Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Finding Chase Massner Episode 1: Who, What, When & Where

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Finding Chase Massner Episode 1: Who, What, When & Where · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is a special episode of Crime Stories with Nancy
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Grace finding Chase Master. Episode one. She wants her son home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Chase Master is in a rock War veteran, a husband,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a father, and he's missing his mother. Stephanie has worried
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: about him every day for three years. His wife told
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: us she dropped him off at a quick trip in
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  Speaker 1: Coff County, where he works. His family says he was
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: last seen at a friend's house in Kennesaw three years
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: ago on March. We don't know what happened. I mean,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: it's like he vanished from that home, not to be
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  Speaker 1: seen or heard from again. This is a hind He
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  Speaker 1: would never do this. He wouldn't just go and leave
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: his family and his love goince here. Despite some intense searching,
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  Speaker 1: a few clues have been found. We have a missing veteran,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: we have a friend, a son, a father, and our
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: main goal has always been to bring him home, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that emotion will never end until he's brought back home.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Three years after her study, Chase Math, No, we're missing Stephanie.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Convenient continue searching for him. I've lived the last three
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: years not knowing, and every single day it's just help.
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  Speaker 1: Can you imagine going to sleep every single night wondering
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: where is your son? Is he dead? Is he alive?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Is he somewhere calling your name, needing you, needing help?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Is he in pain? Is he dead? Is he alive?
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  Speaker 1: The child you've spent your life raising, poured all of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: your hopes, all of your dreams into and somehow, just
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  Speaker 1: like that, it's just gone as that all the years
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  Speaker 1: and all the love never happened. I'm Nancy Grace. This
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  Speaker 1: is Crime Stories, and that is what has happened to
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  Speaker 1: a young handsome Iraqi war vett U S Soldier, Chase Master.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: We are devoted to finding Chase. The mystery surrounding the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: disappearance of this young man, a husband and a father,
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  Speaker 1: a son, really hit home with me when I met
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  Speaker 1: his mother, Stephanie Gadina. He has been missing and no
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: one seems to care, but I care, and we care.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us here on Crime Stories,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and thank you to our sponsor today, crime Con. Crime
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Con is a gathering of crime busters and crime sleuse
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: professional and amateur. It goes down June nine, Friday through
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: June eleven, Sunday, Indianapolis and the j W. Marriott. There
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: will be hundreds of people. They're experts, speakers, crime scene
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: text medical examiners, you name it. I'll be there, along
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: with my podcast partner, Alan Dout, will be podcasting live,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and we want you to join us. Go to crime
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: con dot com and use the code named Nancy to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: get off of your crime con experience. In fact, I've
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: got to re log on and reregistered to get off
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: crime con dot com. You can also see it at
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: our website, crime online dot Com. And now I want
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  Speaker 1: to introduce Team Chase Finding Chase Master with me, of course,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Alan Duke, investigative reporter. Also with me Crack reporter on
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: crime online dot Com, Lee Egan, and special guests joining
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: us a guy who's been on the story for some
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: time now, Daniel Wilkerson, reporter and on air talent at
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  Speaker 1: CBS Channel forty six, who has been investigating the disappearance
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  Speaker 1: of Chase Masner. Where is Chase? First of all, I
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: want to go to Alan Duke allan at all starts
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  Speaker 1: with Chase Master. That's where it starts. Although I really
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: think the wild card Brad Clement is just as powerful.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: But to solve the mystery, let's start at the beginning.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: What do we know about Chase Master. Chase Masner served
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  Speaker 1: in Iraq during his time in the U. S. Army.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: He was frustrated and his searched for a good paying
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  Speaker 1: job after his honorable discharge from the military in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, but he took a job working overnight
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  Speaker 1: chefs at a Quick Trip convenience store in kenne Saw, Georgia.
