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A Quiet Town’s Darkest Day: The Disappearance of Molly Bish · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It's the summer of two thousand and Sixteen year old
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Molly Bish is about to start what should be a
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: simple day as a lifeguard at Commons Pond in small
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: town Warren, Massachusetts. Her mom drops her off, relieved not
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to see the creepy guy with a mustache who'd been
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: lurking in a white sedan the day before. But a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: few hours later, Molly's gone, her flip flops, left abandoned
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: at her post, as if she just simply vanished into
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the thick Massachusetts air. As the search unfolds, what should
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: be a straightforward investigation spirals into a mess of bungled
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: leads and suspects who, one by one slipped through the cracks.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Even decades later, the question still hangs heavy. Who took
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Molly Bish and how did they manage to disappear themselves?
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: In this episode, we unraveled the haunting story of Molly's disappearance,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: The tale of a small town forever changed and a
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: family left searching for answers that they may never find
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: hang tight. We're diving into a tale that's equal parts
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: mystery misfortune with a truly haunting question. Who took Molly
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Bish and why? Welcome to ten minute Murder. It was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand would change young Molly Anne
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Bish's life forever. While other sixteen year olds across Massachusetts
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: were home from school for the summer season, Mollie was
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: on her way to her job. But it wasn't quite
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a job like any other. Mollie actually worked as a
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: lifeguard at Common's Pond and Warren, meaning that she was
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: ready to spring into action and risk her own life
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: at the drop of a hat. Her mother, Maggie, would
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: drive Molly out to the parking lot a short distance
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: away from the lifeguard post before her shifts. Mollie would
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: then either get a ride back with someone she knew,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: or her mother would pick her up again. This was
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: how most of Molly's summer days went, but that, unfortunately
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: would not be the case for the day of June
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: twenty seventh, two thousand. The day had started off same
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: as any other. Molly had a shift at Common's Pond
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and Maggie drove her out there, but Maggie was a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: little on edge. While she'd been dropping off Molly the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: day before, she'd noticed something in the car park that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: had left her uneasy. A white man with a thick mustache,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: had been sitting in a white car the day before,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: seemingly waiting for something, and the sight of him alone
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: had sent chills down Maggie's spine. Molly shifted the day
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: before had gone just as fine as normal, but Maggie
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: feared that the strange man would be waiting in the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: parking lot again. On June twenty seventh, she drove Molly
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: up to the lifeguard post and then she let out
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a sigh of relief. There was no white car in sight.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Maggie dropped Molly off, said goodbye, and then headed back home,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: but only a few short hours later she received a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: chilling phone call. It was the police and they had
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: some horrifying news. Not only did it look like no
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: lifeguards had been on duty at the pond the entire day,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: but no one could actually find Molly. Her belongings, including
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: her flip flops, were still at the post, as was
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a first aid kit that looked like it had just
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: been opened and then left there. Molly's parents and the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: police descended upon the scene and frantically began searching for Molly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: The initial theory behind her disappearance was that she had
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: possibly drowned in the lake while on the job, and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: this was based off the fact that her belongings were
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: still at the post when she wasn't. The investigators also
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: determined from physical evidence and witness testimonies that Mollie had
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: only been a lifeguard post for around fifteen minutes before
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: she went missing. Molly's case was not treated with immediate suspicion,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: which must have come as some kind of initial relief
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to her family, but it would prove to be the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: investigations undoing. The scene that Molly had disappeared from wasn't secured,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and hundreds of people went through the post and the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: beach desperately searching for Molly. In fact, the search for
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Mollie quickly grew into the biggest and most expensive search
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: for a missing person in the entire state Massachusetts. But
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: from the get go it had started out on the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: wrong foot. As the investigators and the search parties continued
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: to come back empty handed, one question was asked, was
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: it possible that someone had taken the teenaged girl? Ours
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: turned into days, and then into weeks, months and years.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, a hunter on Whiskey Hill
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in Palmer, only a few short miles away from Molly's
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: family home made an unusual discovery. He spotted some blue fabric,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: similar to the type used in a bathing suit. At first,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: he thought nothing of it, but then he talked to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a friend. A few months later in two thousand and three,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: his friend decided to call it in. The police sprang
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: into action and conducted a shoulder to shoulder search of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the area with over two hundred people. They found the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: blue fabric again and discovered that it was indeed a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: bathing suit, but not only that it was the very
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: same bathing suit that Molly had been wearing the day
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: that she disappeared. Now with heavier hearts, the search continued
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and they made one more chilling discovery. Only a few
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: days later, they uncovered Molly's remains. Judging by what the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: investigators found, they believed she died the same day she'd
