S04E04: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MILLBROOK TWINS

Stephanie: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

The disappearance of the Millbrook Twins. It's just unfortunate because of the area that this crime happened in. It's a very low income area and very marginalized, so it never got a lot of attention.

So after the girls left, they were supposed to be heading home, but that's when the trail goes cold. They never end up getting home.

AJ: It's annoying because that 24 hours is so critical and if they start an investigation early, then maybe they can find the missing person before something worse happens.

Stephanie: That someone had called the police to report seeing the girls leaving, but never described leaving where? Leaving the city, leaving the neighborhood, leaving the state.

Katie: I don't know why they were scared. Someone's following them. That's why.

Stephanie: He said, "we think a terrible injustice has been done for the last 20 years, and for some unknown reason, the girls were removed from the system and there's also no report saying why they were removed."

AJ: Hi everyone. Welcome back to Crime Family. Before we start today's episode, we just want to let you know about our patron community. If you like the show and you want exclusive extras, like ad free content, bonus episodes, a private community to connect with us, free merch and an exclusive new True Crime series Doc Talk, consider becoming a Patron. Doc Talk is like a book club for true crime documentaries. Each month we'll select a new doc to watch and discuss it in full. We'll take your questions and discuss the topics you want. You have access to this exclusive new series at a tier three membership, as well as all the other extras I mentioned. Join us on Patreon to continue the True Crime conversation and build a community. We'd love to have you. By signing up today, you'll also get automatic access to our bonus episodes, including one about Sarah Boone, known as the Suitcase Killer, one about the updates in the Adnon Syed case, and a Halloween one. Check out the show notes for the link to become a patron today, or go to patreon.com/crime family podcast. Also, we've recently launched our exclusive merch store on Red Bubble. We're so excited to have the official Crime Family logo and designs on everything from t-shirts to stickers to mugs and hats. Check out our merch store to help support the show at the link in the show notes.

 For this week's episode, Steph is going to be telling us about a case that she's been researching. So Steph, take it away.

Stephanie: Hi guys. The case that I've been doing was one that I never heard of before. I recently heard it on another podcast that I was listening to. It's quite an interesting and very sad case. There's not a whole lot of information that is involved in this case, and there's a lot of finger pointing and a lot of shady cop work. It's unfortunate because of the area that this crime happened in. It's a very low income area and very marginalized, so it never got a lot of attention. The only reason why I heard about it was on a podcast. When I was researching it, there was barely any information on it. I just wanted to talk about the case because I want to get the story out there. The case is about the disappearance of the Millbrook twins. I don't know if you guys ever heard about the case ? I know I didn't before I did my research.

AJ: No, I never. Completely unknown to me, so I'm excited to listen.

Katie: Yeah, I've heard of it. I can't recall a lot of the details, but I am familiar with it.

