Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom? - Ep.5: Maria

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

When the Sheriff’s Office first processed the dead body found along Interstate-10, they identified her as Maria Martinez - not Renée Bergeron. This was not a simple clerical mistake. Turns out, Renée lived much of her life under the alter ego Maria. So who exactly is Maria? And why did Renée use her name? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know what's crazy? I actually did a spirit box session in a cemetery I asked what do you miss the most in the spirit said sex? Yeah, right. I'm Dalyne Spratt on urban legends with the Ghost Brothers the podcast We get into the nitty and gritty of paranormal ghosts and urban legends and we have a good time I hear voices and I'm running up this mountain at some point lost my pants like running up Okay, that's fair. Listen to urban legends with the Ghost Brothers, wherever you get your podcasts.

This podcast contains explicit language and graphic descriptions of violence. Please be advised. What's your name? I'm Alan. Man, sitting here with Sarah, we're working on that old code case from 93, the decadding and re-delation. Uh-huh.

And we're just going to see a few of you are available Monday morning to ride over for a few minutes, so kind of re-fuel the case. So I'll be heading and you'll be like, is it now clear? Must be. For ID and ARC media, I'm Sarah Kaelin, and this is why can't we talk about Amanda's mom? Previously, and why can't we talk about Amanda's mom? You know she had a black baby and sold it. No, I didn't know that. Yeah, she had a black baby and sold it.

When did that happen? That happened. I don't know. Maybe a year or two before she got took out. Let me ask you that, Sherry. You're looking at it. Does that necklace look familiar? You know, you said you would give Amanda,

because she has that necklace, and she says that you gave it to her. So just the weird things that they put. Like Renee Michelle Bros. and her own Umorero, wow, rebellious, and help in for Trouble, since she was 12. Didn't seem to consider the possible consequences of her lifestyle.

Her parents said last week, like, I'm sure my grandma didn't say that. It doesn't matter what you heard. The least was in her name that was her house. She wasn't living off of anybody. I think it's important to recognize that there were a lot of tales about her at the time that were not accurate.

There are three theories that circulate in the public whenever a case has gone cold. The first is it was human trafficking or, as it was known in the 80s, white slavery. The second, the victim was known in the 80s, white slavery. The second, the victim was killed for snitching. And the third, of course, the police actually did it. These lures, these theories, these urban legends, whatever you want to call them, they persist despite whatever the facts are, because they are both more interesting and more satisfying

explanations as to why there are no answers. Often the truth is far more boring. Cases go cold for all sorts of mundane reasons. So typically law enforcement takes these theories with a grain of salt. That is why I am taking a different approach to this case, a victim-oriented approach, as opposed to jumping straight into the theories. In order to understand this case, I am getting to really know René Bertrand, bit by bit,

and certainly more than the original investigators did. That is so important, knowing the person, who they are beyond their role as a murder victim. But remember, when Renee's body was first autopsyd and identified after her death, she was not ID'd as Renee, but rather as Maria Martinez. I don't know who Maria Martinez is. This woman whose fingerprints the police believed they had on file. The woman who most people in Mobile believed Renee to be. So even though it's Renee's murder I'm investigating, there's a distinct possibility that the killer had only ever known her as Maria. So who was she? What secrets was Renee hiding behind the facade of Maria?

So Laura Morris wrote out to me on June 25th, 2020. And she said, hey, do you remember me visiting you after this happened? I got someone you need to talk to. This is Amanda, Renee's daughter. We continue to keep in touch throughout the investigation. She calls me because she says she received a message from someone named Laura Morris. And she says, you know you may have a brother. And I said, I've heard that, but no confirmation.

