Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Duke Univ. junior home for summer, vanishes

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Duke Univ. junior home for summer, vanishes · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: How search teams are back out looking for a Duke
0:08
Speaker 1: University student missing in Massachusetts. This is day three of
0:12
Speaker 1: that search. Michael Doherty is a rising junior Duke University
0:16
Speaker 1: School of Engineering. His family lives in Massachusetts. He is
0:21
Speaker 1: home for the summer. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:25
Speaker 1: He attended a house party early Sunday morning, and we're
0:29
Speaker 1: told he left that party around one thirty. It was
0:32
Speaker 1: pouring raining, dark and Doughty's phone wasn't charged. It should
0:35
Speaker 1: have been a short walk home for him. He just
0:38
Speaker 1: left on his own. He lives right down there, so
0:41
Speaker 1: I think he had the confidence to walk home at
0:43
Speaker 1: that time. Dorty is five ft ten inches tall. Police
0:47
Speaker 1: are focusing on a specific area now. As the time
0:50
Speaker 1: goes on, the search for him intensifies. Police found his
0:55
Speaker 1: sneaker and a shirt at the edge of a swamp.
0:58
Speaker 1: Day three, Day three of parents on the standby waiting
1:04
Speaker 1: to find out if they're missing boy will be found.
1:08
Speaker 1: Imagine saving your money, your whole life for a college fund,
1:11
Speaker 1: then sending your kid off to an awesome school Duke University,
1:17
Speaker 1: and then he goes missing. The desperate search for a
1:21
Speaker 1: missing college student Michael Doherty enters day three. Officers began
1:27
Speaker 1: searching the woods and a swamp land with dogs, boats, helicopters,
1:32
Speaker 1: even drones at five thirty a m. In the morning
1:36
Speaker 1: for this young man, Michael Doherty. And today we join
1:40
Speaker 1: the search. I Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank
1:45
Speaker 1: you for being with us. We are on pins and
1:48
Speaker 1: needles as the search goes on for this young man.
1:52
Speaker 1: He's a junior mechanical engineering major at Duke University. He
1:57
Speaker 1: was home for the summer break. His family says he
2:00
Speaker 1: is out with his friends at a party on Phyllis Lane.
2:04
Speaker 1: He left alone Sunday morning, early after midnight. He never
2:08
Speaker 1: made it home to Katherine Avenue. That's only less than
2:12
Speaker 1: a mile away from the party now. He charged his
2:15
Speaker 1: cell phone a little bit before leaving home, but police
2:19
Speaker 1: say his phone has shown no activity since then. He
2:24
Speaker 1: was at the party. We know that, but what happened
2:27
Speaker 1: in less than a mile So far, We've heard from
2:32
Speaker 1: sources at w b Z TV that Michael's T shirt
2:36
Speaker 1: and a shoe were found Sunday in the area now
2:41
Speaker 1: being searched. A second shoe has been found on the
2:45
Speaker 1: edge of a golf course. Franklin Police have interviewed over
2:50
Speaker 1: thirty people who are at the party as they're trying
2:53
Speaker 1: to piece together a timeline of events. Let me give
2:57
Speaker 1: you the tip line right now. Anyone who knows anything
3:01
Speaker 1: about Michael Doherty's disappearance called Franklin Police immediately at five
3:06
Speaker 1: zero eight, five to eight one to one to or
3:10
Speaker 1: go to crime online dot com. We have a tip
3:12
Speaker 1: line and an email tip line as well. Joining me
3:16
Speaker 1: right now, the Duke Alan, Duke Alan, what more do
3:19
Speaker 1: we know? Looking at the map of the satellite view,
3:23
Speaker 1: which you can see on Google and we'll post it
3:25
Speaker 1: on our story, you can see that he didn't have
3:28
Speaker 1: very far to walk. It was one thirty in the morning,
3:31
Speaker 1: early Sunday. There was a house party going on in
3:33
Speaker 1: Phillis Lane. About thirty or more people, mostly friends of
3:39
Speaker 1: Michael's perhaps from high school days, were there. And it
3:44
Speaker 1: seems that the way it is today, you depend on
3:47
Speaker 1: your cell phone for everything you're you're snapchatting and everything.
3:50
Speaker 1: So his battery had run down and he charged it
3:53
Speaker 1: a little bit borrow to friends. Charger charged it for
3:55
Speaker 1: a few minutes before starting to walk home. Now, you
3:58
Speaker 1: would think you'd be fine, because if you look at
4:01
Speaker 1: this neighborhood. It's a residential neighborhood, one of those what
4:04
Speaker 1: we call a good neighborhood. And Franklin, Massachusetts, by the way,
4:08
Speaker 1: about fifty miles southwest of Boston, right near a country club.