Stephanie: Like I said, it just caught my eye and it was suspicious and unfortunately there was a lot of injustice that went on. The case is about twin girls, Jeannette and Dannette. They're fraternal twins who lived in Augusta, Georgia. They lived with their mother, Mary and their younger sister Shanta. Their family is pretty close. They did live in a low income area and their mother struggled a lot to make ends meet and often didn't have enough money to feed her children or give them money for the city bus, which is how the twins got to and from school every day. The girls and their mother and sister would often go to church on Sundays, and the twins would often get food from the church's kitchen, that was free. This happened every Sunday. They would get meals for the day or meals for a few days and they would bring it home. On the day they disappeared, it was no different than any other day. On the morning of March 18th, 1990, the girls and their mother got up and got ready for church and went to church like they did every Sunday and afterwards their mother had left to go home and the girls had to pick up something to eat at the church's kitchen. Once the girls had got their meals, they walked home and when they arrived home, they had told their mother that there was this white van that was following them. When the mother looked out the window, she didn't see any white van or anything out of the ordinary, so she brushed it off and ignored it. Later that afternoon, after they finished their meals, the girls decided they were going to go visit their godfather. It was within walking distance from their house, so they would often go to the godfather's house because he would often give them money for the bus, and they knew he would always give them extra money to buy snacks and anything else that they needed. On this particular day, they left their house around 3:00 and went to their godfather's house. When they got there, they hung out with their godfather for about half an hour. They got the money and they decided they were going to walk to the convenience store. On their way to the convenience store, they decided that they wanted to stop at their cousin's house to see if their cousin wanted to walk with them to the convenience store, but their aunt would not let them go because it was getting late and it was almost time for supper. The girls had left their house and started walking towards the convenience store and decided to go to visit their older sister, who lived a few blocks away to see if she could walk them to the convenience store and home. When they got there, she had asked their sister if, if she could walk with them, but their sister said no because she just had a baby a couple days ago and she was tired and she didn't want to walk with them. She thought it was weird that the twins would ask her to walk with them because they were 15 year old twins and they were together. For them to ask for her to walk with them to the convenience store and home was a little odd, but she didn't really think anything of it. She just said, "No, I'm too tired. I don't really feel like walking." The girls left and they ended up going to the convenience store. At the convenience store they bought chips and pop, and some other little snacks for their week at school. The clerk said that the girls seemed normal. They were very happy. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. After the girls left, they were supposed to be heading home, but that's when the trail goes cold. They never end up getting home. Later that evening, the girl's mother was getting nervous because the girls weren't home for supper. When their mother called the godfather to see if the girls actually went to his house, he said they had left around 3:30, 4:00 to go to the convenience store. She then called the cousin because she knew the cousin lived close to the convenience store and she said, "Yeah, the girls were here and had asked if she could walk them home, but she didn't." She then called their sister because they knew that she was close by to the convenience store and see if they stopped by and see if she saw them. She said, "Yeah, they had came in, said hello and had asked if I could walk them to the convenience store, but that she had said no." Their mother was starting to get panicky. She was wondering why the girls kept asking someone to walk them to the convenience store. Were they scared? Was there somebody following them? Was something making them nervous? She just wasn't sure. An hour went by and the girls still haven't showed up. That's when she got some of the neighbors together and she tried to go search on her own just to make sure maybe the girls lost track of time, maybe they were taking a different route home just to see if she could find them or know anything about where their whereabouts were. After a couple hours of searching on her own, she didn't find anything and the girls still weren't in contact with their family, so this is when she decided to call the local police station, but when she spoke with the police officer, he told her that she needed to wait 24 hours before she could make a report. We've heard this all before. You always have to wait the 24 hours before you can report a person missing.

AJ: Which is really frustrating in all these cases, I feel. I mean even though I can understand and I get why that's a thing because many people will return or they will hear from them within 24 hours, so it's a waste of resources to have to start a search when they're just going to show up anyway. But for the ones that don't show up, it's annoying because that 24 hours is so critical and if they start an investigation early, then maybe they can find the missing person before something worse happens, you know? It's just annoying even though I understand it and I can't imagine, I mean, it's frustrating for me just listening to it, I couldn't imagine what it is like to be the family of the missing person who's being told that you have to wait 24 hours when you know, somethings wrong.

Katie: I don't understand it when it's a kid or somebody under 19 or a minor that you have to wait. I feel like that would be priority. Even if they are 15, you know, still look for them right away, I feel. But guess not.

AJ: But I think maybe it's because there's a lot of kids who run away or don't talk to their parents for a day or something. I don't know. I mean, it still should be priority, but I feel like maybe they just think that, you know, a lot of times it's just a kid being rebellious.

Katie: I guess. Yeah. But especially when they don't have any prior history of running away or there's nothing that would prompt them to do that. You know, you'd think that'd be a little bit more startling than just, you know, lumping everybody in with, "They're just a kid and they'll be back." But yeah, we talk about this all the time.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah and then I was going to say, while you were saying that, I was thinking, "Okay, maybe they should do it on a case by case basis." You know, but then every person's going to go to the police station and say, "No, this is unusual." You know, so everyone's going to, obviously it's your child, it's your family, you're going to think it's a number one priority, right? They can't really do case by case basis because everyone's going to say that.

Katie: I guess that's true. They probably just don't have capacity to search every single time somebody says something. I get it.

AJ: I've never worked at a police station or anything like that, but you can probably imagine the amount of people who call them saying somebody's missing, and then they turn up hours later, right? We don't see that side of it. If you're on the inside, you're probably like, "Okay, well 90% of these just turn up anyway." So that's why I can understand that 24-hour rule, even though it is annoying and frustrating.

