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Disappearance of Amy Billig · Murder Files Unsealed

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  Speaker 1: All right, get ready for a deep dive into a
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  case that just sends chills down your spine. The disappearance
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  of Amy Billick. Picture it Coconut Grove, Florida, nineteen seventy four.
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  A sunny afternoon, Just another day, right, Seventeen year old Amy.
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  She borrows a couple of bucks from her dad, probably
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  needs a soda or something, heads out to meet friends.
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  Oh and she's going to swing by her dad's art
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  gallery later in Coconut Grove. Seems pretty normal, right, And that's.
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  Speaker 2: What makes it so eerie, right, how fast an ordinary
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  day becomes a mystery, a mystery that's lingered for well decades.
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  Speaker 1: It's those everyday details that get you. You know, like
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  Amy was hitch hyping that day, which back then wasn't
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  that unusual. Times were different anyway. Construction workers saw her
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  on the side of the road, thumb out, waiting for
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  a ride, no clue they were seeing Amy Billick for
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  the last time.
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  Speaker 2: I see those tiny details they become huge when you're
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  talking about missing persons, especially back in the seventies. I mean,
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  think about it. No DNA tests everywhere, no security cameras
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  on every corner, no social media to track people.
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  Speaker 1: To It's hard to even imagine trying to solve a
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  case with well, practically.
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  Speaker 2: No tools exactly, And in Amy's case, that hitchhiking thing
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  throws a huge wrench in the whole investigation. Suddenly anyone
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  could be a suspect.
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  Speaker 1: So the sunsets and Amy's not home. Her mom, Susan
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  and brothers start making calls but nothing. Then her dad, Nathaniel,
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  gets home from work, still know Amy. Panic starts to
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  set in.
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  Speaker 2: Just awful and sadly, it's a story that happens all
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  too often. Families desperate, they often have to wait, sometimes
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  for what seems like forever, while the police they have
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  their procedures, and.
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  Speaker 1: That's what happened to the Billings. They call the police
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  that night, but they're told to wait until morning. Can
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  you imagine the not knowing By morning? Susan, Amy's mom,
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  She's frantic, calls the police again, and finally a full
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  on investigation starts.
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  Speaker 2: But as we'll see, this is just the start of
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  a long, frustrating search, dead ends, rumors and a theory
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  that would change everything.
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  Speaker 1: So the police they're all over it, But for Amy's family,
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  every second feels like eternity. Right, they're talking to anyone
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  who might have seen Amy that day, friends, family, kids
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  from school, retracing her steps, checking her usual spots, but
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  she just disappeared into finn Air.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where you really see how much harder
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  it was back then, trying to solve a case with
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  practically nothing, no databases, no security footage, no way to
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  quickly check out every little thing, just a ton of work,
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  and every hour that goes by makes it less likely
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  they'll find her.
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  Speaker 1: And then, to make things even worse, they find Amy's camera.
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  Imagine finding that right, hoping for some clue, some photo
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  that might lead them to her.
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  Speaker 2: Such a small thing, but it represents so much, you know,
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  the desperation trying to find meaning in anything.
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  Speaker 1: And the photos they just make everything more confusing. Most
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  are overexposed, useless. There is one photo, though, a light
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  colored pickup truck and another one a white van, so
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  those become really important to the investigation. But even with
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  all their effort, neither vehicle pans out.
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  Speaker 2: Just shows you how tough it was back in the seventies.
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  Nowadays we have DNA traffic cameras, all that stuff. Back
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  then they had to rely on people remembering, and that's
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  not always so reliable, especially when people are stressed, you know, and.
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  Speaker 1: Don't forget Amy was hitchhiking, which makes everything even more.
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  Speaker 2: Difficult, absolutely like trying to solve a puzzle with half
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  the pieces missing.
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  Speaker 1: But even with all that, Amy's family they never give up.
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  They hire a private investigator, put up missing posters everywhere,
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  and keep pushing the police, making sure nobody forgets about Amy.
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  Speaker 2: That's the power of family, right, that love in never
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  giving up even when it seems impossible.
