November 15, 2024 • 61 mins
On paper, Andreen and her husband Andre McDonald lived a life most Americans would envy - a self-made millionaire power couple, the McDonalds regularly contributed to philanthropic causes in their native community, as well as in their San Antonio community. On March 1st, 2019, Andreen McDonald was reported missing. In tonight's exploration, Ben, Matt and Noel map out the heartbreaking events, while also examining the larger, multigenerational context often left unexplored. Warning: this episode may not be appropriate for all audiences. If you or someone you know may be experiencing domestic violence, please don't hesitate to reach out for resources and support. The US Domestic Abuse Hotline is available 24/7 at the following number: 800-799-7233.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Bed. We are joined as always with
our super producer Andrew Triforce Howard. Most importantly, you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
we've talked about it before, but you know how social
media has created a weird double life for people.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's sick out as something we have to
contend with. It's hard, especially for younger folks who are
just seeing idealized versions of everybody they know and you know,
kind of forcing them to compare themselves. But it's honestly
not exclusive to young people. I fight with it myself,
as I'm sure you guys do from time to time.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The weirdest thing for me is that people will create
triple and quadruple and quintuple lives with varying social media
and other apps where they're interacting with people online as
varying personas with different names, different looks, different lifestyles. It's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
And don't get us started on online dating or do
because we have an episode coming out about that. It
is very much a conspiracy. Appreciate that that note too
about the as a Whitman said, we are vast. We
contain multitudes that can't be more literally true online and
even without the social media thing. Some lives look perfect
(01:46):
on paper, just like some laws look perfect on paper.
I don't know about how we're all feeling, but it
seems like, especially in this era of information, it's so
damningly easy to hear about another person's financial, romantic or
social success and think, WHOA they have it made right? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Absolutely, I mean to quote Biggie once again, I think
this came up recently. More money, more problems. I mean,
it's cliche, because it's absolutely true. People get to a
place where they just kind of want more and more
and more, and then with that comes more and more
concessions and more and more kind of issues that they
have to contend with. It maybe didn't even know existed.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
And past a certain threshold of financial success, it does
not positively affect your emotional success. We could call it.
There was a great study I remember seeing a Ted
talk but not the name of the paper, which proved
at the time that over a certain US dollar per
year threshold, money did not necessarily make you happier. It
(02:55):
makes you happier up to a point.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I think it's seventy, ok, is what I had heard.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, yeah, are somewhere around seventy, maybe a little north.
We'd have to check back with inflation. And really quickly
I realized that I didn't quote that big a thing
on this podcast. It was on Ridiculous History where we
had an episode on the nation of Bhutan and their
happiness based economy.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Uh so they kind of have all this stuff figured out,
but again not perfect.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, that was a good one. Everybody go to Bhuta
because we certainly can't out afford to do so ourselves.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, because the money thing doesn't change, well, I guess
it does affect like who you hang out with, who
you end up being able to meet, right and then
sure access, but it doesn't. The weird thing is that,
along with having multiple versions of ourselves on you know,
the Internet, there are multiple versions of ourselves that have
(03:50):
existed over time. If you think about stuff used to
be into when you were you know a younger person.
Of course, people used to know then, people used to date,
then people you were in love with. All of that
stuff is wrapped up and they're almost different, like almost
fully different versions of ourselves that exist in these eras
or something.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
But even some of those things stick around, even if
they're not front and center.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yes, yes, the multi generational consequences of every version of you.
And let's also keep in mind one thing I appreciate
about that point is that the version of you that
interacts with other people currently may not be the version
of you that you think you are, because they're really
talking to their opinion about you that has largely been
(04:34):
determined by their own thing going on.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
There, it's the kind of projecting on you.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
The filters and projections thing that we've been talking about
over several episodes. Now this keeps coming up, just that
we project a lot of what we see in here
onto everything else.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I mean, classic human Right, you hear something you say, well,
what is how is that about me? Right? Thea the
old joke about the narcissist that says, hey, I learned
what a narcissist is, and I'm trying to figure out
how that applies to me.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
And let me man explain that to you.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I think in some way it's less about narcissism and
more about remember how we talk about when you remember something,
it's the last time you remembered it. So it's almost
like when the last time you see a person, the
last time you have a conversation about a thing, It's
almost like with that person there really is, truly for
you a different version of what's being said or how
it's being said, or even I don't know the objects,
(05:28):
the physical objects that are being discussed, or the actions
that are taking place.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Well, and oftentimes too, when you see like maybe unhappy
marriages or relationships that deteriorate, it's because one or the
other have realized that they have given up some of
that past part of themselves and they are now kind
of pining for that time and their life, and some
people go to great lengths to get that back, whether
it be having an affair with an old lover from
(05:54):
that era or whatever. That is. The there's a big
draw to wanting to turn back the clock, like be
young again.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Excellent excellent segue, Noel. In tonight's episode, we're exploring a
tragic tale that true crime enthusiast may have heard of before,
but we'll find some extra twist along the way, and
that's what we're setting up tonight's question, what happened to
Andrene McDonald? Here are the facts, all right, for anybody
(06:25):
who's unaware. Who was Andrene McDonald.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Andrew McDonald was born on September twenty third of nineteen
eighty nine and Port Antonio, Jamaica, Andrene and Nicole McDonald.
