Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Phylicia Simone Barnes Part 1

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

When 16-year-old Phylicia Simone Barnes goes missing while visiting her half-sister in Baltimore, the whole community comes together to search. But what started as a missing persons investigation that consumed the city of Baltimore quickly turns into something far more sinister.  Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-phylicia-simone-barnes-part-1/

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. Oh, it feels so good to say that again. It feels so good to have someone back on these episodes. I can't imagine trying to tell this story by myself because it is wild. It's a story about a bright, beautiful teenage girl who had so much to look forward to when her life was taken. And honestly, this is one of those cases where you read an article on it

and then the next thing you know you're like on page 20 of the 7th web sluice thread and you haven't left your house in like a week. Because just when you think that you've come to the end, you realize it's only the beginning. This is the story of Felicia Simone Barnes. MUSIC MUSIC It's Tuesday night, sometime between 8 and 9 o'clock on December 28, 2010.

And in Monroe, North Carolina, a woman named Janice is feeling uneasy, but she can't quite put her finger on why. So she decides she wants a bit of cheering up, someone to snap her out of this mood and she knows just the person to call. Her 16-year-old daughter Felicia Simone Barnes, who's visiting her half-siblings in Baltimore during her high school winter break. So Janice dials, but it goes straight to voicemail. Five minutes later, she tries again, but the same thing happens.

Yeah, those mom's spidey senses are right on. A 16-year-old with her phone off is definitely reason enough to feel a little bit uneasy. Yeah, and right, she was feeling that before she even called and this is almost confirming for her that something is weird. So to see what's going on, Janice calls Felicia's older sister Dina. Dina is actually the one who Felicia is staying with during the trip. But when Dina answers, the last thing Janice feels is relief because she tells her Felicia is missing.

No one has seen her for hours, not since like the early afternoon. Wait, hours? How is Janice just now learning about this? Okay, I have no idea. Understandably, she's floored by this realization. I mean, this is totally out of character for Felicia. She's not the type to just take off without telling someone. She's responsible, she's this honorable student even, who is set to graduate this coming June,

which is actually a year early because she skipped a grade. Yeah, this is not the girl who's just like taking off on a whim. In fact, that track record of good behavior that even like had her mom allow her to go to Baltimore in the first place. And just for some context here, Britt, so Janice doesn't actually know Dina all that well. Even though she was technically her stepdaughter at one point, Janice had actually split with Dina's dad Russell a long time ago,

like when Felicia was just a baby. So Janice hasn't had contact with Dina or Russell's two other kids, Kelly and Brian in ages. And growing up, Felicia didn't even see Russell much. She had only met his other children like one time when she was younger. But in the spring of 2009, which would have been the year before all this is happening, Janice encouraged her to reach out to her half sibling on Facebook.

So since then, and with Janice's blessing, Felicia had gotten really close to all of them, especially 27 year old Dina. But, you know, in this moment, now that she can't get ahold of her, now that she's being told she's missing, Janice wishes she had never pushed for that reunion. Has Dina or anyone else filed a missing persons report? Yeah, so this is the wild part.

Dina has already raised alarm bells and contacted a bunch of people, like her dad, her siblings, her uncle, her ex-boyfriend, and the police, all before she ever thought to call Janice. So anyways, like any worried mom, Janice wants to know exactly what happened that day. And while Dina doesn't know every little detail, here is what she's able to piece together for Janice. Basically, Felicia sometimes went to work with Dina or Kelly

while she was staying with them. But this morning, she decided to stay behind at Dina's apartment because she had stayed up late the night before and she was just tired. At some point, Dina's ex-boyfriend, Michael Johnson, comes over to the apartment. See, they recently broke up, so he had actually been around that day moving his stuff out of the apartment that they had been sharing. While he is there, Felicia had mentioned going and getting something to eat

at this like shopping plaza across the street from the apartment complex, but she ended up falling asleep on the couch. And the last time he saw her, which he says would have been around 1.30, that's where she was. She seemed fine, nothing out of the ordinary. And Dina knows all this because she's already talked to Michael about this, right? Right. Dina, again, had already talked to everyone in their social circle

as well to put this timeline together, which is why Michael's story is raising massive red flags because there's no way Felicia would have just left the apartment on her own. She doesn't know Baltimore well and she doesn't venture out into the city alone. She only has ever gone out with Dina or Kelly. And even if for some reason she did decide to go somewhere, like again, she would have told someone, but she's never even done that before.