Stephanie: So I feel like in the back of my mind, that was one of the reasons why Mary waited and she did the search on her own, because like I said, they lived in a marginalized area in a low income area. I feel like if she went to the police, she knew that they would say 24 hours or they might have brushed it off. I think that's why she initially did try to search on her own, but obviously when the girls didn't show up, she had to go to the police and file a missing person's report. Like I said, she had to wait 24 hours and she was frustrated, but she did wait the 24 hours. When there was still no contact with the girls after the 24 hours she called back to make a report. This time when a deputy answered the phone, and according to the mother, this is what the deputy said," Oh, they probably ran away. They'll come back, there's no need to panic or no need to worry. They're 15 year old girls. They will come back. We can't really do anything right now." Mary knew with all her heart that her kids just didn't leave or run away. They weren't that type of girls. They were close to their family. They were very close to the community and they wouldn't just get up and run away. They were good kids and they would never leave their family for no reason.

AJ: One thing I always notice or always think of when we hear about cases or watch documentaries, people always say, "Oh, this is unlike them." and it's like, "Well, you don't really know what's going on with someone." Right? It is possible that these things could happen. Like, "Oh, they would never be the type to run away. They've never done it before." I always think like, "Well, they wouldn't tell you if they were going to run away." You know what I mean? Maybe I just think a lot of times people say that like, "Well no, they didn't run away because they're not that type of person." Well, no one thinks that someone's that type of person until it happens. Right? That's just my two cents. Do you guys like feel the same way about that that I do though?

Katie: Yeah, I think a lot of suicides especially are out of the blue because I mean, even see celebrities that are in the public eye that seemed to be really happy. I'm thinking of Robin Williams for example. You know, he's a comedian. He always seemed happy, but yet he was struggling and that was a surprise for people that didn't know him that well I guess, maybe his family. There are examples out there where people just commit suicide and they have nothing leading up to that that anybody would suspect, so it could happen.

AJ: Yeah. I don't know if you guys watched the recent Unsolved Mysteries, there's an episode on there about a death that was ruled a suicide, but the family was saying, "No. She wouldn't do that." I always just think of that when I see those kind of cases. It's like most people suffer in silence until they commit suicide or attempt it, right? This might not be something that you would confide in someone. So when people always say, "Oh they're never that type of person." You just never quite know.

Katie: I think a lot of people try and hide it, so they overcompensate by acting really happy so that people don't suspect anything when you know, really they are the saddest ones on the inside. You never know.

AJ: Yeah. That's just my observation from the outside, obviously I don't know any of these people personally, so I guess if someone who knows them and their family member says that's not like them, then obviously take their word for it over someone who doesn't even know them. That's just my opinion.

Stephanie: Yeah. I agree with what you guys are saying. It's so hard to know with any of these people either, so it's so hard to know how they're feeling and what's going on. I'll get into more detail about the whole police investigation, but it's sad to think that a lot of cases go unsolved or a lot of cases aren't done well because their first instinct is they ran away or they commit suicide when really they don't really know, and they don't really do a whole lot of investigation to find out. It's just sad that in some of these cases they get details wrong.

AJ: Yeah, I think if there's suspicious evidence or it's sketchy, there's evidence to show that it possibly was foul play, I think they should pursue that. Sometimes deaths are ruled a suicide and then the family will fight and say, "no, that's not," when there's not much other evidence to suggest anything else. I think that's where, in a lot of cases there are lots of other evidence to show that it was foul play, but they stick with the suicide theory, which is also crazy. So, just varies I guess.

Stephanie: Like I said, Mary was frustrated that the police just brushed it off like they were runaways, but she knew that her girls would not just run away. They were good kids and they wouldn't just leave their family like that without telling anybody. Mary goes on to say in an interview by Oxygen that the police did nothing about the disappearance of the girls. The family was basically on their own to find them themselves. When Mary told the girl's father John Millbrook, who's not really in the picture in the family. He's estranged from them. He said he never wanted to look for them. He told their oldest daughter that if the police came to question him that he was dead and if, and if they came looking for him, that he was dead and that he just didn't want anybody to question him or look for the girls, which to me seems really suspicious. Why wouldn't you want to look for your daughters? I guess he had so many mixed emotions about the whole thing, and I guess he just didn't know how to feel about it. They were your kids, you think you'd want to go look for them. The case went cold after that and nothing really happened. About a year later, in April of 1991, an investigator had informed the family that the girls could no longer be compelled to return home and that they were still considering it a runaway. Nothing was done. They never even looked into it. After a year they said it's been a year now that they haven't showed up at their house. There's nothing really they can do. They're not compelled to come back home. There's basically nothing they can do. The family later told the local CBS News 12 that someone had called the police to report, seeing the girls leaving, but never described leaving where? Leaving the city, leaving the neighborhood, leaving the state. That was never explained. Someone saw them leaving, but they never gave description of where they were. The police never looked into it and they just said, "oh, they left. Case closed." There are also several other mistakes according to the family that were made in the original report. Their last name was spelled wrong and Jeannette's middle name was put as Latricia when her actual middle name is Latrice. These mistakes were never changed according to the family. I actually looked it up. I wanted to see if I could find anywhere where the report was and I actually came across an article that also stated that the girls' names were never changed to this day. Their information, their name was spelled wrong and her middle name was spelled wrong until this day. Nothing was ever changed in the original report. The family was basically on their own trying to search for their family. They tried every avenue and things just seemed to not be going that well, and there was no new information until two years later in 1993 when again, someone informed the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the twins had been found, but there was no lead on that. Eventually, when they went to go look at the original case file, the case file had also disappeared. When they went to go see who that call came from, they couldn't trace a call of where or who sent that call. So again, there was no follow up to any of those allegations of them being found.