4:12
Speaker 1: So he was walking down Phillis Lane. He just had
4:15
Speaker 1: to make a couple of turns, didn't even have to
4:17
Speaker 1: cross any major roads or anything over to where he
4:21
Speaker 1: lived and where his family was at Catherine Avenue, so
4:24
Speaker 1: it was just about one point three miles away. But
4:27
Speaker 1: he disappeared. He never made it home in those early
4:31
Speaker 1: morning hours, and it seems that his cell phone finally
4:35
Speaker 1: died and they can't pin it now. It just no
4:39
Speaker 1: sign of him. Police say he was wearing a blue
4:42
Speaker 1: T shirt with a Nike logo, black pants and sneakers
4:45
Speaker 1: the night of the get together, very innocent get together.
4:49
Speaker 1: No word of any crazy drugs or alcohol or out
4:53
Speaker 1: of controlled behavior. This was a neighborhood home, not for
4:57
Speaker 1: at all from his parents. I would walk this far
5:01
Speaker 1: with my twins Alan, certainly, but you know, and there's
5:04
Speaker 1: a swamp swampy area. But it doesn't make sense that
5:08
Speaker 1: he got if he were even inebriated, which we don't
5:11
Speaker 1: have evidence of by the way, but for him to
5:14
Speaker 1: get disoriented, this was his home turf. So another thing
5:18
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense to me that he could have gotten
5:20
Speaker 1: in the swampy area and drowned Because his shirt is
5:25
Speaker 1: found in one place, one shoe was found in one place,
5:28
Speaker 1: and another she was found in another place. That does
5:31
Speaker 1: not a drowning make no. If you look at this map, Nancy,
5:36
Speaker 1: and he's going down Phillis Lane, headed north, he takes
5:40
Speaker 1: a right at the first street at the end of
5:42
Speaker 1: this is a cul de sac street. You know it
5:44
Speaker 1: goes nowhere other than where you are. If he takes
5:48
Speaker 1: a left turn, he goes towards the swamp, takes a
5:50
Speaker 1: right turn, he should have gone to go home. Unless
5:55
Speaker 1: this is what I'm thinking. I was a kid young
5:58
Speaker 1: one time, and I used to take shortcuts through the woods.
6:02
Speaker 1: If it was the neighborhood I was really familiar with.
6:04
Speaker 1: You know, we all had our own trails. I know
6:06
Speaker 1: you did too, Nancy. You had your own little shortcut
6:08
Speaker 1: trails through the world. When I go home to Macon
6:12
Speaker 1: and i'm I'm in my mom and dad's neighborhood. When
6:15
Speaker 1: I go out and about with the twins by foot,
6:17
Speaker 1: we take all the old shortcuts through people's yards through
6:20
Speaker 1: some woods. I'm betting you that is what happened. I mean,
6:24
Speaker 1: you don't use Google Maps to walk a mile to
6:27
Speaker 1: your own home where you grew up. You have, and
6:30
Speaker 1: this is exactly the kind of neighborhood where you would
6:33
Speaker 1: have cut throughs. Well, you may be honest something alan,
6:36
Speaker 1: because neighbors say they've observed the police going through people's
6:40
Speaker 1: backyards with a jig big German shepherd dog, and that
6:45
Speaker 1: means that they're looking through cuts or shortcuts, cut throughs.
6:49
Speaker 1: This kid had just completed his junior year as a
6:52
Speaker 1: mechanical engineering major, smart smart, bright boy at Duke University.
6:59
Speaker 1: Motor bus oats and canine dogs are being used to
7:02
Speaker 1: find this guy. And you know what about this kid,
7:07
Speaker 1: Michael Doughty. You know, we hear all these horrible things
7:10
Speaker 1: about that, like this last fraternity party where everybody was
7:14
Speaker 1: drunk out of their minds and they were hitting the
7:17
Speaker 1: guy and they basically left him to die. He kept
7:20
Speaker 1: falling and hitting his head and he did die. Nothing
7:24
Speaker 1: like that in this kid's background. Michael Daherty just a
7:27
Speaker 1: good kid, a good boy, really good grades, a nice
7:34
Speaker 1: family that loves him, who right now are probably just
7:40
Speaker 1: out of their minds, out of their minds. His fraternity brothers,
7:46
Speaker 1: he was Alpha tah Omega in that fraternity at Duke.