And she said, well, he contacted me. If this rumor sounds familiar, that's because it is. David mentioned this in a phone call with Matt. I don't know, maybe a year or two before she got took out. Now Laura is telling Amanda similar theories as David's that Renee had another kid, one unknown to the Bergeron family. When I ask about whether the family had any inkling that Renee may have had another child, they rebuff the idea. They say they saw Renee enough during that time that they would have

noticed if she was pregnant. And not only that, Laura is doing so the day after our phone call with David. But Laura isn't just some random person. She's someone David has already mentioned to us. He said Laura was his girlfriend back in 1993. Could Laura and David still be in touch today? Amanda replies to Laura and tells her to reach out to me. So Laura does. We message back and forth, nothing too interesting, but we eventually hop on the phone.

And it is while talking that Laura says something that stops me in my tracks. I ask her to come in for a formal interview. I want her to tell this story again, this time on the record. She agrees. I also want her to come in, because I hope she can give insight into David.

After all, she seems to have known him for a long time. And given that she was around, Theodore Alabama at the time of Renee's murder, she also may provide more clues to help us figure out the full scope of what Renee was involved in. But first, I want her to tell Matt what she told me on the phone, what made me insist that she come in? But I am really curious and I've been really hung up on it I want you to tell detective Pete what you told me About seeing her in that last weekend the weekend that she was killed so if you want to start from the beginning on that and and Explain to him what you explain to me because you'll do a better job of explaining it

I'm being filmed over and I oh my god and explain to him what you explain to me because you'll do a better job of explaining it. I'm being filmed overnight, oh my God. Oh, yeah, but don't worry about it. Yeah. Just don't put me on TV when it's 100% in a promise. She came by David's house the night before. Did you catch that? Laura is saying that Renee was at David's house the night before she was killed.

In fact, that makes this now the last proof of life. The last time Renee Burjeron is seen alive, she is standing on David Young's porch. This is a striking revelation from Laura. David had told us that he had not seen Renee in months before she was killed. At one point, he said, maybe five days before. Now there's someone else saying that David had seen Renee hours before she was found dead. Matt doesn't dig into this right off the bat, though.

It's important to get this part exactly right. So he asks Laura to rewind and explain how she knows David. Give me a little backstory first between you and David. We were just friends. He picked me up all the time to ride around in his car with him. See all friends, no dating relationship, right? No, I would just friends. How long? Oh, sorry. Long time. How did you all get to introduce to one another? I mean, you know, we didn't have Facebook or anything back then, so I was pretty much friends with everybody in the neighborhood. I can probably sit here and just name on my half-

I can do you. So how old were you when you met David. Oh, I'm always 16, 17. I'm just curious. I'm just trying to piece together the timeline. It's not, yeah, it's not. That's interesting. When we interviewed him, David referred to Laura as an ex-girlfriend, but she is saying they were just friends. So, you're a David's house, one particular afternoon, and Renee shows up. Yeah, it was before she's murdered. It was the night before.

The night before, okay, so this has been Saturday night? That I couldn't tell you. So, yeah, this is a lot of Tuesday. Now remember, Renee is found on a Sunday, so the night before could be either a Friday or a Saturday. It's reasonable that Laura does not know for sure which day it is between the two, but again, she knows it is at night and shortly before Rene is found dead. All right, so she comes over to David's house, who she will. She was by her still. So she comes over just to hang out

or just randomly shows up or tell me? She did that a lot. I mean, I don't know what they had going on. I don't know, but I mean, I was there and the two started talking and I'm listening to the conversation. And she was beat up pretty bad. Her face covered in black eyes and stuff. And she said, the board friend had done it.

You do it. So, you know, like this whole, when he something else and thinking he was War friend had done it. So you know, like this, how old are we something to you when you think he was only a dead end? Laura says that Renee was beat up and that Renee said Maurice was responsible. How long was she at David's house? Probably less than an hour. Did she stop to just to tell David that she had gotten beat up or what was... Come on, sure. That's fine. I mean, I'm just trying to help her.

I wish I had said something back then when all this happened because I mean, I got on 52, my brain's not looking too good anymore. So she leaves there? Mm-hmm. And then you and David just continue hanging out that night or afternoon. Yeah, a little bit longer than anyone home. What time at night you were on? Sometimes twenty-ten and twelve. I want to say, yeah, it was late.