AJ: Wait, what? So someone called in and said that they were found?

Stephanie: Yeah. Someone called or informed the National Center for Missing And Exploited Children to report that the twins were found. When they went to talk to that person, they had no information on who that person was who called. There was no trace of the phone call or the recording of the phone call. When they went to go look at the original case file, the case file was missing as well.

AJ: How did something like that happen?

Stephanie: The case was closed again and nobody ever followed up or followed the leads or looked any further into that.

AJ: So they don't know who this person was that called in? That's so weird.

Katie: Did they not go and check to see if they actually were found, like someone just calls in and be like, "They're found. Okay. Case closed."

Stephanie: No, there was no information on if they went to look. I looked everywhere in different sources and it didn't really say they went to go look for them. It just said what I just read.

AJ: So someone called in and then they couldn't find the person who called in, but they also didn't check if they were found, which is weird. I mean, I guess I could just call the family and say, "Were your kids found? "And then they would find out.

Stephanie: Around the same time that this call came in, a skeleton of an unidentified black female was discovered in Aiken County. The remains were found near Highway 191 in Aiken County in South Carolina. The family at the time said that the facial reconstruction of the bones could be Jeannette, but they were told that it was neither Jeannette or Dannette, but they never gave a reason why they said that it wasn't them. At this point, the family is pretty frustrated and devastated with how this case was going or being treated, and how there was just a lot of injustice being had.

AJ: So it was just one body that was found?

Stephanie: Yes.

AJ: One skeleton?

Stephanie: Yeah. There was no other information that ever came out about that. I looked and I searched and I couldn't find any other information of who the body was. It was a Jane Doe. They never did say who the body belonged to.

AJ: They might not have DNA, but I mean, they probably have other tools that can rule out, or narrow it down. It's possible they did tests and were like, "Well, no, it doesn't fit the description. It's not them."

Stephanie: Like I said, even if it wasn't them, they never give a reason of why they think it's not Jeannette or Dannette. At this point, the family was pretty devastated. It was very frustrating and how the case was being dealt with and how they were being treated. It wasn't until 2004 when Shanta, who was only 12 when the girls went missing, she started a quest to get the case reopened by calling the local police department regularly and trying to get them involved. She tells the Huffington Post that she's been trying for years to get the police involved again, and they would tell her that there's nothing they could do. They were also told that at the time of the girl's disappearance, someone had told the police that the girls were removed from their home and placed in foster care. Those allegations were quickly turned away and turned out to be false because yes, there was somebody in the family that was put in foster care, but it wasn't the twins. They just got their informations mixed up, I guess. There was just a lot of different information going on and the case not being handled well. Shanta never gave up. On June 5th, 2013, a Richmond County Sheriff by the name of Richard Roundtree, who was elected in 2012, announced he would reopen the case. He said, "We think a terrible injustice has been done for the last 20 years, and for some unknown reason, the girls were removed from the system and there's also no report saying why they were removed." Roundtree wasn't really familiar with the case, so he started interviewing by then the retired lead detective and got the girl's DNA, as well as their mothers into the database. The searches came back empty. No matches in the system. What I can't get past is why would they even be removed from the Missing Children's files? I don't understand how with one random phone call, somebody could be like, "Oh, they have been found., Let's remove them from the system." Nobody ever thought anything of it?

AJ: I never heard of that happening before. How does that happen?