So Dina, again, she's telling this to Janice, but she had already told all of this to police. And Janice is surprised to hear that apparently the police weren't too concerned. When teens go missing, it's almost always assumed it's because they've run away. And we know that it can be heartbreakingly difficult to get law enforcement to take these disappearances seriously, especially if the victim's a person of color. Right.

And has Felicia ever run away before? No. Like I said, she is this good, responsible kid with, I'm not kidding you, no troubled history. She's a star student, college is right around the corner. She's already been offered scholarships to multiple schools. Like she is not even fighting with her family. In fact, it's the opposite.

She had been so excited to visit Baltimore for months before the trip. Again, Janice was supportive of it. So Janice goes to try and speak to police herself to try and make them understand how dire this situation is. She told online radio show P's in their pods that she gets on the phone with officers that night and makes it clear that Felicia has no reason to run away. Plus there were already some major clues that something is wrong

because even though Felicia is gone, her shoes are still at Dina's apartment. Okay, but did she have other pairs of shoes with her or just the one? So there was another pair of like footwear that was missing, but it's basically they were Felicia's brand new white Ugg slipper boots, which Dina had warned her not to wear outside or they were going to get like ruined. Here's the other thing. So those slipper boots are missing.

That's not all. Felicia's navy blue hooded P coat is gone as well, along with a new turquoise thermal shirt and jeans. Her brown purse is also gone and her phone is also gone, which has been turned off for hours at this point. So the missing white Uggs is suspicious, but she took her coat. Is there a chance that she actually wanted to leave? I know it doesn't sound like she'd be the type of kid to just run away,

but there might be something going on that Janice doesn't know about. Well, here's the issue with that though. If she really was planning on running away, you'd think that she would have taken money with her, but she actually left behind the $150 that she had brought with her, which she put behind Dina's dresser for safekeeping. So to your point, something's going on. She needs to get out,

even if she just needs to get away for a couple of hours and she's going to go to that shopping plaza to eat, like she said. She still needs money. You need your money to do that. Either way, despite the fact that this is all suspicious to Janice and the people who know Felicia, when police take the initial missing persons report that night, they do still classify Felicia as a runaway.

Now, in the meantime, Russell, who, if you remember, is Janice's ex and Dina Kelley and Brian's dad, Russell arrives at Dina's apartment. And according to an interview that he did with Nancy Grace for CNN, he warns Dina, Michael, and a cousin of Michael's, who had been staying with them, that they are all suspects in his younger daughter's mysterious disappearance.

He basically says everyone is a suspect and police will need to know who Felicia had been around. You know, whenever the police actually decide to take her disappearance seriously. Well, police do assign a missing persons detective to Felicia's case on the 29th, but no one is taking it more seriously than her family. Russell tells Dina to make a list, basically, of anyone who's been in the apartment since she and Michael moved in, which was earlier that year in, like, April.

Oh, so he's not playing around. Oh, no, this dude is, like, doing his own crime-junkie investigation. After she makes that list, Russell's brother takes it and he starts questioning some of these people, like, unofficially, who have been there recently, which is actually quite a few people, many of whom are guys, including Michael's cousin, Kevin, who lives in the apartment, too, and two of Michael's younger brothers.