7:51
Speaker 1: His fraternity brothers are converging. The president, John Clark, is
7:57
Speaker 1: at home in Connecticut, made the drive to Bassatu sits
8:00
Speaker 1: in his organizing other fraternity brothers to help in the search.
8:03
Speaker 1: So this is the good side. You know, we talk
8:06
Speaker 1: about those the hazing and everything, but now here's another thing. Yeah,
8:10
Speaker 1: you're right, you're right. Well, I mean, you know, coming
8:13
Speaker 1: from my sorority where we never had parties like that.
8:16
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8:18
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10:05
Speaker 1: back to our podcast. Listen to this. He left the
10:08
Speaker 1: party alone, so he didn't leave with a group of
10:11
Speaker 1: other guys that could have beat him up or hurt him.
10:14
Speaker 1: So what happened he had less than a mile to walk,
10:18
Speaker 1: he knew the neighborhood. What in the haze a young
10:21
Speaker 1: guy twenty years old. It's it's really, it's really an
10:27
Speaker 1: enigma because typically you hear of young kids, younger boys,
10:32
Speaker 1: younger girls, teen girls, but very rarely do you hear
10:36
Speaker 1: of a guy, twenty year old guy in his neighborhood
10:40
Speaker 1: that goes missing. And it went down in this neighborhood.
10:43
Speaker 1: It's not like somebody took him to another location. Whatever
10:47
Speaker 1: happened happened there, because his shirt and two of his
10:51
Speaker 1: shoes have been found in different locations. Unless that happened
10:55
Speaker 1: during a struggle and somebody stuffed him in a car.
10:57
Speaker 1: He is still missing. The search is going on, and
11:00
Speaker 1: this is right beside his home, less than a mile.
11:07
Speaker 1: So we know about the shirt, we know about the
11:09
Speaker 1: two shoes. Police are using a helicopter, boats, canines, drones.
11:15
Speaker 1: Doherty leaving a party late Saturday night, really a little
11:19
Speaker 1: after midnight, we think to walk less than a mile home.
11:24
Speaker 1: Now that second, she was found on a nearby golf course.
11:28
Speaker 1: What does that mean alan out on a golf course?
11:31
Speaker 1: Was he cutting across the golf course? That would make
11:33
Speaker 1: any sense? The golf course is parallel to the swamp,
11:37
Speaker 1: which there's a creek that runs through it, which is
11:40
Speaker 1: parallel to his walk. Now, if he took these short cuts,
11:43
Speaker 1: and I'm looking, I'm I'm zooming in on that wooded area.
11:47
Speaker 1: You do see trails through there, and you even see
11:51
Speaker 1: a trail that goes across the swamp. It appears to
11:54
Speaker 1: be I wouldn't want to take it, certainly at one
11:56
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning, but it goes over to the
11:58
Speaker 1: golf course, so there could be a connection there. But
12:03
Speaker 1: my goodness, this is a nice neighborhood as far as
12:05
Speaker 1: just the kind of place you would want if you
12:08
Speaker 1: were going to have a kid walking home from a party. Yeah,
12:11
Speaker 1: five ft ten inches, brown hair, brown eyes. Again the
12:15
Speaker 1: number five eight, five to eight, one to one two.
12:18
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at the map. Hey, when you
12:21
Speaker 1: post your article on crime online, can you include that map.
12:24
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. What we're talking about, because it
12:28
Speaker 1: really lays out the shortcuts he may have taken. I
12:31
Speaker 1: wonder if they're going to start looking in houses, in homes,
12:36
Speaker 1: in garages, things like that, because looking at the map,
12:41
Speaker 1: it's very clear how he would have walked on a
12:45
Speaker 1: street unless he took a cut three. And I see
12:48
Speaker 1: that golf course. I see if something happened to him
12:52
Speaker 1: in this wooded area, how could his shoe get to
12:55
Speaker 1: that golf course. You have to cross that creek. That's
12:59
Speaker 1: the only way, and that's not going to be an
13:00
Speaker 1: easy thing. I think you're right. Whatever happened went down
13:05
Speaker 1: right there. But it was dark, it was maybe two
13:08
Speaker 1: in the morning, and bad things happened, then, yeah, they do.