Stephanie: Roundtree, the guy who reopened case, he said he searched and searched and he still couldn't find out who made that call. I don't know actually what it was, but for them not to find any information on who made that call, it seems really odd to me.

AJ: Also somebody would've had to go in and remove them from the database. That's suspicious in and of itself. It doesn't just happen unless it was like a technical glitch or something, but somebody would've had to remove them from the system, from the list of missing children. That to me is weird. This has cover up all over it. Somebody who would have access to that system would have to go in and remove them.

Stephanie: Or if somebody didn't put them in the system at all and said they did. I just don't know. Like AJ said, I've never heard of anything ever happening like that, not being able to find out who made that call. It just seems weird to me. As you can tell me how this case is going there's just a lot of mistakes and injustice going on to this family who just want desperately to find their missing family members. Since the family had no money to advocate for the missing girls, they sought out people like John Walsh, Oprah, to see if they could just get the word out there and talk about their case. Unfortunately for whatever reason, no one wanted to help them and they couldn't pay a private detective to help them with the case. They basically had to do everything on their own and they're just at their wits end and trying to figure out what they could do to just get more information out there about the girls and try to get the case solved. They were doing it for years, many years by themselves, and they were starting to get overwhelmed and stressed, but they knew they had to continue on and find the girls or know what happened to them. Luckily, someone did hear about their story and wanted to help, and that help came from two women who ran a podcast called The Fall Line, where they focused on cold cases in marginalized communities in the southeastern United States. They premiered their season with the Millbrook twins in 2017, and then a guy by the name of Michael Whalen consulted with the host of the Fall Line Podcast and he featured the case on his podcast called Unresolved in 2018. With those two podcasts, the case started to get noticed and a big billboard went up to help publicize an award of $8,000 that was raised and was for anyone who had any information or that could help lead the case in a new direction. They finally were starting to get the word out there and get more people involved in their case and looking into the case. One of the articles that I was reading came from the oxygen.com. The article I was reading had come out in November of 2019. This article was really interesting to read. They interviewed a guy who was incarcerated by the name of Ernest Vaughn and he suggested that John Millbrook, the twin's father, knows what happened to the girls and knows that the girls are dead. This is what he is telling the oxygen.com journalist. He goes on to say that he knows what happened to the girls because he was there that night when they disappeared. He said, John, their father never really wanted anything to do with the girls and didn't want the mother or the sister looking for them either. Vaughn goes on to say that John knows his daughters are dead and that he went crazy because of it. Vaughn has connections with John because John spent time in prison for helping dispose of a body in 1996, after the victim was killed by Vaughn. According to court documents, John was sentenced to four years in prison for concealing a death. There is no other information stating how long he actually spent in jail. Vaughn knows John and hung out with John around the time that the girls disappeared. Vaughn says that he spent time at John's house where he says this was a place where people used drugs and a lot of drug dealing was going on. Vaughn continues to tell oxygen.com that he went there when he was just 12 years old and he had witnessed what he says led to the murders of the twins. He gave account of what happened, to a former prosecutor, Laura Coates, and former homicide Detective Paige Reynolds, who gave the case a fresh look. He claims that one of the twins got drunk while the two were at their dad's home, and that some of the men that were at the home, Vaughn says there was between eight to nine men at the home, at the time, and that they took advantage of her and the other twin didn't know what to do. No one did anything in the apartment while the these guys were taken advantage of one of the twins. He doesn't say which twin got drunk and they were taken advantage of, but it doesn't sound like a very good situation either way. He then continues to say that he witnessed that one of the men hit the twin that was just sitting there in the back of the head she fell back and hit her head on the table and apparently the other twin was screaming and the other people were told just to leave. Vaughn thinks that the girls were killed and dumped nearby. He never did say whether Millbrook killed the twins or was involved in dumping of the body, but he feels that this is what drove him to go crazy. Now, this is all just what this Vaughn guy was telling the interviewers. Now, these claims are all hearsay, but Millbrook is currently still alive, but is in a nursing home with dementia. According to Shanta, the prosecutors were not able to confirm or deny Vaughn's claims. Richmond County Sheriff's Department investigators spoke with Vaughn in prison, told him of the details and oxygen.com also told him about the details of what Vaughn was saying, and they said even though some of the details were corroborated, they did not find his accounts of what happened to the girls credible, and there was no further investigation after that. The case remains unsolved to this day and there has been no new information.