So how many people live in the apartment? Officially, there's Dina, Kevin, and Michael. But, like I said, Michael was in the process of moving out, and their friend group kind of, like, comes and goes a lot, too, and that includes, like, Dina and Felicia's sister Kelly, Michael's relatives, there's a few other unnamed friends. And, surprise, surprise, guess who hates this? Uh, mom? Yeah.

When she arrives in Baltimore and gets a look at this list, she hits the roof, because this is the first time she's learning of teenage boys and grown-up men staying at Dina's while Felicia is there, and this was not part of the deal when she talked to Dina and said she could come. Uh, yeah, I don't blame her. Even if my kids are staying with family, I want to know who they're with, who's coming and going,

everything, all of that. Right. Well, there's someone else who's furious, too, although maybe not as surprised as Janice was, and that's Felicia's older sister Chantel. Chantel is Janice's daughter from a previous relationship, like, before she even ever met Russell. You see, Chantel told our reporter, Nina, that she had already been worrying about what sort of influence Dina

was having on her sister. Chantel and Felicia are close, and whenever they spoke while Felicia was in Baltimore, Chantel would hear all this noise in the background, like loud music, different voices, almost like this was like a constant party going on, and she was concerned because, I mean, that's not the sort of environment that Felicia was used to,

but she had never discussed her concerns with Janice because her and Janice had a tumultuous relationship, maybe it's the way to put it. And in fact, a big reason that Janice even encouraged Felicia to reach out to her Baltimore siblings in the first place is because she thought that they'd be a better role model for her than Chantel. But in fighting or not,

the whole family comes together to try and find Felicia. Chantel makes her way to Baltimore a few days after Felicia goes missing, but when she arrives at Dina's place, the vibe is totally different than what she was expecting. When she walks in the apartment, she sees someone had cooked, people are sitting around, and she says the atmosphere is more like a gathering

after a funeral than a search party. So I'm sensing like no sense of urgency or like anything like that. Which, you know, you're sad either way, someone's missing, someone's dead or whatever, but to your point, it's not like, what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? What's the plan? No action, yeah.

Now, in fairness, though, I mean, the Barnes family had already been dealing with this for a couple of days. So maybe they're worn out, maybe they have their plan. I don't know. And I'm not 100% sure who is where when Chantel gets there, but that funeral feeling is just so ominous that she can't get it out of her head as she and her family hit the streets to question strangers

and hand out flyers. And as they're out there doing that, they hear rumor after rumor after rumor. Felicia was spotted at the train station or in the subway or a vacant house, even a city shelter. And while some of these are completely outrageous, the shelter story actually seems like it might be credible at first.

One news agency speaks with a staff member who quote unquote confirms that Felicia was there. But then another news agency says it turns out to be a case of mistaken identity. It doesn't sound like any of these stories are actually credible. Well, no, it doesn't. In fact, here's the thing when it comes out this like mistaken identity thing happened at the shelter to Janice's side of the family. They think it's more than just a mistake.

They actually start to wonder if someone is intentionally leading them astray, especially when police bring out blood hounds to the apartment complex to trace Felicia's scent. According to an interview Brian did. Remember Brian is one of Russell's kids. He did an interview with David Adams who writes a Baltimore based blog called The People's Champion. And basically what he said is that the police dogs track Felicia's scent

from the apartment to the parking lot of the apartment where then they lose the scent. So like she got in a car or something. Maybe. But the thing that's super interesting because again, that doesn't tell us much. What's interesting is exactly where in the parking lot her scent drops off. That's what's suspicious because Felicia's scent stopped one space away from where Michael was parked. And if you remember correctly, he was the last person to have seen her.

Right. And as the days slowly tick by Felicia's family starts to get more and more skeptical of him and his story because the story keeps changing. Although not everything changes. I mean, the meat of it stays the same, but there are little inconsistencies here and there that raise some eyebrows. And those inconsistencies are magnified when Chantel drops a bombshell that makes everyone look square at Michael.