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  Speaker 1: That's a northwest suburb of Atlanta, close to where his mother,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Stephanie Kadina lived. Chase is Stephanie's only son, and by
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  Speaker 1: all accounts, he was close to his mother. Although his wife,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Amanda told reporters that Chase was diagnosed to suffering from
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: post traumatic stress syndrome after returning from the Persian Gulf,
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  Speaker 1: we've seen no evidence he was ever in combat. He
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  Speaker 1: and Amanda have two young daughters. He was twenty six
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  Speaker 1: when he vanished three years ago, and Daniel again the
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  Speaker 1: wild card. Brad Clement, what do you know? Brad Clement
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  Speaker 1: admits he was the last person to see Chase Massner.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: He says because of that, social media has torn his
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  Speaker 1: life apart, people thinking he had something to do with
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  Speaker 1: Chase's disappearance. Brand recently spoke publicly for the first time
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  Speaker 1: on this issue. He says he now wants to clear
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: his name. He says each time he tries, though it
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  Speaker 1: does him no good. Brand alleges people keep telling him
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  Speaker 1: he's changing his story. He says that is not true,
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  Speaker 1: and that at the time Chase disappeared, he didn't know
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  Speaker 1: he would have to take note specific times where he
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  Speaker 1: went and what he did. Brad is single, He has
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  Speaker 1: no children. He says he has an engineering degree and
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  Speaker 1: has taken psycholo g classes. He says he's struggled in
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  Speaker 1: the past with addiction to appeals, but claims that's all
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  Speaker 1: now behind him. In addition to the allegation of murder,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Brad says he's been accused of being a heroine dealer,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: more specifically Chase his dealer. He says it's even been
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: suggested that he shot up Chase and that Brad somehow
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  Speaker 1: panicked he did something with the body, none of which
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  Speaker 1: he says is true. Brad says chase His disappearance has
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  Speaker 1: tarnished his reputation and because of it, he's recently fallen
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  Speaker 1: on hard times. He admits part of his account of
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  Speaker 1: what happened March twenty six and seven could seem suspicious
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  Speaker 1: to some, but he hopes that speaking out now will
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  Speaker 1: put those rumors to rest, and that people will see
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  Speaker 1: that he was only trying to help a friend, a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: gesture he says has cost him dearly Lee. Where does
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Stephanie Cadina fit into all of this, because that's really
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  Speaker 1: how I got sucked into finding Chase Master. Since day one,
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  Speaker 1: she's ever given up hope that she'll find him, and
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: she won't stop searching until she knows where he is
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  Speaker 1: and what happened to him, no matter what it takes.
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  Speaker 1: Stephanie Chase sev always been close. When he was away
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  Speaker 1: in boot camp serving our country in the U. S. Army,
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  Speaker 1: they would write to each other almost daily. When he
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  Speaker 1: returned home back to Georgia, he found a house where
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: he lived with his wife and his two little girls
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  Speaker 1: that was not too far from Stephanie, and he would
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: pop by regularly and they would hang out and visit
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  Speaker 1: and she would enjoy her grandkids. But her entire world
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  Speaker 1: was shattered on March two thousand fourteen when she received
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  Speaker 1: a call that her son was missing. She wakes up
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  Speaker 1: in the morning and goes to bed every night with
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  Speaker 1: only one thing on her mind. Where is her son?
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  Speaker 1: Daniel Wilkerson, CBS Channel forty six. I just want to
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  Speaker 1: hear you're a scenario about what happened the day Chase
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  Speaker 1: goes missing. Brad says that around eight or nine o'clock
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  Speaker 1: he got a call from Chase saying that he had
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: been in an argument. Chase had been in an argument
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  Speaker 1: with his wife and that she had dropped him off
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: at the QT, the convenience store where Chase worked, and
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  Speaker 1: Chase wanted to know whether or not Brad could come
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  Speaker 1: and pick him up from the QT. Brad said that
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  Speaker 1: he was at a computer warehouse store. He was building
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  Speaker 1: a computer. Later on at night, he was at a
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  Speaker 1: computer warehouse store and he said, yeah, I'll come and
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  Speaker 1: get you. Brad says that he arrived at the QT,
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  Speaker 1: Chase was there, and that they stayed at the QT
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  Speaker 1: for about thirty minutes inside the q T and uh
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  Speaker 1: they later left to go to Brad's house. When he
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  Speaker 1: got to Brad's house, Chase watched Brad build a computer.
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  Speaker 1: They were upstairs in his Brad's bedroom. Brad was on
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  Speaker 1: the floor, Chase was in Brad's bed, and they talked
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  Speaker 1: all night long about Chase's problems with his wife. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this is all according to Brad. He says that at
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  Speaker 1: some point Chase fell asleep. Brad had roofers coming at
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  Speaker 1: around seven o'clock, so they came at seven. Brad goes
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  Speaker 1: to let the roofers in. At that point, Brad comes
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  Speaker 1: back upstairs and moves Chase from his bedroom that's Brad's bedroom,
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  Speaker 1: to another bedroom. He says that Chase walked into that bedroom.