Laura later says she left when it was still dark, sometime between 10 and midnight. We continue to ask Laura about David. Where did he live? What cars did he drive? What was his relationship to various people? We just want to understand David better, and Laura seems to have been close to him back then. She hopefully can help us out.

And his relationship with Renee, how would you describe that? Close. Um, he probably spent as much time with her as he did with me. I mean, they used to ride around all the time and do things. Yeah, and I get kind of the same feeling, um feeling that I think he wanted more probably Maybe she wasn't interested or just didn't care for David liked him as a friend But did you get that same kind of inclination with David and her day or I can't really tell I mean that what whatever they were Whatever they had going on was over me.

I didn't know where everything David did. Did he ever hit on you or making any advances on you? Oh, me, no. I don't know. Sorry, for instance, I've got a nice surprise. So no sexual advancements or touch on her, the inappropriate. No, not on. Okay. And was the last time you smoked with David? advancements are touching the inappropriate. No.

And was the last time you smoked with David? It's been more than 10 years ago. Okay. So Laura is saying that she and David have not been in touch. Interesting. What did he say to you, I guess, in the months or years after Renee's death? Not a whole lot, but he was just really upset. But he took you out to meet her family? Yeah, well, I didn't really meet me. I rode with him, you know, God, this three-four-hour ride to New Orleans. So we rode out there the next day or day after or something.

Well, you know what, it had to be longer than that because he took me to the cemetery too. That was it for the funeral or was it after? It was after it was after the funeral so I mean we might have went twice. See there I go again. Oh no it's okay. It's a long time ago. It's a long time ago. It's a long time ago. It's a day it was. Yeah. So did you meet like her her mom and Amanda or you did? Okay, but so Amanda was still a kid. How was his interacting with the family? Like it was his mom. I was just real close. Look on I had the same you know he'd been that way quite a while

so I hope y'all are seriously like, like, any thing to do with this. I don't know. I don't know. I would bet my wife on any one. We're looking at anybody and everybody who knew her associated with her, spoke with her, talked on the phone with her, everybody. It's the reason we're talking to you. It's the reason we're talking to David and everybody. We're talking to you.

Have you found him? Mr. Young? Yeah. You dad? Yeah, I've spoken to him several times. Recently. Where is he? In Mobile.

How was I worried about him? Yeah. Either way. Yeah, right? What's that? I had nothing with Dad or what. It's funny to say that, because it's the same thing that Renee's mom said. We thought he was dead.

This Laura interview offers a few pieces of information that all together, I'm not sure how to make sense of. First and most importantly, she says that David might have been among the very last people to see Renee alive. This contradicts what David has told us, and it definitely further raises suspicion on him. Second, she says David and Renee were definitely close.

This is another thing that David has contested at times in our interviews with him. But third, Laura does not seem to think that David would do this. She's adamant on that point. That does give me pause. I can't help but wonder if she might be trying to get as much information out of us as we are trying to get out of her. Has she really not been in touch with David for years? Does she really not know much about David and Renee's relationship?

Or what happened to Renee? Is there more to the story of what was said on David's porch that night? I can't tell. Do you have a tattoo? This is a pair of normal poppies. It's on his lower back. It is not. It's in her thigh. I'm Dalyne Spratt.

And on urban legends with the Ghost Brothers, the podcast, we get into some real stories of the pair normal. And we have a pretty good time doing it. I hear voices and I'm running up this mountain. At some point lost my pants like running up a mountain because I heard voices. Listen to urban legends with the Ghost Brothers, wherever you get your podcast. It's clear that we need to continue to look at Renee's life in Mobile, at her life as Maria.