She tells police that when she and Felicia spoke on the phone that past Monday, Felicia told her that Michael was making her feel really uncomfortable. Uncomfortable how? What was he doing? Well, the thing is, it's not true. Wait, what's not true? So they did talk on the phone, Chantel and Felicia. But Chantel says that Felicia never actually said that Michael made her uncomfortable.

She said that she told this story and like brought this up because she was desperate for police to launch a real investigation. And she felt like Michael knew way more than he was sharing. So she was trying to like push police in his direction. Lying to the police isn't a great look, but I mean desperate times, I guess. I know. Like again, if you really feel something in your gut and like they're not listening to you, I honestly understand what she did.

But then sometimes when you walk that back, how much harm is being done? Right. Is it one step forward and two steps back? Yeah. In this case, though, it seems like it actually did work because on New Year's Eve, now this is four days after Felicia vanished, detectives interview Michael. They asked him to walk them through his movement that Tuesday, the day that she went missing and the events surrounding her disappearance just in general.

Now, of course, he says that, you know, I have no idea where Felicia could be. He lays out the same timeline that he's been giving her family, which police weigh against all of the other info that they've pulled together from people like Dina and Kelly. But the issue here is again, them comparing all these stories isn't easy because I'm not kidding you, I could do an entire episode just dissecting everyone's timeline discrepancies and I'm not even exaggerating. But basically from Michael and other people and various people's phone records,

here is the timeline that police put together of Felicia's last movements. So that Tuesday, Dina leaves for work around 8.45 in the morning. And the only people in the apartment at the time were Felicia and Michael's brother. So Michael's 16 year old brother, his name's Delaney and he had slept over the night before him and Felicia had like stayed up all night. So again, that's why Felicia had said she was tired, not going to go to work with her sister. And I don't know if Delaney is sleeping or whatever, but when Dina leaves, Felicia is still asleep.

We know that. Well, around 9 or 10 in the morning, Michael picked up Delaney from the apartment and took him to their grandmothers and then he goes back to the apartment alone. Now, when he got there, Felicia was getting out of the shower or like getting ready to start the day. And for the next couple of hours, he says he's doing laundry. He's packing his stuff because again, he's moving out. At 11.08, Felicia texted Kelly saying that she wanted to get her hair done and ask her to come over once Kelly was done with work.

One minute later, Felicia and Dina speak on the phone and over the course of that conversation, she tells Dina that Michael's there. He's doing laundry, whatever. Now, Dina and Felicia keep texting throughout the rest of the morning about Felicia's hair, other random stuff. And the last text was sent at 12.23 p.m. And then at 12.30, Felicia posted something on Facebook about being hungry. And around that time, Dina tried to get in touch with Michael, but his phone is turned off.

Was that unusual for him? I mean, I feel like it's kind of unusual if anyone's phone is off like in the middle of the day. Yeah, but it doesn't seem like it was weird enough to raise any alarm bells. Like she's not like running home or whatever. Anyway, at 12.35, Kelly texted Felicia saying that she's getting off work early so she's going to swing by between like 1 and 1.30. But Felicia never responded to that message from Kelly. Now, at 1.04, Michael texted Dina and said that his phone had died.

So he's explaining maybe why he didn't get her text or call or whatever. And that's when he tells her that Felicia had fallen asleep on the couch, which would explain why she wasn't responding to Kelly's texts. And Kelly keeps trying to contact Felicia. But as she keeps calling or texting or whatever, now Felicia's phone seems to be turned off. So since she can't get ahold of her, Kelly just decides to go straight home after work. But it bothered her enough that just after 3pm, she reached out to Dina to see if Felicia was with her. Dina's like, no. And then she tells Kelly what Michael said about her falling asleep.

So again, she's like, OK, that's what happened. That's why she ghosted me, whatever. Right. And they knew she'd stayed up the night before. So an app would make sense. Exactly. No major alarm bells. According to Justin Fenton's reporting for the Baltimore Sun, Michael called Dina around 3.30pm. He said that he had already left the apartment and he didn't feel like going to work that day. So he was going to call in sick. He said, you know, I'll just lock up the apartment when I leave.