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  Speaker 1: Brad grabs a suitcase or or a bag of chases,
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  Speaker 1: and that Chase goes to sleep in that bedroom. So
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  Speaker 1: he was very clear about that. And Daniel, you were
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  Speaker 1: with me and help me find Brad Clement that day
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  Speaker 1: and his as I call it a flophouse, and he
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  Speaker 1: let us in. We showed up, banged on the door.
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  Speaker 1: He let us in immediately. He didn't seem like he
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  Speaker 1: was hiding anything. And that's the story he gave me.
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  Speaker 1: That the two of them sit up all night long,
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  Speaker 1: yakking about his problems with Amanda while he Brad puts
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  Speaker 1: together that computer, goes out the next morning to deliver it,
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  Speaker 1: afraid that Chase will leave, and he takes his cell phone.
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  Speaker 1: He takes Chase Masner's cell phone with him to kind
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  Speaker 1: of ensure he'll stay there. All right. I never understood that,
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  Speaker 1: but I get it because Masner had this habit of just,
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  Speaker 1: you know, get up leaving, or Amanda will just come
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  Speaker 1: out of the blue and pick him up. He gets
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  Speaker 1: back from dropping off the computer, Chase still there. Then
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  Speaker 1: he starts a cookout. He's having a cookout for all
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  Speaker 1: the roofs in the backyard. Chase still there. At the cookout, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: spark somehow catches pine straw in the backyard on fire.
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  Speaker 1: It's a big deal. They put it out. He runs
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  Speaker 1: back up to say, hey, man, did you see what
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  Speaker 1: happened in the backyard. Chase is gone. He's never seen again.
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  Speaker 1: The roofers didn't seemly. I spoke to the roofers. None
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  Speaker 1: of them ever saw him there. But his habit was
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  Speaker 1: to just hop in the car with Amanda and leave.
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  Speaker 1: Now a man is gone. She's she's left town. She
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  Speaker 1: took the two children and moved about as far away
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  Speaker 1: as you can get. Where did they go? Daniel? Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so that's what we know. Again. I do not believe
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  Speaker 1: Alan that this is the kind of guy that would
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  Speaker 1: just walk away, because I've said a million times. If
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  Speaker 1: you don't know a horse, look at his track record.
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  Speaker 1: He never went a day without returning phone calls and
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  Speaker 1: text to his mother, never ever. So why now it's
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  Speaker 1: hard for me to believe that Chase Masner just walked
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  Speaker 1: away voluntarily and has now for three years today been
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  Speaker 1: away from his children. As a father, a grandfather, I
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  Speaker 1: can tell you that would not be something that a
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  Speaker 1: logical father would do. Chase did not just walk away.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: And that's why I really want to dig into this
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  Speaker 1: what happened with Chase Masner. He didn't just walk away, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: no way. The way he felt about those two little girls, Daniel,
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  Speaker 1: and as much as he and Amanda thought, which is NonStop,
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  Speaker 1: they seem like, uh, they wouldn't stay away from each other.
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  Speaker 1: They had kind of a volatile relationship. But I don't
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  Speaker 1: see that they were going to break up. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think he would walk out on her either, Daniel. No.
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  Speaker 1: I mean they had troubles as any couple does. Also
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  Speaker 1: significant and is that Brad tells us that he left
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  Speaker 1: the house twice, first to go deliver a computer. He
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  Speaker 1: said he didn't came back and Chase was there, And
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  Speaker 1: then he says he got ready to leave to go
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  Speaker 1: to pick up food to cook for that cookout. He
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  Speaker 1: went back up and Chase was still sleep He asked Chase,
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  Speaker 1: hey man, do you want to go with me? Chase
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  Speaker 1: was sleepy. He said no. Brad then left again and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: went to public and two alone, I believe, and he
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: comes back. Chase is still there, and that's when he
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  Speaker 1: starts to cook, catches the yard on fire, and goes back,
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  Speaker 1: as you said, to look for Chase, and Chase was gone.