I know that in order to understand Renee's story better, I need to begin by learning about who she was as a kid, and at what point her life started to veer away from New Orleans. A little bit about Renee. This is Joyce, Renee's mom. Today, she is 81 years old and still lives in the house where she raised six kids. If any of the detectives had sat in this home, had chatted with Joyce and her husband Raymond at this kitchen table, seeing these walls covered in family photos, they might have had a very different view of the woman whose murder they were tasked with solving. The detectives might have seen a sweet, beloved daughter, funny, and fierce, and imaginative.

You know, she was a quiet girl, had a very good imagination. Pretend she was on the phone. She had an imagination boy for a name, Shawty. And she would get on her phone and bus Shawty's mother for interviewing and they were there. And it was funny to watch. Joyce remembers young Renee having an imaginary boyfriend, Shawty, who was so fully fleshed out in her mind that he had a fake mom who interfered in their phone calls. She was the life of the party, let's put it there, right? You couldn't be sad with her.

She just had the way she said what she wanted. Joyce calls Renee the life of the party, someone it was impossible to be sad around. But Joyce says that one day, when Renee was around 13 or 14 years old, it seemed like a switch was flipped within her. She went from training bar at the beginning of 7th grade and to a C, 36 C, at the end of the year. So I liked her doctor, said, she was developing too fast for her mind to keep up with.

All of a sudden, Renee no longer looked like a little kid, but instead, like a little adult. That happens in puberty, it's scary to any parent. But to Joyce, it seemed like her little girl was eager to begin acting like an adult, running around with older kids, and eventually going off to mobile Alabama full two hours away. At this point, Renee's life would get well complicated. She entered into a serious relationship with a 19-year-old named Clay. She left high school at 15 to move to mobile permanently.

She got pregnant and married, but soon after becoming a mom, tragedy struck. Clay died very suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Brunei, still a teenager, put her 11-month-old baby Amanda into her parents' care, and then she disappeared, just fell completely off her parents' radar. Thankfully, that only lasted for a year or two. But when she re-entered their lives, she seemed to be living two lives of her own, one in her childhood home in New Orleans, with her daughter Amanda, surrounded by their big extended family.

And another outside of it where she was now known as Maria Martinez. And that was a life that Joyce only knew about in Safari's Renee, let her know about it. She chose her life and it wasn't the way she was born. She was raised. I was a life she chose. You can pretty much control your kids until they are at a high school and when they go on their own what they do with their life you have no control over. Throughout Amanda's childhood Renee wrote letters home to her parents. Amanda still has them today.

I know Mandy doesn't understand too much. Parents, please tell her when she gets about 12 or when you feel she can understand that her mom loved her very much. And I only love it because I had no other choice. I gave her to you on my own will, so you could give her a real home, a real life. I want her to have all the love she can possibly get. Try and make her understand that I love her

and miss her very much. It is difficult to put together all the pieces of Renee's life. Obviously, I can't talk to Renee. I wish I could, but I can't. And this case is almost 30 years old. Many of the people who knew her in a best have died, including her dad Raymond and her best friend, Leanne. And those who do survive are remembering things that happened three, even four decades

ago. Even someone with a good memory struggles with something that long ago. Plus, the people I do have access to, like Renee's family, have their own questions Even someone with a good memory struggles with something that long ago. Plus, the people I do have access to, like Renee's family, have their own questions. Like, what work did Renee do exactly? And what was up with this whole Maria Martinez thing? So, I decided to go through Renee's personal belongings, her letters, her receipts, her meticulously kept address book, to try to get any Renee's personal belongings. Her letters, her receipts, her meticulously kept address book to try to get any clues that I can.

It's this address book that interests me most, at least at first. I figure if I can go through every name and number, I might find some people who knew her and maybe something about her life outside of New Orleans. So I search every number in the address book. There are hundreds of them. I call some. But more often than not, the calls don't go through. When I try googling the names in the address book or even searching them in specialized databases, I still struggle. So many entries are just first names,

making it hard to discern who exactly each person is and where they might be today. When I am able to find them so many are dead or in jail or don't remember anything. or in jail, or don't remember anything. Still, even with fragmented bits of information, here is what I am able to piece together. Renee appeared to travel all over the country, usually for a few weeks at a time. There are ticket stubs for planes and trains. There are phone numbers with area codes all over the country.