But at some point that afternoon, Delain, remember his brother, walked back to the apartment from his grandmothers. And he says that when he arrived, the door was unlocked and there was this loud music playing and the apartment was completely empty. Now, this was weird to me, but he didn't think anything of it because he said this is something that their whole friend group would do to ward off intruders if someone was going to leave the door unlocked. They want to make it sound like people are still right. At around 4.50pm, Michael goes back to the apartment. His little brother is still there, but Felicia is not there.

Then we know Michael texted Dina at 5.10 to let her know that quote, sis is up and active, end quote. And he said that he figured Felicia had gone somewhere. So it's not that he's saying he saw her. He's like, oh, she's not sleeping anymore. Right. Just like, hey, she's not here. She must be gone. She's up and active.

So Michael left after packing some more stuff up, but Delain stayed and he was there when Dina got home from work at around 6pm. He says, you know, I have no idea where Felicia went. I haven't seen her since I left this morning. So then Dina called Kelly because she's kind of getting worried. Like, okay, you know, I haven't heard from her. She hasn't shown up. And Kelly is like letting her know. No, that's why I called you.

I haven't seen her. And then Dina starts calling everyone just to try and trace Felicia's movements. And when she really can't trace where she is beyond her like taking a nap in the apartment and then again, going out into a city she doesn't know, she starts worrying. And that's when she calls police. Yeah, that timeline is a lot to follow. I know. So basically to summarize all they can piece together is that Michael is the last person to see her at 1.30pm sleeping on the couch. But there's some weird stuff around Michael.

So it's not just that he was the last person to see her. You see, when they look into phone records, they see that Michael and Felicia actually exchanged hundreds of messages over the last six months. Wait, what? What do the messages say? And how old is Michael? So he's 26, almost 27 at this point. And I don't have the messages. I don't know what they were about.

But Britt, I mean that much communication. Red flag. 16 year old girl, 26 year old man. Yeah. No, not okay. And then police have even more questions when they check all the security footage from the surrounding area. That shopping plaza across from the apartment that Michael mentioned she wanted to go to. Because they're again, trying to get any sighting of her, which way did she go?

Felicia is on none of it. And to top all of this off, there are questions about Michael's behavior as well. Because, okay, do you remember how I said he called in sick for work? Uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. Well, I guess he called in sick after his shift was already supposed to start. But, I mean, clearly he wasn't sick because he tells police that he spent the day running some errands after he left Dina's.

He like got food, visited family, went to Walmart, bought a storage bin for moving stuff. I mean, to be fair, he could have just called off work because he had a lot of stuff to do. I mean, people call off. Moving, right, it looks sketchy, but I mean, it's not the first time either of us have heard of someone calling in sick when they weren't actually sick, just because. No, I totally get that. I'm not saying, I think the weird part is that you're doing it after your shift starts. Right. It's not like the precursor like prepared for, I'll get ahead of this before I get ahead of me.

Right. It's almost like you got caught up in something. I think that's the assumption or the insinuation people make. That's what makes it feel different. Right. Right. The other thing that stands out too is when detectives hear that he buys that plastic tub in particular at Walmart, that's when their ears perk up because they had heard something interesting from Dina's name or this guy named Elvis. Elvis says that on Tuesday, he saw Michael struggling to move a large blue plastic storage bin up the stairs and out of the apartment building because their apartment was like on the basement floor.

Okay. He's like Michael had his shirt off. He's sweating. Elvis asked him if he needs some help, but Michael's like, no, no, no, he refused. Do they think Felicia was in the bin? I mean, it would explain why she was never seen anywhere leaving. I mean, do they have any evidence that that actually happened though? Because right now this is all just circumstantial without evidence that a body, I mean, she could still be out there.