She was the second of three daughters.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
And Jamaica, port Antonio, technically Norwich District, Portland. Their life
there was tough growing up. The father later left for
England after serving in the Armed Forces. Lives in England. Now.
Something of about the life that they lived in childhood
(07:03):
forged great determination amid the siblings. They believed what we
call the American dream. Hard work and discipline can make
all the difference between failure and success. And from the jump,
Andrea MacDonald was highly driven and there in Norwich District, Portland.
Again Jamaica, not Oregon. We're going to be saying Jamaica
(07:26):
pretty often here. You've heard us say it because this
is a big part of the story. So our protagonist
graduates from high school in Jamaica in this area in
Norwich District, Portland, and is an academic powerhouse. She goes
on to earn her associate degree in marketing by the
time she's eighteen. And when she's there, right, she has
(07:51):
a boyfriend before, as many teenagers do. That's important to
the story. She also meets and falls in love with
a guy named Andre McDonald. It's about ten years older
than her. He's a fellow Jamaican kid. He's risen through
the ranks of the US Air Force. He's becoming a major.
His special special areas of focus are what Jaysak would
(08:14):
loosely call cyber because those guys are old.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, cybersecurity, not what we used to call cyber yeah yeah,
but yeah, but internet activities, monitoring and securing them.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, early days for that kind of stuff, right, I mean,
in terms of like that being a specialty.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
It's definitely forward facing for the Air Force at that point.
And you know, they have all kinds of toys to
play with. She and her husband spoiler, they hit it off,
they got married, that happened, they moved to Florida, and then,
you know, for anybody who has grown up in a
military family, or has had a partner who's in the military,
(08:58):
or if you yourself have served, you know that for
a great deal of your career, you kind of have
to go where they tell you to go. So they
didn't get to stay in Florida forever. They ended up
moving to Texas, right.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
They moved to the very partially named Canyon Golf and
Wilderness Oak area of North Bay Are Texas or County
rather in San Antonio, Texas. Guys, what is going on
in the Canyon Golf and Wilderness Oak area? Everything?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I see a lot of internal O rhymes O sounds fascinants.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
By the way, if you see it on paper. Speaking
of things on paper, they are bear is spelled like bexar.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
So bx aar. And thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist
from Texas who wrote into us multiple times many years
ago to U kind fully correct us on that one
to clarify. We get it. Sometimes there's an X and
you just don't mention it. Oh, that's gonna have a
(10:02):
weird level to it later tonight.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Isn't a little strange.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It's just odd to me that they moved from Port Antonio,
Jamaica to San Antonio.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Texas, and that they're named Andrene and Andre.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, that actually struck me a little lot as well. Guys.
I mean, there's nothing to it, but it's still those
kind of synchronicities you can't help but notice them.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
It's such a power couple thing too, you know, because
these folks do become a power couple in San Antonio.
Andreing goes on to earn a business administration degree in
finance from University of Texas, San Antonio, and you can
find interviews with her from local press, from local community initiatives.
(10:50):
One we found that I think really speaks to her
personality is an interview in her a character profile in
San Antonio Woman, where we learned some of her inspiration, right,
some of her foundational guiding principles, and honestly, she sounds
like a badass.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
She seems like a tough cookie. She says, for me
to get a job, one has to be available. Someone
has to create a job. But she said, basically she
decided to create a job for herself at the young
age of twenty two. Talk about feeling like the stuff
on paper is making you feel like you're behind the
eight ball.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Right right, Yeah, She knew that a college degree does
not necessarily guarantee a career. Shout out to all her
fellow English majors. So, like you said, Noel, twenty two
years old, A lot of people in twenty two are
farting around, flitting back and forth between, you know, trying
(11:50):
to find their true north. Not so with McDonald. She
founds a place called Starlight Homes, a community, a assisted
living facilitator, right close with real estate, close with recommending care.