There are specific appointments in cities far flung written in her date book. She followed professional conventions like for pharmaceutical reps or trade unions, real estate agents, you know the type. She copied each day's income into her date book. Her address book logs contacts at different gentleman's clubs where she'd set herself up to dance for a few days. She also had contacts with madams, infamous madams, and would escort in some of these cities. She made her money on the road, working these conventions, and then she came back to her home to mobile.

But there are no clues in there as to where the name Maria Martinez came from. Joyce thinks that maybe it came from a guy named Tony Martinez. Is that Tony? Tony Martinez. Okay. And she met up with Tony. And where she stayed with Tony, I don't remember. Now, here's what I find out about Tony Martinez.

Not one single thing. I mean, it is a common name, Renee never mentions Tony in any of her letters or in her address book. The original detectives had heard a bit about him. Someone claims that maybe Renee shot him in Texas. There's no record of that. And at some point in the months before her death,

she came back from a trip to Houston with a broken arm, but detectives can't find any trace of Tony. I can't either. I speak with Amanda to see if she remembers anything. She doesn't. But she does have one photo of the two of them. This is my mom and one of her boyfriends at the time, Tony Martinez and New Orleans on Canal Street in May of 1985.

In it, Renee and Tony are facing the camera, clearly posing for a photo to remember the moment or the day. Sadly, we don't know what they were hoping to commemorate, but it's a nice picture. It's very, very 80s. Renee's hair is big. Her v-neck shirt is striped. Her jeans are two-toned, dark blue, and acid wash.

Tony is in a sleeveless button-up and gray jeans. He wears a chunky gold watch. They are holding hands and smiling. In the background is the New Orleans skyline of the 1980s. hands and smiling in the background as the New Orleans skyline of the 1980s. Still, Joyce remembers this guy named Tony Martinez, so to say David. They both say that Rene claimed that she went to Texas for a short period of time back when she disappeared for a year or two, but no one is really sure whether Tony was the cause or the effect of Renee going to Texas.

Apparently, Renee also told her mom and friends that she later traveled with Tony to Puerto Rico, and that it was there where she became Maria. Apparently, a family member of Tony's gave her a birth certificate, so Renee could get an ID under a fake name. I don't know why Renee wanted an alias. No one else I've spoken with seems to have an idea. Here is my best guess. After she starts going by Maria,

she starts traveling around the country, Chicago, Jackson, Daytona Beach, Baton Rouge, Houston, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, all over. At this time, she also starts engaging in illicit activity, mainly sex work. She also struggled with drug use. She talks about it in her letters to her parents. Mom and dad, I don't know where or what I would have done with my life. I know I waste a lot of time on drugs and running around with the wrong people. But one thing I can say is, thank you so much for loving Mandy and

the way you do. I never realized before how important motherhood is. I see that now. No one can love you like a mother can. I feel this in the bottom of my heart. I say all this because I really want my baby girl to know her mommy was not just a junkie. I have feelings and I'm a complete person. Now, I do not do drugs because I do not need them. I am not selfish like I was. I can see a lot of difference. Mom and dad, thanks. I love you all very much.

Love Renee. I hope to see you all soon. But Amanda suspects that her mom may have also been involved in drug trafficking. My mom's best friend, Leanne, her daughter, Carmen. We were only a couple months apart. And we went to me and Carmen were playing in the back in her bedroom. And then I walked up to the front room to get my, like, something to drink or ask my mom something. So when we came down the hall and they were all sitting there and it was me and my mom, me and husband,