I know it's unlikely, but she still could have left on her own. Well, any hope that she actually did leave on her own goes out the window Sunday, January 2nd, because that's when her flight home was supposed to be and she misses it. So after that, the Baltimore PD turns the case over to a homicide unit and overnight what began as this like lackluster investigation into a missing person turns into the most complex and extensive missing persons search. And again, it's a homicide unit now in the department's history because detectives are now telling reporters that they think Felicia has been abducted. They start rounding up people to interview and they're looking for anyone who had access to Dina's apartment since Felicia's arrival on December 18th. And when they get this list, they quickly narrow their focus in to 12 people. I'm sorry, did you say narrowed their focus? 12 people seems like a lot of people.

I know, but I mean, if you remember, Dina's friend group is large and there I told you people coming and going from her apartment all the time. It kind of gives you a sense of why Janice was so like upset. Now, police don't say who's included in that list, but presumably there's Dina, Michael, various relatives that are in the mix. And as police sees their electronics and get warrants to search their homes and cars, some of them, including Michael, lawyer up really fast. But that doesn't stop police and Felicia's family from learning more about the days leading up to her disappearance and what life was really like at the apartment. Chantel in particular questions Dina, who tells her and Janice that she did let Felicia have a few puffs of weed here and there. Yeah, I let her drink sometimes. Basically, she was like, you know, she's so shy, I wanted her to just loosen up a little bit.

And I'm sure that went over great with Janice. Janice was furious. She tells reporters that she never would have allowed her underage daughter to visit if she knew that that's what was going on there. And Janice's criticism of the family doesn't just stop at Dina. She says that Russell was always an absentee father that he never wanted Felicia in the first place. He was nowhere to be found when she was growing up. But now that she's missing, she's like, you know, now he's front and center. He's there for the news cameras.

So what are Dina and Russell's reactions to all this? Well, I'm not sure about Russell's response. But during an interview with News Channel 36, Dina admits that she was more permissive than Janice was. But she insists that she never let Felicia do anything that would put her in danger or make her vulnerable. And she says that while she and Michael did have people over, there was not this like revolving door of men in and out of her apartment like people are making it seem. And despite what she had apparently told Chantel and Janice, Dina tells the peas in their pods show that there was no drug use happening under her roof. She says she even asked for a drug test to prove it. And she's still waiting on the results.

But she says she's sure that she passed. And I this whole part was a little confusing to me. Like, I don't know if she asked police to give her the test, if she wanted peas in the pods to give it like, right, right. And again, even if her test comes back clean, I don't know what that says about Felicia. But then you have the flip side of this. So Michael, meanwhile, is telling police that the one reason Felicia liked visiting Baltimore so much was because it was a quote unquote free for all that Dina treated her more like an adult friend than a little sister. So overall, after they're getting everyone's like opinions, police basically compare Dina's place to a college dorm, friends in and out, sleeping over, drinking, smoking weed. But they also say that they don't think anything happening there was like over the top while excessive.

Right. Now, Tuesday, January 4th marks a week that Felicia has been gone and detectives finally search Dina's apartment. Meanwhile, acting on a tip posted in the comment section of a Baltimore Sun article, police launch a massive search of the city's Lincoln Park and more than 100 officers comb through the woods and streams with dogs and divers. Wait, what was the tip? Well, OK, so the tip, quote unquote, didn't actually turn out to be a tip at all. It turns out that the commenter said bodies often just turn up in Lincoln Park. Not that there was a body there or like anything even suspicious in the lake or park or whatever. And if anyone else is getting serial flashbacks right now, I am right there with you.

I miss you, Sarah. Anyway, so they do the search, they don't find anything, and the next day, the department sets up this 24 hour hotline for leads and the FBI joins in on the search, providing two helicopters that can detect heat signatures from decaying bodies. They start interviewing classmates at Felicia's High School in North Carolina. And over the next few weeks, police put unprecedented resources into this search. According to Baltimore Sun reporter Peter Herman, half of the department's homicide squad, that's like about 35 detectives are involved at some point. I know this is massive. And they even have this team of six investigators who have the highest arrest and conviction rates. All of them are assigned to work this case exclusively, which I have like hardly ever heard of.