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  Speaker 1: And if not knowing wasn't bad enough, a really creepy
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  theory starts to take hold, a theory that'll make your
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  skin crawl when you hear who's involved. Outlaw motorcycle gangs.
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  Speaker 2: This is where things get dark, and it's important to
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  understand what was going on back then.
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  Speaker 1: Remember this is nineteen seventy four, and both the Outlaws
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  and the Pagans, these motorcycle gangs, they were known to
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  be around Coconut Grove when Amy vanished. They were passing
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  through headed to that big motive thing in Daytona.
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  Speaker 2: And these weren't just any motorcycle clubs, you know, these
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  were bad dudes known for violence. And breaking the law,
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  and both of them had a history of violence against women, assaults, kidnappings,
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  even rumors of sex trafficking.
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  Speaker 1: It's terrifying to think about, and it makes those photos
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  of the truck and the van even more unsettling.
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  Speaker 2: You can see why people would believe this theory, even
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  though it was almost impossible to prove. It's a horrible
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  thought that just hangs.
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  Speaker 1: Over everything, and the deeper they dig into these gangs,
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  the weirder it gets. Remember how Amy's family hired that lawyer. Well,
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  turns out he had represented some Outlaws guys before.
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  Speaker 2: Like they wandered into this whole other world, a dangerous one,
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  trying to find their daughter.
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  Speaker 1: And get this the lawyer, he sets up a meeting
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  between Amy's mom, Susan, and two members of the Outlaws.
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  Can you imagine these tough bikers showing up at the
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  house of a grieving mother, a mother desperate for any
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  sign of her daughter.
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  Speaker 2: It's that mix of fear and hope, right putting your
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  trust in the hands of people who might be involved
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  in your daughter's disappearance, clinging to the hope that they might.
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  Speaker 1: Understand and believe or not. One of the bikers He
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  tries to reassure Susan, saying that if Amy was with
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  the outlaws, they'd find her and bring her back.
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  Speaker 2: Chilling right, whether it was true or just messing with
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  a grieving family, shows you how these groups worked loyalty
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  above everything else.
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  Speaker 1: But then a few days later they call Susan back,
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  and this time it's different. They tell her to forget
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  about it, to stop asking questions.
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  Speaker 2: Just like that, devastating, like a warning, like they were
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  getting too close to something dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: But just when it seems hopeless, a glimmer of hope
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  pops up and from a totally unexpected place, or Lando, Florida.
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  Speaker 2: This is where it gets really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: The guy who managed the convenience store there, he comes
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  forward and says he saw Amy with two bikers a
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  couple of weeks after she went missing.
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  Speaker 2: If this is true, this could be the missing link, right,
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  the thing that connects Amy to those bikers exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And there's this detail he remembers Amy ordering vegetarian soup.
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  That detail was never released of the public.
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  Speaker 2: It makes you wonder, right, was she taken to Orlando
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  against her will? Was she being held by those bikers?
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  Speaker 1: Another twist in a case it's full of them. It's
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  about to get even stranger. Okay, we're back in the
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  Amy Billy case. It just keeps getting weirder. Just when
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  you think you've heard it all, we're going into well,
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  let's just say uncharted territory.
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  Speaker 2: This is where things take a turn, almost like something
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  you'd see in a movie. A reminder that sometimes logic
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  just doesn't cut it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking psychics. Yeah, and not just any psychic, but
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  one with a real track record even solving some big
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  time cases.
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  Speaker 2: It makes sense in a way, right, when you're desperate
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  for answers, you might turn to something, someone outside the
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  normal way of doing things.
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  Speaker 1: It's like this Edna Buchanan. She's a big time crime
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  reporter for the Miami Herald. She's working out a totally
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  different case, a murder in Vegas, and she decides to
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  talk to this psychic hoping for a lead. Out of
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  the blue, she gets this urge, this feeling to ask
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  about Amy Billick.
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  Speaker 2: And the thing is, Buchanan swore she didn't tell the
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  psychic anything about Amy. It was just this random question
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  that popped into her head.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so she asks where's Amy, and the psychic says,
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  get this lost. Her bones are scattered across the sand,
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  and then she adds the bones the sand they're underwater.