Earl all sitting around on a kitchen table and they were sipping zip like bags of weed and they had a whole bunch of bags on the table and a whole bunch of stuff in the middle. I was kind of like a if you were playing cards, how the cards are in the middle and then everybody sitting around it it was like that and they were all just taking a little bit of whatever was in the middle and put it in the bag, and then putting the bags on the side. And you know, at eight, I didn't know what that was. So she just heard me, rushed me out, rushed me out

to go back to the room. And then when we got home later that night, I'm a grandma's house, I asked her what that was. And she said, oh, it's just some stuff I need to bring back with me. Maybe the Maria Alias allowed her to do this without sullying her real name. And of course, it protected her family

from any of the less savory elements with which she worked. I would say psychologically, this probably freed Renee up to take bigger risks than she might have otherwise. But it's hard to measure beyond that. We have heard so many rumors about Renée's life, snippets, maybe's. But the thing about rumors and the course of any investigation is, you have to at least make note of them, keep track of them. Because in almost every case, there is at least one seemingly useless rumor that turns

out to not only be true, but makes a real difference in our ability to solve the case. So just a recap. This is what I know about Renee's life, the life after she first left home at 14. She dates a guy in Mobile, Alabama, even runs off to be with him. She marries him, gives birth to Amanda, then when he dies, she struggles. She is still a teenager, so she asks her parents to care for Amanda. After that, she disappears for a year or two. Later, she will tell her mom that during that time she went to Texas and dated a guy named Tony, they go to Puerto Rico together.

In Puerto Rico, someone gives her their real birth certificate so that she can get an ID under a fake name, Maria Martinez. And once she returns from Puerto Rico, she begins traveling around the U.S., doing high-end escort work while living in Mobile, Alabama. And maybe she was involved in trafficking weed too. But there's still so much I don't know about Renee. I don't know how she met Tony. I don't know whether her time in Mobile

is connected with her time in Texas. I don't know how she got involved in escorting or trafficking in the first place. It just don't know. As we continue our investigation, Matt and I want to speak to a narcotics detective to see if we can get a better understanding of what the drug operations and mobile were like at the time. If Renee was involved in trafficking weed, maybe he would know something about the kind

of characters she might have interacted with. So Matt calls up a retired detective named Richard Caten. So myself and another lady are working on this cold case from 93 with a girl was found off the McBannnell service raid beheaded. Yes, we're talking. Cookie Estus was working.

They found the head the very next day. Yes. So what's the last use of the informant for me? Are you serious? Yeah. She called me two days before that, I found out I sent somebody out. No, she didn't give much, but I was in our college at the time. And she was just, I don't know, flaky. Yeah. Holy shit. I can't believe Renee actually was a snitch.

Now, obviously you cannot hear facial expressions or physical reactions. So I'll tell you that is Matt and I sit there on opposite sides of his desk, the phone between us. We look at each other in total shock, mouths, a gait. It never even occurred to us that this was a possibility. never even occurred to us that this was a possibility. Um, I knew she was a prostitute. Yep. And, um, she's more of a high-end prostitute, though. Yeah, she's probably, I want to say she's Puerto Rican, maybe.

Well, yeah, long story short, she'd stole a night of dignity and went by the name Maria Martina's, but that wasn't her real name. But I'm the name I do or by? Yes, yeah. Everybody knew her by that name. Yeah. Okay. Who was she supposed to be setting up? Do you remember?

Hell, that's 30 years ago. That was 89. 93. 93. 93. 93. 93. But probably I was

then a couple of 93 at the time. Yeah November 14th of 93 her body was discovered. Yeah all our mirrors I found a body they had to go back to the next stage because they forgot to head that was kind of embarrassing to the sheriff's office. Yeah but maybe three days to a week before that, she called me about some drug doers. But I don't know, I don't know, I'm really thinking about it.

Was it white guys, white guys? Don't have a clue, maybe she may not be black guys. Yeah, we know that one of the girls she was running around with a weak prod to her murder was a little short black female named P***. Don't ring a bell. OK. And there were some rumors circulating around that she

was working for an orphan as an informant. Well, we couldn't have a verify that or knew who she was working with or orphan as an informant, well we couldn't have a verify that or knew who she was working with or anything like that. She did a couple things for me that really wasn't that big, tiny stuff. She wanted to be like, I was a mouse. Yeah. And nothing big.