Most departments are like juggling so much. They even at one point card in this busload of police academy cadets to help search. Multiple reward funds are started. Billboards, again, up along the highway. I mean, it sounds like they're trying to make up for lost time. Well, and you're right. But the thing is, nothing can get those first few days back, but at least now they're taking it seriously. And the community is actually showing up for Felicia in a major way as well.

People come from miles around to pray for her at vigils. They're canvassing neighborhoods and searching nearby dumpsters, and there is a ton of discussion about the case on message boards and blogs and social media. But even as the search heats up and local media covers it, there's really not much of a national spotlight. And if Felicia was taken out of the state, national coverage could be the key to bringing her home. So the Baltimore PD essentially begs the bigger outlets to report on the case. They say that Felicia is Baltimore's Natalie Holloway and that if she were white, she'd be getting way more airtime. And that statement seems to do the trick because before long, plenty of stations are covering her disappearance. That's so frustrating, though.

And I can't help but think like if she were white, the police investigation may have gotten started sooner because, yes, great. Now they're pouring all their resources in, but we know how critical those first 24 to 48 hours are. You have to wonder if things would have been different if they got started sooner. Right. I mean, the same criticism they're making of the media, you could make of law enforcement. Of them, yeah. Either way, though, again, they are where they are. They know they need the coverage and thankfully they start to get it and tips start coming in. Some pointing far away, other tips pointing very close to where it all started.

Like there's this one lead that brings investigators to an old well in a shed behind the home of one of Michael's relatives. So basically they decide to bring in cadaver dogs to search this area. And one of the dogs actually alerts there. But according to WSOC TV, police drain 20 feet of water from this well and they find nothing. What? Yeah, everyone is baffled. I mean, again, I know profits aren't perfect, but like they're perfect. And it's weird that like, again, they don't hit on animals.

They hit on human decomposition in this well. And I don't know, maybe this is off base, but like even to not find Felicia, but not find anybody. Like there's nothing. It's weird. And they still hit on it. Like the head of the homicide unit even says that Felicia's disappearance is unique. Even in a city where someone is reported missing every single day, this case does not fit them all. There's something about it.

Yeah. And where they're at then and there, they're kind of stuck. It's not until police get more cell data that they actually have something to go on. When police get that data back, they see that Felicia's phone was shut off at 103 p.m. that day and never came back on. While Michael's phone was off from 1135 a.m. to 104 p.m. Again, hers is turned off at 103. His is turned on at 104. After he turns his back on at 104, he was on it a lot.

Texting, calling people frequently throughout the whole day. Okay, but they already knew his phone had been off because Dina had tried to contact him and he had said it died. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, they're just getting like the proof of this, but that's not the only thing that's suspicious. So by 1.28 p.m., he had left Dina's place. His phone connected to cell towers in southwest Baltimore by homes of his relatives. Then later it connects near a 16,000 acre park west of Baltimore called Patapsco Valley State Park. Now the park is a few minutes from that Walmart that he already said that he went to, but police want to look closely at this park.

So a couple hundred officers and volunteers comb through ravines. They comb through the woods. They're especially interested in some abandoned buildings that are part of this old, like mill complex. And while they're searching, they find a body. Oh, but it's not Felicia. Instead, they find a white man who's partially decomposed and dressed in several layers of clothing near this like makeshift campsite. Now this guy had never been reported missing and an autopsy eventually determined that he died of exposure and natural causes. Now it's around this time that lead detective Daniel Nicholson IV tells reporter Peter Herman that police have run down every tip that they've gotten,

no matter how outlandish, up to 200 from the hotline alone. And he knows everyone is frustrated, but even the bad leads at this point have dried up and he's afraid that the story isn't going to have a happy ending. And unfortunately, he's right. Because on Wednesday morning, April 20th, work crews at the Conwingo Dam in the Susquehanna River see a nude body of a young woman floating amid piles of debris, branches and logs. Police are called to the scene and later that same day, it's determined to be Felicia. Oh my God, do they think she's been in the water the entire time? They don't know yet. And that part of the dam, the part where she's found, it's like 40, maybe 50 miles northeast of Baltimore.