And her reasoning was super sharp. Why would you pursue
a business like this? Why would you put so much
(12:12):
money in when you're twenty two years old? Her reasoning
was if I fail, I'm young, I could do something else,
which I wish someone had told us earlier.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, And in that same article you can read about
how she would often travel back to Jamaica, where she
grew up, to do things like speak at graduations, you know,
to hang out with family and friends for specific business stuff.
So she was constantly I just think it's important to
mention her she was constantly going back and forth from
Jamaica to San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, she regularly returned to Jamaica for a lot of
philanthropic endeavors. She was also in many ways a one
woman army for her business, which she technically owned a
partnership with her husband. But let's remember being a US
Air Force major, it's a pretty time consuming job. So
she was running operations, human resources, she was running marketing.
(13:10):
She was pretty much responsible for steering the ship. And
this made her and her hubby a millionaires, maybe not
you know, billionaires, but doing very well for San Antonio.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And it's interesting too to think that this you know,
fortune was made with what would seem like a pretty
benevolent and charitable business model, you know. I mean, if
you look up Starlight Holmes, it's basically ready made homes,
kind of geared towards the elderly, maybe with some subsidies
of some kind. I don't know exactly the deal, but
(13:43):
it would seem like it is meant to be a
positive resource, you know, folks that are entering the ends
of their lives.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It was really interesting if you look at the two
locations that they had on the map, they were just
kind of it looked like houses where they would have
people living in the house, the houses in the care
would be given to them. And it literally started with
like one person, and then there are over twenty people
that she was taking care of with you know, or
I guess they the couple the company was taking care
(14:10):
of between these two homes.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
And a lot of this was informed by her mother's
career as a CNA certified nursing assistant and perhaps more
powerfully informed by watching how her in laws took care
of Andre's McDonald's grandmother. She had had to have her
(14:33):
left leg amputated due to an accident. And so Andrena
is looking at this and thinking, to your point, Noel,
how can I help people right? What is a good business?
And of course, yes, we know that assisted living and
nursing homes are riddled with corruption and abuse often here
(14:53):
in the United States. It does not appear to be
the case with Starlight homes. Everything wasn't perfect for the couple,
even though they are, you know, a power couple and
I'm sure the envy of many other San Antonians. They
had a daughter, special needs daughter named Elena, who's on
the autism spectrum and primarily nonverbal. So if this kid
(15:19):
see something, this kid can't really communicate what they have seen,
which will be important later. What we're saying is this
By her late twenties, Andrea M MacDonald had achieved the
kind of success most Americans dream about, ticking off every box.
You know, you got your dream marriage with your adonnas
(15:40):
or your dream girl. You've got an awesome job, you
are your own boss, and you're also an amazing powerlifter,
which I thought was pretty interesting her. She was driven
and goal oriented and you could set your own watch
to her schedules. She was she would always be Iron
(16:01):
Tribe fitness at five thirty am through some big powerless
they called her the Beast.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Still don't feel horrible, but now I've been trying to
gym a little bit more. But I do understand that
like that drive to you know, have that control and
that agency over your body. It seems very like in
keeping and in step with her overall drive.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Oh yeah, man, oh yeah. And we know we're talking
about this established routine five thirty ish am at the gym,
to the point where if she was going to miss
a day, she would call them and let them know, Like,
if you're a regular at the waffle house, the staff
is going to miss you. I've got waffle house on
my mind. Sorry, guys, just get plunch.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
They're very kind of waffle house. They definitely remember you
and say hello. So this established this routine that she
had and a sort of predictability to her movements. So
Ardie McDonald was last seen alive about seven pm on
February twenty eighth, when she along with her husband and
then seven year old daughter, We're seen heading home.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Says twenty nineteen. And the next day, March first, twenty nineteen,
she has reported missing, no passport activity, no cell phone,
nothing unusual on the credit cards. So what happened? Here's
(17:26):
where it gets crazy. Unfortunately, as any true crime aficionado
in the audience Tonight knows, the disappearance of Andrew McDonald
has been solved. It's a tale of absolute brutality and heartbreak,
and you can hear massively exploitative versions of it in
(17:46):
all sorts of programs. Forty eight hours freely available online,
you can watch it. And I want to ask you
guys about this. I think we've spoken about in previous evenings,
but do do you guys notice how when a true
crime enterprise is being exploitative, they tend to refer to
(18:08):
women simply by their first names.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Yea, I saw an article the other day about how
that's a thing in general.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
With politics and politics.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
And I felt kind of awful that it had never
occurred to me in that exact way. But to answer
your question, and yes, I think that is maybe a
bigger problem even than just exploitative reporting and true crime.
