. He described her as seeming afraid of something,
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  although he didn't know what that could be. Tom Street, who worked as
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  a criminal psychologist for San Diego's Academy of Justice, worked profile Renee's killer.
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  He believed that the killer had been a psycho sexual predator whose criminal behavior would
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  fit into one of two distinct categories. One kind of psycho sexual predator is
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  more structured, more organized, and manipulative in ways that go about selecting,
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  stalking, and victimizing his victim. He described the way that this type of
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  killer would go to great links to remove their victim from their original location,
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  taking them to another place that felt more private. However, the less organized
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  and structured type of psycho sexual predator would act differently, killing more spontaneously and
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  leaving the body at the scene of the crime. Both of these psychological profiles
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  described a possible killer, but they also described completely different behavior patterns. Even
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  though Renee's killer had not succeeded in concealing her identity, he managed to conceal
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  his own, and the potential link between Renee and the person who ended her
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  life was ever uncovered. Over time, all the leads began to dry up,
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  Promising tips ended up taking investigators to dead ends, and finally all the
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  avenues of investigation were exhausted and the murder of Renee Bergeron officially became a cold
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  case. But Mobile County investigators refused to give up on finding out who was
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  responsible for Renee's torture and murder. Even after he eventually retired from his position
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  as Mobile County's Sheriff. Tom Purvis found it difficult to move on from Renee's
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  murder and the knowledge that her killer was likely still a free man. He
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  had been the county sheriff for two decades, and out of all the cases
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  he'd worked on, Renee's murder was one of those that had impacted him the
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  most. The way that she had been mutilated and the successful removal of her
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  head, and the fact that she had been carelessly disposed of in a ditch.
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  All of these details made Tom Purvis even more frustrated that he was never
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  able to catch the killer. But while the staff in the Sheriff's office wrote
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  it into new roles, the impact that Renee Bergeron's case had on the department
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  remained the same. Despite not being sheriff at the time that Renee's body was
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  discovered, new Sheriff Sam Cochrane recognized the importance that the case had for the
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  county. He followed in Sheriff Purvis's footsteps, hoping that time would provide them
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  with new ways to crack the case open. More than a decade after the
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  murder, Sheriff Cochrane continues to have faith that something will lead them to the
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  identity of the killer, saying, after a long period of time, a
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  number of things can happen. People lose their allegiance to others, People break
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  up and make admission statements to others. If we get the right type of
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  lead, and with the technology that we have today that we didn't have fourteen
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  years ago, all of these things can benefit us. Renee Bergeron was surrounded
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  by people who may have wanted her dead, disgruntled prostitution clients, scorn drug
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  dealers, thieves, and fellow drug addicts. Law enforce Sin had countless leads,
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  but every single one turned out to be a dead end. Thirty years
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  later, despite modern advancements and DNA and evidence processing, her killer has not
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  been caught yet. That's ten Minute Murder for today, brief and bingeable true
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  crime. I'm Joe the host, and I really appreciate you listening. If
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  you're new to Ten Minute Murder, welcome, make yourself comfortable, and please
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  subscribe now so that you can more easily catch up on all of the back
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  episodes. Connect with me on social media and see the pictures what we talk
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  about here in the podcast. It's never gross and graphics stuff, though Zuckerberg
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  would block me so fast if I started posting crime scene photos. Plus I'd
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  have to look at the crime scene photos in order to post them, and
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  I don't want to do that because I enjoy being able to sleep. So
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  no, thanks. And hey, if you'd liked this episode, please leave
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  a rating and review on Apple, Spotify or any place that's possible. Your
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  positive feedback is very much appreciated. Okay, email question for today, Hey,
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  Joe. First off, i'd like to say thank you for doing stories
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  on the murdas, like I asked about before, And second, I was
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  wondering if you could find some stories from Alabama and Montana. The reason for
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  Alabama is because I live here now, but the reason for Montana is because
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  I've almost never heard of one from Montana and I used to live there before
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  I moved here. And a question I've been wanting to ask is how long
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  have you been doing these podcasts and how did you get started? And that
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  is from Neali in Alabama. And I hope I'm saying your name right.
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  I apologize if i'm not. Thanks for the email, and welcome to Alabama.
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  The story today I covered because of this email. And as for Montana,
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  I think it comes down to population. That's why you hear me talking
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  about California a lot more New York Texas Chicago, places that have heaps of
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  people. I will do some research though, to find a case from Montana
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  that is a good fit for ten Minute Murder. By the way, if
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  you're listening right now and you know of a case in Montana, email it
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  to me Joe at ten minute Murder dot com. And I've been doing this
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  podcast since the summer that the pandemic was in full swing twenty twenty. Like
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  a lot of people, I was bored at home and I have all of
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  this audio equipment from doing voiceovers, so I thought, hey, I'll start
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  a podcast like one million other people do. I picked a subject that I'm
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  very much interested in, but then also made it like a podcast I would
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  want to listen to because I don't have a lot of time to devote to
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  listening to hours of podcasts all the time, and my attention span isn't always
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  when it should be. So these ten minute episodes they're perfect for me.
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  So that's why I created it. Basically, I created a podcast for myself,
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  and it turns out a lot of you like it too, which I
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  really appreciate. Okay, that's it. That is the episode today. Thank
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  you so much for listening, and if you're going off on other things to
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  do, that's cool, but if you're in binge mode, you're gonna stick
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  with me. I'll see you in the next one.