And what's so strange is there are no cell phone pings in that area from anyone that they've been looking at. Yeah, and that's not even close to where she was last seen. Could she have gone into the water in Baltimore and then float it that way? I mean, they don't, okay, they just found her. They have no idea at this point. It was a hard time believing that she could have floated for, again, was at 50 miles and just not have been seen, especially after all this time. So when she's found, everyone's, everyone's shocked, everyone's confused. But that shock is nothing compared to the one investigators get when later that same day, they find another body.

It is a black man also nude about three miles downstream from Felicia. Of course, people start speculating that this guy has to be involved. Yeah. What are the odds of finding two bodies within a few hours and a few miles of each other? I mean, in the same river in general, let alone them being totally unrelated. Again, very out there, but it turns out to just be a wild coincidence because investigators don't find a shred of evidence connecting Felicia to this other man who they do eventually identify as a 53 year old named Daryl Harper from Virginia. And just a quick note on Daryl, because I always tend to like spiral on who these other people are. Daryl's wife hadn't seen him for like a month and a half since he left to go get stuff from their old apartment in Maryland.

And police learned that he had actually checked into a hospital on March 25th. He was requesting help with mental health issues, but he stayed like one night and he told a relative that he planned to take his own life. And he had tried to do that in the past, so I don't know if they ever officially ruled his death a suicide, but they certainly don't seem to think that he's a victim of foul play. Now, as for Felicia, the medical examiner estimates that she had been dead for three to four months by the time she was found. Now, there's no signs of trauma or injury to her body, but the Emmy determines that she was asphyxiated and the manner of death is ruled homicide. Now, since Felicia was found outside of Baltimore in a totally different county, the state police take control of the investigation. And as the mystery of Felicia's whereabouts come to an end, there's this other mystery that's just beginning. Who killed her and why? Her homegoing is held on May 7th.

She is surrounded by purple flowers, her favorite color, as friends and family share memories of the teen, memories of her belby personality, how motivated she was, her passion for theater, her dreams of working with children. She just had such a promising future ahead of her. And as her loved ones try to come to terms with this overwhelming loss, they hold on to the only thing that's left to hope for, and that's justice for Felicia. Because police had said that recovering her body would go a long way towards solving the case and holding someone accountable. But two months pass and there's no arrests. In late June, her Baltimore relatives hold this like rally at City Hall demanding answers because it feels like at that point they're thinking nothing's being done. But there is something happening in the background. And a few days later, when search warrant applications filed by the FBI become public, they find out that the agency has been conducting an investigation into child sexual abuse material and sexual exploitation of a minor in connection with Felicia's death.

Again, this story is just beginning and I'm going to tell you the rest of it on Wednesday. But if you want to listen right now, part two is already up in the fan club. If you're not a part of the fan club, you can sign up now at crimejunkiepodcast.com. But before you head there, stick around. It is still December, which means we've got a few more fans to shout out to celebrate five years of crime junkie. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll actually be back on Wednesday with part two of this episode.

But don't forget that if you want to listen right now, you can join our fan club and get that episode. You can find our fan club at crimejunkiepodcast.com. I would love to send some love to Jasmine E. from Spring, Texas. Marie from Copenhagen, Denmark. Madison from Toronto, Canada. Caroline and Chelsea from right here in Indianapolis. Emma N. from Oklahoma. And now it's my turn to say hi to Katrina in Latvia, Rebecca and nine-year-old Zeke from Orange County, California.

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