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  Speaker 1: Now we do have a recording, and you know from
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: dealing with Brad over the last two or three weeks.
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's his voice, and Brad places a call
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  Speaker 1: to Chase his cell phone saying, hey man, where did
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  Speaker 1: you go? The roofers said they saw you leave. Where
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  Speaker 1: are you? Hey? Alan, Let's hear the recording. I want
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to hear exactly what Daniels talking about. Thursday, Mark Franky
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: second three fifty teeth orm, what's up? What did you
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: do to stopped back from U tiving to run downtown?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Um the wesson? I said, you lust like I think
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: like that and this message. Okay, so the roofers now
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: say they never saw him leave. Nancy. Let's listen to
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a clip of that conversation you had with the owner
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of the roofing company who was in around and on
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  Speaker 1: top of Brad's house all day the day Chase disappeared.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: The roofs which maybe you or somebody else on your
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: team saw Chase leave. Is that true? Did anybody ever
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: see him? No one ever saw him either in the
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: house or outside the house. No, nana, mus nomus. Nobody
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: was working for me where that was with me? Ever
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  Speaker 1: saw him? Okay, not in the first time, inside, outside, anywhere.
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  Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean anything to me. I mean, for all,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I asked Brad about that, and he said, well, they
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: were on top of the house. I assume that they
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: saw him leave. He says to this day, and he's
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: told me to my face, he thinks a man Inda
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: came and picked Chase up, because that's what always happened.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: She always showed up. He told me that she had
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: been blowing up a cell phone that morning trying to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: get him to come back. He believes she just showed
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: up and got him and left. Now, what can you
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: tell me, Alan or Daniel about the location of his
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: cell phone? Did it turn up somewhere else? Do you know,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Daniel as far as I know, they haven't seen it
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: cell phone since Okay, I'm gonna go out on a limb.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I believe that there is foul play. I don't think
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: this guy just wandered off into the wilderness and died
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and we never found his body. I don't think he's
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: living out under a bridge in California. He met with
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: foul play that day. What do you think, Alan? I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely agree, And the fact that the cell phone was
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: never found. He apparently would have taken a cell phone
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: with him if he was just voluntarily walking away. Why
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: wouldn't he And if so, it would have left a track,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: It would have left a technology trail that the police
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: would have found, and we would now know about Daniel.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Go out on a limb. What do you think happened.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave opinion out of it. I have no idea,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and that's the honest truth. I'm baffled. The thing that
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: really bothers me here is the confusion you had initially
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: with police. Initially this was investigated by Cherokee County Sheriff's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: investigators because Chase lived in Cherokee County, but a couple
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of miles across the line was Cobb County where he
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: actually went missing, and a couple of weeks later I
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: think Cobb County finally took it over. But all along
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: they were treating it not as a crime, but as
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a voluntary missing someone who voluntarily left. And I think
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: that they missed a lot of opportunity to find Chase
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: because they treated the case as a voluntary missing case.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Is that not right, Daniel? Is that you're agree with
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you guys losing that initial day, that initial eight hours,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: ten hours hours, that's bad. Then we find out that
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the police, after Stephanie Condina, begged and begged and begged
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: searchs the wrong trash dumpster. I mean, the list goes
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: on about what could have, should have, would have been
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: done correctly but wasn't. But what we're left with now
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: is trying to reconstruct what happened to this guy. That's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: where we are. Whatever the case may be, we are
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: dedicated to finding this young guy, a father of two,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: His wife has long moved away. The case is now
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: being sent to cold case, and we've got one mother
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: grieving and reaching out to us for help. I've lived
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the last three years not knowing, and every single day
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it's just hell. M you know what. I don't know
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen, but I know this. We're gonna
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: try because I can't stand see any cry like this,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and if it were God forbid my own child, I
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: get in love with myself either. As the next week's unfold,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: we will be speaking with the wild card Brad, the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: mother Stephanie, trying to encourage the wife Amanda to speak
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to us. We go to every scene we know of.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Please join us in finding Chase again. I want to
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: thank our sponsor crime Con for making this podcast in
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: our search for missing Chase Masmer. Possible crime Con June
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: nine through or even Indianapolis J W. Marriott go to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: crime con dot com, use the code Nancy and get
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: twent off your crime con visit Nancy Grace crime the story,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: signing off, goodbye friend,