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  Speaker 2: Now, obviously you got to be careful with this kind
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  of stuff, right, psychic's visions, it's all open to interpretation.
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  But this psychic, she had a reputation, and some of
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  the details they make you wonder.
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  Speaker 1: Right, and it gets even creepier the psychic she says
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  the killer didn't mean for Amy to die, that it
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  was a rape that went wrong, and he panicked got
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  rid of her body. She even says he's still in Miami,
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  haunted by what he did.
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  Speaker 2: Chilling stuff, right, It feeds into those darkest spheres. But
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  and this is important, none of it was ever proven
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  for sure.
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  Speaker 1: But even if you don't believe in that stuff, it
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  adds a whole other layer to an already bizarre story.
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  Speaker 2: Shows you how strong the need for answers can be,
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  even if those answers come from some we don't quite understand.
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  Speaker 1: And then get this, decades after Amy disappears, a total curveball,
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  a deathbed confession.
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  Speaker 2: It's like sometimes the truth comes out when you least
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  expect it.
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  Speaker 1: A former Pagan high pen, a gang, a guy named
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  Paul Branch tells his wife he knows what happened to Amy.
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  Says she was kidnapped by some of his guys, taken
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  to their clubhouse out.
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  Speaker 2: In the Everglades, and the Everglades back then, forget about
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  it isolated, secretive, perfect for people who didn't want to
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  be found.
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  Speaker 1: And according to Branch's wife, his confession super detailed. He
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  says Amy was drugged, assaulted by multiple guys, and then well,
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  she died at the clubhouse. He even describes how they
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  got rid of her body in a swamp nearby.
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  Speaker 2: The details, if you believe the wife, they were specific names,
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  what the clubhouse look like, the route they took to
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  dump the body, everything.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the catch this confession. It comes years later
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  as the guy's dying. Hard not to be skeptical about
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  the timing.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly was it real remorse guilt eating at him as
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  he's about to go, or was it just the dying
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  man's ramblings his memory all messed up. Nobody knows for sure.
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  Speaker 1: And get this, some of what Branch said actually matched
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  up with stuff the police kept secret, stuff they never
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  released to the public.
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  Speaker 2: So that adds a whole layer of complexity right, maybe
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  he really did know things, or maybe those details they
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  were just rumors floating around and he worked them into
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  his story. It's impossible to know for sure.
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  Speaker 1: And tragically, even with the confession, there's still no physical evidence,
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  no body, no crime scene, nothing to prove or disprove
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  what he said.
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  Speaker 2: It's the frustrating thing about old cases, especially ones from
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  that time. We've come a long way with forensics, but
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  some things time just washes them away. You know, you're
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  left with more questions than answers.
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  Speaker 1: It's a reminder that sometimes just as it's not about
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  finding all the answers, it's about accepting that some things
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  we may never know for sure.
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  Speaker 2: And for Amy's family, that's got to be the hardest part,
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  not knowing, living with all those possibilities, haunted by what
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  might have happened.
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  Speaker 1: And through it all, Amy's mom, Susan, she held on
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  to hope. She even thought maybe Amy was brainwashed, forced
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  to forget who she was. Maybe it was a way
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  to cope, to protect herself from thinking the worst.
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  Speaker 2: A mother's love, right, that hope that never dies even
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  when everything seems hopeless.
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  Speaker 1: Susan she passed away in two thousand and five, never
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  finding out what really happened to Amy, but her love
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  and Amy's story they live on. There's a garden dedicated
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  to Amy in Coconut Grove, a place to remember, to reflect.
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  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful way to honor a life cut short,
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  even without knowing all the.
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  Speaker 1: Answers Amy's case. It makes you think about how fragile
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  life is, how easily someone can just vanish. It's about
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  the limits of what we can know, the strength of hope,
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  and the mysteries that stay with us.
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  Speaker 2: And it leaves you wondering, right, if that confession is true,
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  what else is buried out there? How many other families
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  are searching for answers, haunted by secrets hidden in the dark.
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  It's a chilling thought, and it makes you realize that
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  sometimes the truth it's not something you find, it's something
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  you live with.