AJ: Do they know for sure that this Vaughn guy knew the twin's father? You said their father was incarcerated for concealing a body that Vaughn had killed. We know that's true, right?

Stephanie: Yes. There was court documents proving that Millbrook was in prison for the concealing of a death. It never says how long he was in jail for.

AJ: They did know each other? We know that for sure?

Stephanie: They knew each other. We all hear stories of people make up stupid things, just to try to get themselves involved in the case somehow. Like I said, they did look into it, but they didn't see that his story was credible towards what happened to the girls. I'm assuming they never did go interview Millbrook because he has dementia, so he probably wouldn't remember what happened or even who the girls are. It's hard to say. I guess they never did question any of the other witnesses. Vaughn never told them who any of the other people that were there were. He was only 12 at the time when the girls went missing in 1990 and he never told anybody else who the witnesses were, who the other men were. Maybe he didn't know who they were.

AJ: Also who else knows Vaughn? He could have held something against Millbrook for something unrelated and just thought, this is a way to get back at him, or blame this whole thing on him. If they have a history together, maybe he just wanted to get back at him somehow and blame him for this.

Stephanie: Also when the girls did go missing, the younger sister said that the father didn't want anything to do with the investigation, didn't want anything to do with them missing. It's suspicious in that way. Why doesn't he want to be involved? Now with this story, you think maybe he did do something, know something and just didn't want anything to do with it. Now you can't ask him because he has dementia and he probably wouldn't remember anyways.

AJ: It's crazy. I mean, there's no evidence either way to say if his story is credible or not, so I guess we'll never really know. It's very weird. If that is true, then obviously it's sad and crazy if their own father could do something like that or be involved. It is sketchy that he wouldn't want anything to do with the investigation. That in and of itself is a red flag right off the bat.

Stephanie: They didn't question him at the beginning, when they went missing. They never really did question John, about if he knew where the twins were. I never found any information that they even went to his house or went looking for him. The police didn't really do their job properly. If what Vaughn is saying, they did drugs at his house and were doing drug dealing, if they would've went to his house to interview him about his daughters being missing, they would've probably seen evidence of that and then dig deep into more about his background and what he knew. They never did that. Now we will never know.

Katie: So I guess he wasn't actually estranged from his family then, right? Or is he still saying that he was? Maybe the girls would still hang out there sometimes, but their mother didn't know. Have you figured that situation out?

Stephanie: Yeah.

AJ: Yeah. Why would they be there if they're estranged from him? Unless he took them there against their will.

Stephanie: He might have done that. He wasn't in their lives. He never supported the mother financially and never really helped out with the kids or never gave the kids anything or never really spoke with them. I never really went into detail about what their actual relationship was, but just from that I'm going to assume that they were, like Katie said, maybe they were going there without the family knowing, or maybe he did take them without consent.

Katie: Did he have a white Van? You say at the beginning there was somebody in a white van following them. Did that ever go anywhere? Did they look into that?

Stephanie: No, the mother never really mentioned that because she just brushed it off as nothing.

AJ: Wouldn't they know that's his van? I mean, maybe not, I guess, if they're not in his life.

Katie: Yeah. If they don't know him, they might not.

AJ: Yeah.

Stephanie: When the girls came home and they mentioned the white van, the mother looked out the window and didn't see any white van in the premises or anything out of the ordinary.

AJ: Why would they, I mean, I feel like that has to be true. Why would they say that if it wasn't? I feel like you wouldn't just say that unless it was true.

Stephanie: On the way home they kept stopping at different places to ask if they could walk them home. Obviously they were nervous about something. They wouldn't just...

AJ: Why wouldn't they just say this is why someone needs to walk us home because someone was following them?

Katie: They were 15 and they were like, "There's somebody following us in a van, we don't want to walk home by ourselves. You'd think that their family's not going to be like, "Too bad."

AJ: " Don't worry about it. Just go get out of here."

Katie: Yeah and like, "Oh, I don't know why they were scared? Someone's following them. That's why.

AJ: Yeah. Your 15 year old is saying someone's following them in a white van, wouldn't anybody be like, "Okay, we're going to go with you."

Stephanie: Maybe they didn't mention the van. Maybe they just asked for someone to walk with them and not explaining why.