But for sure, that's a thing.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
It is a little weird. I think it is hard
sometimes to do storytelling when you've got a husband and
wife not to use their first names and not include
their last name every time you say their names. So
I don't know, I think it might be a storytelling thing,
at least in this like with forty eight Hours in particular.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Well in this case, I would agree, just from a
writing perspective, you've got two people with the same last name,
so it's difficult, such like if you were talking about
Hillary and William Clinton, you would at some point have
to just go by first name. But what I'm talking
about in the Exploitati version really is the emotional manipulation
(19:13):
or even the diminishing to the larger point, you're raising
all the diminishing of women's work by saying Hillary instead
of you know, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Things like
that not a defense of the Clintons and whatsoever. But anyway,
there's a larger context of this we'll explore in a moment,
(19:33):
but for now we have to look at events behind
the curtain to see what led to her disappearance and
later public realization. One we know now Andrew McDonald was murdered.
Two The United States has convicted her husband, Andrea McDonald,
(19:54):
of the murder, and the charge was manslaughter. He had
some other charges along the way to that.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, And I'm sorry to keep bringing this up, but
I think it's just app the way you run up
the beginning been on paper, you know, it would seem
cut and dry, like we know what happened, but there's
just so much more to it than what's on paper,
much like the true lives of people hiding behind their
glossy you know Instagram accounts.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, and you can follow our instagrams. They're the opposite
of glossy, you know, and they're matt Finish. Yes, there,
Matte Finish. If you if we go back to the
day of the reported disappearance, you can see a lot
of you can see a lot of contemporaneous reporting from
regional news affiliates and local media because again, this is
(20:44):
a prominent figure in society, and one of the things
that stands out, you know, a lot of this reporting
is the sheer concern of the community, the amount of
people in the community who were deeply disturbed. Again, could
set or watch by this lady's routine. There's a great
interview series with Matthew Seedorff writing for News for San Antonio.
(21:10):
The coaches thought it was crazy that McDonald did not
show up to exercise at Irontribe Fitness that early Friday morning,
because she's there all the time, and a lot of
the interviews are first, yes, about how they're very concerned
and they want to help find her. And then you
notice that all the coaches are so impressed with her
(21:33):
powerlifting again the beast. The beast is never happy over
their first set, you know what I mean, She's got
to lift more. They said, you know, we saw the
people said, we saw our Thursday evening going home to
see her daughter. If she wasn't going to be there Friday,
she would call us in advance. She has not. We
(21:54):
are worried, and let's be honest, I think a lot
of us have people in our lives. Thank you, We'll
keep the cat, and a lot of us have people
in our lives who cats and cats and animals and
entities that are more consistent or predictable than others. You know,
you might have a friend like maybe this is a
(22:14):
dude thing, But I have friends I don't talk to
for years at a time, you know what I mean.
I check in, they'll tell me something's important. One buddy
of mine was like, I had heard from two years
and then he just hit me up with the text
he said, and sent a picture and he said, beat
me here, triforce, He said, the round and got married. Lmao.
(22:36):
It was true.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
I hope you're good. Yeah, But then you have those
other friends that like, you know, maybe we'll call every
single Friday at the exact same time and to the
point where maybe you know everyone's different, but that friend
not calling yes will be a big old red flag,
even if you're not like the worrying type.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And so here we arrive at one of the myths
that we've addressed in the past about reporting a missing person.
You do not have to wait twenty four hours. It
does not depend upon the person's age, their socioeconomic status,
does not matter where you saw them last as a
matter of fact, that twenty four hour window is probably
(23:17):
the best time to start searching for someone. And so
the local law enforcement, the sheriff and the deputies at
Bear County are called in. They go to the couple's home.