Now, Shannon Paul couldn't use round of that map. Yes. And he was known to chase a young woman. Mm-hmm. Younger women, yeah. Yeah. Shannon Poole was a deputy at the Mobile County Sheriff's Office. According to some detectives I spoke with,

he had a reputation for bending the rules. Well, I'm looking at a guy. We're looking real hard at this one particular guy who was Shannon Poole's brother at all. We've interviewed him a couple different times, but he's a shady son of a gun. God name David Young. And yes, at one point, Shannon was married

to David Young's sister. David Young was he clad Young, was he Clint? Can you add to the crack, Youngs? I don't know. I know he had two brothers who went to prison and died about 10 years ago or so. He grew up over off... He's in Cricht.

...incrite enough. Hayes and Ogden. Tell us, skinny guy. Tell us, skinny white guy. of Hayes and Ogden. Tell skinny guy. Tell skinny white guy. Some youngs, two different sets of youngs. How to describe the youngs? According to Katen, they are one of the most important drug trafficking families

in that region. So much so that there's an area on the map called Young's Neck that not even police dare to go into, even to this day. Katen tells me that the young family fed their cows weed. And when the feds busted the family in the early Ots, one of several major raids on the youngs over the years, they found a field full of stoned cows. Many family members are now behind bars or dead, but like the mythical Hydra, it seems that new operations eventually spring forth after each one is struck down. that lived up in the central nail. Client young, I think they had a Sunday, David young,

or cousin, they were in the drugs and everything. And you can't split right from where Marie, whatever name, real name is, got killed. You go straight down that dirt road going west, you cross over March, and then go about a block on the right. There's people that change their banks. They're getting from my Houston. That's Casey Banks dad. Oh my god.

What Richard Katen is saying here is that the red dirt road in the middle of nowhere, the one most people in the area didn't even know existed, was actually a key base of operations for a drug trafficking conglomerate, the young family, the bank's family, and an American arm of a Mexican cartel centered in Houston. But anyway, I was introduced to a Miss bad guy. I did get to house a couple of times, and they were part of the young, that's how he did that. That's my role to miss.

Remember, the I-10 service road, which was all dirt in 1993, was entirely obscured, almost impossible to find unless you knew it was there. It ran alongside I-10, but with a wall of trees between the two. Just a few homes scattered here and there down a stretch of dead-end road less than two miles long. Nothing but woods, fields, and creeks where the houses weren't. Dude, I'd love for you to come in and feed me information.

Tell me all about what you know about all this stuff, man, and these pimples and their names. Well, yeah, because this is dropping some pins into place on stuff that's just been kind of... Yeah, we had floating around. This is a remarkable set of developments. A phone call we make on a whim, not even really about any of this, has cracked open a part of this case

that had been stored in a vault, completely untouchable until this point. Renee was potentially a threat to a serious drug operation based on that very dirt road where she was found. And all of it might have been connected through family business ties to the individual who seemed to have the most personal investment in her murder. The thing about developments like this is that even though they help you see the case more

clearly, they often lead to more questions than answers. So now we know how these pieces are all potentially connected, and we can see a better, bigger picture. But we now have to begin the much more arduous process of proving those connections solidly enough to close the case. Matt and I want to connect with the District Attorney's Office to update them on our progress and see how we might best proceed if we are to eventually have them on board with a prosecution. Matt calls the lead prosecutor in the homicide division, a guy named Keith Blackwood.

We both talk to him over speakerphone. What's your name? Matt, sit here with Sarah, we're working on that old code case from 93, the heating and mutilation. Uh-huh. And we're just going to see if you are available Monday morning to ride over for a few minutes so we can kind of brief you on the case. Sorry, it's going to be heading and mutilation, and I'll clear my schedule.