13:13
Speaker 1: But in a residential neighborhood, honestly, people are asleep. So
13:18
Speaker 1: what the hay is going down in this neat little
13:21
Speaker 1: neighborhood at twelve one o'clock in the morning when he's
13:25
Speaker 1: walking home, Who is out? And about what? I just
13:29
Speaker 1: don't see how he goes missing in less than a
13:32
Speaker 1: mile in his own neighborhood, unless somebody removed him from
13:35
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. Well, I think bottom line is will probably
13:40
Speaker 1: know fairly soon if he is still in the area
13:42
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood, unless he's someplace in one of those houses.
13:45
Speaker 1: But it's not a big area. It's not the area
13:48
Speaker 1: where they found the shoes. It's all within about a
13:51
Speaker 1: quarter of a mile of where everything was found. There
13:54
Speaker 1: and where the party was happening, you know, and I
13:56
Speaker 1: think you're right. I think these are probably friends of
13:58
Speaker 1: his from where he went to high school, Xavier High School.
14:01
Speaker 1: A rising junior now at the Pratt School of Engineering
14:05
Speaker 1: at Duke and really an upstanding student. He was home
14:10
Speaker 1: for the summer, went out to a party with friends
14:13
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood Saturday night. The parents report him missing
14:17
Speaker 1: when he didn't come home from the party. Police officers
14:20
Speaker 1: spend the whole day the next day scouring the area
14:24
Speaker 1: with their canines and even a canoe to explore a
14:27
Speaker 1: swampy area near Phillis Lane. The operation, of course, was
14:32
Speaker 1: hampered by whether it made it impossible for helicopters to
14:36
Speaker 1: search for a little while. They resumed the next morning.
14:40
Speaker 1: Even the environmental police are joining in to come through
14:43
Speaker 1: a very wooded and marshy area very close to where
14:48
Speaker 1: he was. They're urging local residents to check outside their homes,
14:52
Speaker 1: including sheds or detached buildings on their property. This reminds
14:57
Speaker 1: me of a case I think out of Savannah. It
15:00
Speaker 1: was where this awesome young guy goes missing. We could
15:05
Speaker 1: not figure it out, you know, what happened to him.
15:08
Speaker 1: He had gotten into He had walked through the wrong
15:11
Speaker 1: door in a hotel and gotten in a where they
15:15
Speaker 1: had those giant fans and was hurt in one of
15:18
Speaker 1: the fans. That's what happened to him. I mean, it
15:21
Speaker 1: could be something totally that we're not expecting. There's video
15:26
Speaker 1: of cops looking in along the curtilage, which is the
15:30
Speaker 1: outside of buildings, searching, you know, in sheds and garages,
15:35
Speaker 1: searching for him. Nancy. This reminds me of something that
15:38
Speaker 1: I say to my daughter years old, every time she
15:43
Speaker 1: goes out, is your phone charged? I have bought so
15:47
Speaker 1: many backup batteries and made sure she's got them in
15:50
Speaker 1: her pocketbook, that she's got them with her because she
15:53
Speaker 1: spends so much time on Instagram, Snapchat and everything. It
15:57
Speaker 1: runs down and my fear is that is going to
16:00
Speaker 1: be dead when she actually needs it. So for parents, grandparents,
16:05
Speaker 1: if you're looking for presents for your kid, get them
16:07
Speaker 1: backup batteries for their cell phone. Good thanking, Alan, I'm
16:10
Speaker 1: right there with you. Of course, the twins don't have
16:12
Speaker 1: a cell phone, not yet, not yet, but you know
16:15
Speaker 1: that's that's all they want. All they wanted a cellphone.
16:19
Speaker 1: Santa got crazy. He gave them a darn iPad. You know,
16:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a word with Chris Kraangel because mommy
16:25
Speaker 1: would never have a proven I had to take it
16:27
Speaker 1: away from him constantly. But it is a source of power. Okay,
16:30
Speaker 1: the iPad. But what I know right now is these
16:34
Speaker 1: parents are hurting, and I want this boy, this young
16:38
Speaker 1: Duke student brought home safely, God willing. And again, if
16:44
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Speaker 1: it's simply a dot com slash Nancy. That's simply safe
17:03
Speaker 1: dot com slash Nancy. Guys. Thank you for being with
17:07
Speaker 1: us as we continue to help in the search for
17:11
Speaker 1: Michael Doherty. I just can't even imagine what his family
17:15
Speaker 1: is going through. Alan the tipline, I'm looking it up
17:18
Speaker 1: one more time. Do you have it? By chance? Here
17:21
Speaker 1: we go, I've got it. Five zero eight, five to eight,
17:24
Speaker 1: one to one to please help bring Michael home. Nancy
17:28
Speaker 1: Grace Crime Stories, goodbye friend,