They conduct a welfare check, and this is where they
discover increasingly disturbing things.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, and this is on the day she disappeared, on
March first, twenty nineteen. So the friends and everybody that
were concerned actually went and got Andrine's mom, Maureen Smith,
and brought her to the house. And that's when they
called the police. That's when the Sheriff's office shows up
and they start doing a walk through the house with
Andre not being present currently.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Right he is, he is not on the scene. All
in all, they end up executing two search warrants. Without
getting too far in the details. Both of these warrants
were warranted during their investigations in Andrene's car. And you
know how marriages people are sharing cars and stuff. They
(24:19):
uncover a shovel and acts work gloves, and gasoline to
containers of gasoline. Those are curious things. It might remind
some of us if you've ever spent a lot of
time in a grocery store or any place with a
what's that thing called little treadmill for checkout where the
(24:39):
stuff rolls down.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
The conveyor belt, yes, yes, the cave belt.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah yeah. Yeah. So it's a fun game to play
if you're ever waiting in line, kind of imagining the
stuff people buy as clues to their lives. Right, what's
an interesting eclectic mix of stuff?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, I mean if the guy in front of you
by a bunch of work gloves, heavy duty rope, and
a bag of lime and a shovel, you might wrinkle
your nose at that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Right, But that's exactly what he did. He bought all
of those things in one go, and he had a
messy There's a receipt that you can find and a
handwritten note about like things I need to get from
either Low's or home depot.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
And it's murder stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Including a hand axe and a big old axe. And
you're just like m.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
I already had the hammer.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, and you need big bags also with all of
this stuff, hefty bags.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Now, tell me about your burn barrels.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, yeah, Well the burn barrel is really important because
what they found on that first day on March first,
So this is what we're talking about here, and finding
this stuff is just it's like a couple of days
later when they find this stuff. I think it's March
second when they find this. But on that first day
when the sheriff's office shows up, they and the family
and the sheriff's office find blood and hair on like
(26:00):
a light switch in the bathroom. And in the backyard
they find a small what appears to be impromptu little
not burn pit, but like a burn pile where something
was piled up and then burned.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Like if you were cleaning your yard and you burned track,
like burned leaves. But stuff in there is not leaves.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
No, yeah, exactly. There was clothing. There was a zipper
that the mother identified as being a zipper from one
of Andrene's blouses.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
This does not look no, it doesn't. There were also
cleaning supplies recently purchased. The point about buying those items
all at once is that if they are purchased separately
over time, these are all innocuous. Sometimes you need gloves,
sometimes you need an axe or some gas. But buying
them all at once is we'll see what happens to
(26:51):
the receipt look altogether, there's a damning context, and so
authorities begin to believe that this is not someone skipping town,
which does sometimes happen. But usually when someone skips town,
you're gonna find them sooner, yeah or later.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, Well, they usually would take their person id and
you know, important things. If she did leave, the only
thing she took was her cell phone, and she didn't
let her mother, her husband, or her daughter or any
of her friends or family know where she was going, which,
you know, if you think about somebody like Andrina, at
least the way she's portrayed, like in that magazine we
(27:29):
mentioned where she was written up all the people around here.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And yeah, it just seems, well, she's buttoned up if
she was, you know, like if if she was gonna
go like that, she would have taken some key items.
If she was leaving her husband, you know, there are
definite signs for that she would I mean, unless that
is to say, though, unless there was some significant abuse
and she truly just had to drop everything and leave
(27:54):
in the night. There are scenarios where that absolutely absolutely
because there's horrible domestic situations, agreed.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
And that's a great point. We also know the previous
patterns of behavior which are not necessarily predicted to be fair.
But we know that when she was returning to Jamaica,
which was by far her main destination homeway from home,
she let people know both in Texas and in Jamaica
where she was going to be a when, because that
(28:21):
was part of what she was doing. So if somebody
had to skip down, how do we explain the blood,
how do we explain the supplies that were around the items,
the fire, the unburned zipper.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
The stuff that he bought the day after, right right
the day after your wife goes missing, and when you
get when you are talking to the sheriff's office, you're
weird and cagey about it and just like, yeah, I
don't know, she's not here, and then made up a
story about her being in the hospital. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Even before that, the authorities started to believe something was
very up and they were like, we got to look
at this. Andre mcdonnald guy and Bear County Sheriff's Office
deputies had already detained him that Saturday for what they
called mental evaluation.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
By well, yeah, of course, because he went to a
gun store there he was under investigation. Well yeah, they
pick him up for an evaluation because because earlier in
the day, on March second, that's when he's on surveillance
camera at Low's buying all of that stuff we talked about.
Right then at two pm, he's under a surveillance an
(29:33):
undercover officer is watching his house basically, and they watch
him drive to a local gun store and purchase a
nine millimeter and ammunition attempt to purchase. Well, no, he does.
He purchases it, but then he leaves the store without
taking the gun.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
And leaves his ID behind.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Yeah, he's just who does that? That's bizarre?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Andre McDonald, Well, something is going on with this guy
where clearly something's wrong, right, and he's also a pretty
high level military officer.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
So which, by the way, I was just gonna ask you, guys,
does that give you more way more leeway when it
comes to purchasing a firearm as a citizen, Like it
doesn't supersede the waiting periods or anything like that. Right,
you don't have like any special treatment because you're a
ranking military person.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Shouldn't. You can get as signed weaponry, but that's from
you and buying.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Something I didn't think. So I was just wondering, but
it would seem that he didn't have to. I don't
know what the laws are there, but he did. There
was no waiting period for he got spooked. It was
seeming and it's an almost behavior. Up to this point,
Bear County sheriffs have not named McDonald as a suspect,
but they are noting that he is extremely uncooperative, seems
(30:52):
to be not super worried about where his wife is
and when they When different people ask him about this,
he gives them different stories, which is also going to
come into play later.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
No spoilers. Eventually under question, I don't know how much
we want to get into the step by step with this,
but eventually he admits, Okay, my wife and I had
an argument. We visited our tax dude, basically the person
who prepares our taxes. We were arguing over our business,
which would both own.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
I left.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I left during the argument. I run away during arguments,
that kind of guy. And I went and got some
gas and just cool off, get some space, clear my head.