Yeah, we're trying to work some stuff up on it, man. We've got some really good suspects. Actually, we just got a, one of our suspects keeps going back to the murder scene. We interviewed him. What day was that? Wednesday. Wednesday, and 20 minutes later, he said the murder scene.

We've got the top. Oh, the dopsine. Or the numbsine. Yeah, it's so weird. So we'll want to catch you up and see if you have maybe 30, 25 minutes. Keith agrees to meet with us the next working day, a Monday. He comes over to Matt's office and a button down with a tie, dress pants, what you'd expect from a lawyer.

His looks are boyish, but serious. Young, probably just a kid back when Renee was killed. We explain the case to him and its intricacies, particularly when it comes to the physical evidence we have on hand. But, you know, like we said, so in there, there is a rape kit. And there is what I think is going to be the money shot in fingernail clubings. And that's what we need to get tested. Why don't we send the right kids and the clippings to the U.S. with the C.M.

before or during the Genial? I think to be honest, I don't think we should send. I'm nervous about sending it to a lab that has told everybody to fuck off for this test multiple times. I, you know, and Paul seems to feel the same way. And I don't want to question you guys, you know, and Paul seems to feel the same way. And I don't want to question you guys, you know. Well, my concern with them, they're not capable of producing a genealogical profile. But if it's him, we've got his DNA.

Yeah, if it's not him. Well, and the other thing too is the backlog that Laban California will turn it around in under a month. So DFS is the Department of Forensic Sciences, the state lab here in Alabama. Now remember, there are two pieces of physical evidence available to us. René's fingernail clippings, which have been collected and preserved but never tested, and a rape kit, which have been tested for the presence of semen, the test was negative. Remember, this is the 90s, DNA testing was in its infancy.

When we reopened the case and first reached out to DFS, asking them to now test the rape kit for DNA, DFS declined since it had already been tested once before. We finally got DFS to agree to test the nail clippings and the rape kit, but they said it would be at the back of the line for the entire state, who knows how long that could take. Because of all of this, I want to send these samples off to a private lab in California, one of the best in the country. We only have a little bit of physical DNA that we can send,

so if we mess this up, we risk missing our only opportunity to corroborate a potential suspect. Plus our case is moving quickly. I want that evidence sooner rather than later. But even then, there's still the likelihood that the DNA could prove to be inconclusive or send us in a totally different direction. So here's a fun little red herring for you. Two hours away in Baton Rouge is a convicted serial killer who his first known killing was in 94 and he's had a couple of decaps, which is.

So you know what you're gonna tell me like she got all girl. He does like to cut off her asses and he drains her bodies at his house and then dumps the body someplace else, including on I-10 for one of them. He is convicted and credited with eight out there. He was arrested in 2004, and Sean Gillis. Strangely, there's no DNA profile in Cotis for Sean Gillis, that serial killer who I already

looked into. He's currently incarcerated in Louisiana. A defense attorney could use gillices at alternative theory of the case, especially if the DNA proves to be inconclusive. Keith advises us to keep investigating and to keep him updated on what we find. All right, so you're leaving Wednesday. Today or tomorrow I'm going to either come back over here or send somebody to get this make copies of this.

They'll all be here. So... We've got to tell us how we've been following our end. With this new information, there's a tremendous amount of work ahead of us. In a way, it's like we're starting almost from scratch again. But this time, we have so many more signs and landmarks to work with. On days like this, I feel like the road ahead is long, but the way is clear.

That map I knew I had to create is slowly coming together and I believe there's a real reachable destination at the end of this journey. Next time, on Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom? That's what you said to the detectives at the time was that Ronnie flat out told you that he sort of described in pretty graphic details some of the things he was doing before the knife got involved but there was talk of the Christmas tree knife. There's one thing he told me he said he just out and around said I don't know why he

just said he says if they don't catch you in the first 30 minutes, they ain't going to catch you. What? Really? When did you say that? What he told me that? Why can't we talk about Amanda's mom is produced by Arc Media for ID? You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts.

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