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: gone missing, and though they couldn't determine her exact cause
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: of death, they were certain that she had been murdered.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It was clear that someone had taken Molly and then
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: either dragged her out into the woods to kill her,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: or had used the landscape to simply try to hide
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: her remains, But who would do that to a sixteen
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: year old girl and why. With the discovery of her remains,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the investigators remained hopeful that they would finally uncover another
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: set of clues that would lead them to Molly's killer,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: but the going was tough and the information on who
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: had done this to the young girl remained elusive. It
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: wasn't until two thousand and nine, nine whole years after
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Molly had first disappeared, that the investigators were able to
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: name some real suspects. All of them were men, and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: all of them had some sort of criminal history that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: involved the abuse of women or miners to some degree.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And then someone posed the question of whether two similar
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: murders could possibly be connected. In nineteen ninety three, when
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Molly was only ten years old, Holly Purinan, who was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: also ten at the time, went missing from her grandmother's
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: house in Sturbridge. She was later found dead in a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: forest in Brimfield. Sturbridge is only about twenty minutes away
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: from Warren. The girls were the same age, and where
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: their remains had been found had both been in wooded,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: secluded areas. This could suggest some possibility of a connection
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: between the two and suggest that they could have possibly
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: been carried out by the same suspect, but there was
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: still more to come to further tie the two of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: them together, and it would turn out that Molly herself
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was the finding rope between them. During the desperate and
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: frantic search for Holly, Mollie had actually reached out to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Holly's parents quote I'm very sorry, ten year old Molly
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: wrote in her letter. I wish I could make it
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: up to you. Holly is a very pretty girl. She's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: almost as tall as me. I wish I knew Holly.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I hope they found her. It was possible that the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: two investigative forces were looking for the same murderer, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: physical evidence at the scene where Molly had been found
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: pointed to one man, David Pullyacht. Although what they found
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: isn't open to the public, the district Attorney did make
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a statement saying that what and where they'd found this
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: physical evidence in relation to Holly's remains made the evidence
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: extremely significant. This, coupled with the fact that investigators now
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: believed that the same person who'd kidnapped and killed Holly
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: could be the same person who'd kidnapped and killed Molly,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: meant that the next logical course of action for both
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: investigations would be to bring in that person for questioning,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: but there was a major setback in that plan. By then,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: it was twenty twelve and David Pulliat had died in
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three. It was possible that David was
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the man behind both killings, but with no way of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: questioning him, that branch of the investigation hit a definitive
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: dead end. But another man named as a suspect was
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Frank Sumner, a convicted rapist. He not only lived and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: worked in the area at the time of Molly's disappearance,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: but he also fit the description of the man that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Molly's mother, Maggie, had seen while sitting in the white
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: car the day before. In fact, that Maggie had been
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: so relieved that there had been no man in a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: white car on the last day that she dropped her
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: daughter off for work proved to be a little bit
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of a misdirection in and of itself. Witnesses would later
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: say that a man with a mustache had been sitting
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: in the car park at the lake only a few
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: moment moments before Maggie drove in with Molly. Someone else
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: would later say that they had spotted a man and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a car matching that description in another parking lot that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was connected to the lake via a path that very
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: same day. Was it possible that Frank Sumner had something
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to do with Molly's death? As it would turn out,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: he not only matched the physical description of the man
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in the parking lot, but also had access to a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: white car. It would certainly seem that Frank was the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: culprit or at least certainly seemed possible, But by then
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: it was twenty twenty one and Frank had died. In
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, the investigation hit another dead end, one that
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: even DNA evidence and familial DNA sampling couldn't solve. To
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: this day, Molly's case remains open and unsolved. Frank Sumner
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: has been named an official person of interest, but without
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: further evidence or information, the investigation appears to be at
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: a standstill. Two hundred and sixty seven pieces of physical
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: evidence are being kept safe, and over sixty seven hundred
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: leads and tips have been looked into to no avail.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's been twenty four years since Molly first disappeared, soon
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to be twenty five, and Molly's family still carry the
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: weight of what happened to her on their shoulders quote.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Molly's presence is missed every single day. Her sister, Heather
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: spoke on the anniversary of Molly's murder. I miss my sister.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: It never ends. I don't look at the world the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: same way. My sister was taken by somebody, and I've
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: learned there are many dangerous people out there. That's ten
• 11:51
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