I have no idea where my wife could be, he
eventually told the police after you know, saying what was it?
She was in the hospital floated the idea that she
(31:49):
might be out of town.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well, yeah, it's weird. That hospital thing brings me out
to you guys. And that's part of this whole thing,
because it was on that first day, right when she
was missing and he was at work. He had taken
his daughter to school or you know, taken her to
wherever she was going early in the morning, then went
to work. When he got home, the sheriff's office was
(32:11):
already there, you know, basically with the rest of his
family looking for his wife. And he was like, oh,
I don't know, I don't know where she is. He thought, oh, well,
she gets migraines. Maybe she's in the hospital. And he
goes to the hospital asks the person at the front, hey,
is McDonald in here, like just asking for a McDonald.
The person at the front says, yeah, there is a
(32:32):
McDonald in here, and he goes, oh, okay, and then
he leaves, but he doesn't check to see if that
McDonald is his wife. And he goes back and he
tells that his family, his wife's mother, Yeah, she's in
the hospital.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
What That's another example of.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
So the mom calls a hospital and the hospital is like, no,
that is not No, your daughter is not here that
is a whole different person with the last name McDonald.
And then immediately after that he has for an attorney
he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Woof.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
And we know that this kind of behavior increasingly added
up to a picture that does not look good for
either member of this couple, particularly Andrew McDonald. Now they
are thinking less in terms of disappearance and more in
terms of a fatality. So when McDonald Andre McDonald is arrested,
(33:31):
he is initially arrested, not on suspicion of this murder,
not officially, he's initially arrested for evidence tampering because, going
back to the receipt we mentioned, he had allegedly torn
up the receipt, the physical receipt he had for these items,
all of which had been recently purchased. And it's still
(33:51):
not quite a red flag yet, but it is tampering
with evidence, and it's definitely on the gradient toward a
red flag.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
With all the learning that was going on, Why the
hell didn't he burn it? He just tore it up
and then they pieced it back together. That's so sloppy
and bizarre.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Well, it is, really, it is really weird because it's
on March second when they find that stuff in his trunk, right,
it's on March second when the search warrant occurs, and
that's when he buys the gun, and he gets picked
up right and gets evaluated. Then on March third, they
arrest him because he's basically going to walk free again
and they can't let him do that, so they at
(34:29):
least get him on that evidence tampering because they already
thought somebody whose wife is missing and is buying all
these things the next day, that's disposing of a body,
and that's all that could be. That's what at least
the Sheriff's department was thinking.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
And he initially admitted to buying these cleaning supplies. He's
being led away by deputies. He reportedly kept his statement
very short. He said, I love my daughter, I love
my family. That's it. He denied any involvement with his
wife's disappearance. He got released on bond. Meanwhile, all the
(35:05):
while the search Frandrine McDonald continued.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
And we're back, guys. This stuff is so damning, Like
every piece of evidence that has come up, it's borderline
makes you think was someone setting this guy up? Like
how could somebody be this stupid and and committing this
kind of crime. And I'm not suggesting that, but it's
just good lord.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's very hot dog story. Yeah, I think you should leave.
Uh huh yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, well, to my mind analyzing it, you know, from
this high up, in this far away in time, it
does seem like there was a lot of panic happening
here and that it wasn't fully planned out. It was
Oh crap, what do I do now? Oh crap, Well,
I I guess I gotta buy these things. Oh crap,
I guess I need a gun because if it goes bad.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Or whatever, be meditated the cover up, it might have
happened in a big old blow up, knock down, drag
out fight.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And that's not according to what he eventually says in
any either trial or anything. That's just what I'm well,
actually does kind of line up with what he's.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Saying he does. Yeah, it's pretty apparent. I think that
this was not This was not a plan decades in
the making, you know what I mean. This was not
a pre medicate, premeditated execution or operation. But we do know,
if we go back to this twenty nineteen era, we
do know that the Sheriff of Bear County grows increasingly
(36:35):
certain that Andre McDonald has for some reason murdered his wife.