AJ: I feel like, I don't know, shouldn't you also get the hint? If they're asking people to walk them and there's obviously a reason why. I feel like you would just clue in and say, "Okay." There's a reason why." Maybe they don't have to tell you out front, but clearly they're uncomfortable going alone. Why wouldn't they just go with them?

Stephanie: The store clerk said when they came into the convenience store, they seemed happy. They were laughing and they seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. They seemed like normal teenage girls buying candy and stuff like that. Then as soon as they walked out of that convenience store, literally the trail goes cold and nobody has found them since. Somebody was waiting for them or knew where they were going. That's just my opinion, I don't really know.

AJ: As the years go on, you know, more people die, possible witnesses die, and so it's less and less likely that's something, or people forget or you know.

Stephanie: But what I'm also really shocked about is that John Walsh or Oprah or people like that didn't want anything to do with the case. Those are the type of people you think would be all over it.

AJ: Oh, that is weird.

Stephanie: A lot of it goes back to race and where they lived? A lot of it goes back to that.

AJ: But I don't think, but that wouldn't be a reason for Oprah.

Stephanie: No.

AJ: You know, she would probably want to, it was black twins who were missing, she'd be wanting to showcase them.

Stephanie: Yeah. But maybe there wasn't a lot of information out there.

Katie: Probably there just wasn't a lot of information, but probably a lot of people reach out to those people every time someone goes missing. Right? They're probably just bombarded with requests and they unfortunately have to pick which ones they're going to talk about. This one just fell through every avenue they went through.

AJ: Yeah. One show can only cover so many cases or so many things. Right?

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

AJ: Oprah is the number one person people, especially at that time in the nineties, she would be the one people would reach out to more than anyone.

Stephanie: Like I said, the only reason why I heard about this case was through a podcast.

AJ: Podcasts are the new version of the Oprah Show or America's Most Wanted. Now it's a whole new medium for cases to get recognition. Also it would be so hard for the family, so frustrating too because you see certain cases that become sensations and you hear about them all the time, and then there's other cases that go virtually unheard of. It's so wild to me when you find a case that is so crazy and so mysterious and no one's heard of it. You'd think those would be the cases, especially this one. It has that, you know, that element of these people in jail are coming out with these stories and they vanish without a trace. That's the stuff that people usually are all over. It's just crazy how some get traction and others don't. Like you said, maybe it was because of their race, you know, if they're black, maybe that's just a reason why they just don't get enough attention, which is so sad. It's very possible. A case like Gabby Petito, you know, she's a white woman. So much about that case and then some, like you knew everything you wanted to know about that case at some point. Doesn't it seem like it's always those cases too? It's always the cases that you don't hear about or not always, but many times the cases that you don't hear about, they are from a minority group or you know, they were poor or impoverished.

Katie: Yeah, it definitely is interesting. They get swept under the rug or just because of the history, the community doesn't feel like they can reach out to anybody, so it doesn't get out there because you know, they're just not getting it out there themselves because of those reasons. So, yeah.

AJ: What you were telling reminds me of that case we did from season one, Asha Degree, the little girl who went missing without a trace. It's still unsolved. That's a case that, to me, is still one of the most bizarre cases I've ever heard about and it's not a really well known one unless you're super into true crime and then you know a lot more cases than the average person. I feel like a normal person wouldn't just know that case even though it's so bizarre. It's just crazy. Of course that was another case of Asha Degree. She was a little black girl and then of course you never hear about it.

Stephanie: I was just going to say that. A little black girl that went missing.

AJ: Yeah. Under bizarre circumstances that you'd never really hear in any other case. That was the one where she just walked out in the middle of the night, a four year old. It's still so wild. It's just interesting when you think about which cases get media attention and which ones don't.

So that does it for this episode of Crime Family. Thank you so much for listening. Just remember, if you like the show and you want some more exclusive content, be sure to join us on Patreon. We'll put this link in the show notes or our patreon.com/crime family podcast. You can also check out our merch store on Red Bubble. We'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. As always, you can follow us on all the social medias. crimefamilypodcast on Instagram or crimefamilypod1 on Twitter, and our Facebook is Crime Family Podcast as well. Check out our website, crimefamilypodcast.ca and be sure to send us case suggestions. We love hearing suggestions and we're always open to, you know, there's so many cases out there, ones we've probably never heard of. If there's a really interesting case that we haven't covered and you want us to take a look at it and cover it on the show, be sure to let us know. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back next week with another episode. Thanks so much and take care. Bye.

Stephanie: Bye.

Katie: Bye.