He had killed her during an argument, and then, you know,
however that argument transpired, he panicked and attempted to dispose
of her body, and then attempted to erase the evidence
of his crimes, and every attempt he made only again
(36:58):
added to suspicion and made him a more prominent suspect
in the case. After six months of investigation, the community
members are still searching for this much beloved person, and
one of the people searching stumbles across scattered remains a
cadaver on a private ranch six miles away from the
(37:21):
McDonald family home. It's messed up. The authorities have to
resort to dental records to confirm identity, and those records
confirm this is indeed the body of Andrew McDonald. At
this point, Bear Counting closes in. Andre McDonald is charged
with first degree murder. It's all over the news. We
(37:44):
know that sometimes getting to trial in a court of
law takes longer than getting to trial in public opinion,
so it might surprise some of us to learn that
Andre McDonald doesn't go to trial until twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, that is kind of odd that there would be
that much of a backlog that you can't even get,
you know, to a trial unless they were doing some
kind of investigation still and they had to wait for
that to conclude before they could take him to trial.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Just seems so open and shut, you know. I mean,
but again, we're not, you know, the ones prosecuting cases
like this, So perhaps there is something to what you're.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Saying that, Well, if you've got a body that's that
decomposed and you don't have proof, like, how do you
convince a jury that he is definitely the guy that
killed his wife? Right?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Because technically all the physical evidence we've talked about would
be deemed circumstantial, all of that stuff that he.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Bought, right exactly, Yeah, it doesn't prove anything in it,
and any defense attorney could probably throw that stuff away.
So what you needed is, I'm assuming a DA would
say we need to find something that's really going to
make this.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Stick Dnair confession. I mean, a defense might not be
able to sway the jury against the conviction. There there's
a lot more context to it, I think, but the
possibilities there and yeah, DA would be much more happy
with evidence that was conclusive rather than circumstantial. I mean,
the prosecution establishes McDonald has a history of domestic violence,
(39:19):
which we'll get to in a moment. They also establish
all the circumstantial evidence the timeline we're talking about, and
the scrutiny shows that despite the public image of this
power couple, this amazing life, things had not been going
well at the McDonald homestead for a little while now.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
So, on the sixth day of the murder trial, nearly
four years after Andrea's death, Andre McDonald detailed his version
of events. This included the sharing of text messages that
were retrieved from his phone showing that she had likely
been having an affair.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Or he believed she was. Allegations of infidel that's right,
she was still The big point of contention between the
couple and at this juncture was that we mentioned Andrew
McDonald grew up in Jamaica and had previous boyfriends. Andre
McDonald was intensely concerned about Andrene being in contact with
(40:23):
one of her ex boyfriends, a businessman named Aubin au
b Yn Hall, who was also from Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Oh and what his part about leaving to go get
gas in the night of the argument that checks out.
He's on camera doing.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
That, and that's when the text chain was happening. That's
when Andrene says, quote, if you bring up Auben again,
I will divorce you myself. And then he responds, I
don't care if you get a divorce. You brought Auben
into our life, right.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
And one of the some of the high octing gas
on the fire here is that Andrine had gotten tattoos recently.
One was the initial A stylistically tattooed on her on
her hand and that cool little part between the thumb
and the pointer finger, and then a date tattooed on
(41:18):
her wrist. Audre is good at the internet, so he
does the digging, you know, the obsessive partner digging, and
he finds that the guy he considers his romantic rival, Aubin,
has the same tattoo.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Right here on like on his throat, the big A.
And it's the exact same it's.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
The same style. It's like a twist in a noir,
you know. I mean, it's the moment that you realize
what's happening. It all comes into full focus. And this
guy was clearly a very jealous man. He'd already made
ultimatums about the stuff, and yeah, it was well.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Also in a court of law that would still be circumstantially.
You can't get mad at people for tattoos. But if
you're a partner and you're already worried about something, just
imagine if the love of your life you getting a
tiff with them and then you see, oh, they've got
your tattoos. Oh they got oh matching tatty makes it
sound even dirtier.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Oh yeah, because it's not just one tattoo, it's multiple tattoos.
And if if you can just put yourself in that position,
not to like take sides in any of this stuff,
but just imagine being the partner in that. You can
be grumpy, that's what I'm not grumpy. You would be
betrayed and feel horrible that you would feel. It would
be like a different it would be like a type
of death.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
It's level, it's true.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
But so her second tattoo that she gets and her
husband doesn't know this at the time, she gets it
on her wrist fourteen three seventy six, and Andrea was
unsure what it was. Turns out it's the other dude's birthday,
so the fourteenth of March nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Yeah, she's pretty messy too, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
And I like that we're unanimously nined on this point
because this is not victim blaming. This is understanding the
perspective of another person, I knowing that is still circumstantial
in the court of law. I think it's fair to
say that anybody in a committed relationship already with problems
(43:30):
would be over a very bad moon about this kind
of activity, for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Exactly. It's just really important to note that finding out
about this extramarital affair or whatever was going on there,
which was at least according to several of Andrean's friends confirmed. Yeah,
but it didn't happen just before she was killed, right.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Just before the disappearance. Yeah it was it was years. Yeah, yeah,
it was quite a while before. But this did upset
the balance of the marriage. Andre was convinced his wife
was cut holding him with her earlier boyfriend, and she
threatened divorce, you know, unless she promised to do the following,
cut off contact with this guy, even when and if
(44:17):
she travels back to Port Antonio, cover up all those
tattoos that she gets and promises never ever to travel
to Jamaica without him, without Andre McDonald. These concerns seem
to smooth the waters a bit temporarily. It's what we
will call a band aid, But as time goes on,
(44:40):
they're still arguing about other things. They're arguing about businesses.
Because now this guy is clocking in right now, he
is always going to assume there are secrets, and he
claims that she opens a second business behind his back.
She keeps it a secret from him for more than
a year, and this brings more threats of divorce and
(45:03):
also he from his perspective, Andre McDonald is saying, look,
we partnered on this first business. She's taking funds from
what we do to start her own second business. So
essentially this my wife is robbing me. That the phrase.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Business as well, it would seem yeah, that's what he said.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
It's not great. It wouldn't be great if that were
actually the fact. But I don't know how much of
that is. You know, was established. I guess through discovery
during the trial that was like, yes, this is definitely happening.
Here is the business. She was using these funds to
do whatever we don't have all those facts. We have
we have what was reported from most of the transcripts
(45:50):
from the trial right about a lot of that stuff,
but it's not in full.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
And we don't have Andrea McDonald's testimony.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Exactly right, So we don't know fully what was happening.
This is this guy's opinion. There is stuff from there.
The tax who was it? It was their tax preparer
that they were using together, right, right, then ended up
coming up with a lot of that stuff. But theoretically,
what would that what could that mean? You guys, if
she's got a secondary.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Business, she's working our way towards escape.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Like divorce or or breaking the yeah, the thing into
like theoretically.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Having her own thing.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
That's where Yeah, that's that's where they talk about the
phrase that she would have used or maybe this is
you know, people quote each other or misquote and misconstrue
each other all the time in arguments. So we we
can read a few tea leaves in some of Audrey
McDonald's court statements at the trial. He says, quote, she
(46:47):
became extremely angry at the thought of us splitting the business,
by which I think they mean taking that first business
and splitting it in Twain.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Issues the starlight homes Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And he says, she charges into the room to confront me.
She comes right up in my face. At that moment,
she spat her spits, he says, in my face. So
at that point I grabbed her, and I think we
had a clash of heads, and I think it opened
up a cut somewhere on her face. And the rest
of his testimony is frankly quite disturbing because he is
(47:24):
describing in his mind accidentally killing someone but definitely meaning
to beat the snot out of them. He talks about
how she falls over and he kicks her twice, and
on the second kick he hears a wheezing coming out
of her. Hears the footsteps of what turns out to
(47:46):
be their daughter, who is detail Yeah, may have witnessed
the scene, he says. He argued in court that he
only struck her not because he's a domestic abuser, but
he only struck her because he was fearful that she
would harm him. He was frightened of her physical prowess
(48:06):
as a powerlifter.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
She is significantly taller than him and looks well, you
don't see a lot of him on Instagram, you know,
being super strong. But her Instagram is still up and
you can still find it, and she she was strong
as well. I can imagine him being intimidated at least,
but worried that she's gonna kill him or I don't know, I.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
Yeah, no, it's cuily. It doesn't matter in the context
of things. But like, we can't we weren't in the room.
We can't. We can't even really speculate on the ferocity
you know, of an exchange.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
Like this, Right, we only given that the only witness
is someone largely nonverbal. Right, The only non involved witness
there physically the child.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Just to remind me that she was on the spectrum
like to an extreme degree.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yes, yeah, and we're hearing. We're hearing someone choosing to
confess to a murder and then choosing the way in
which they confess it. Now, was Andrening in great shape?
Absolutely power lifter. Does hype matter that much in a
fight only if you're fighting with boxing rules or something
that can strange your activity. But that is what he said.
(49:21):
He said that he was frightened and he did not
He meant to hit her to protect himself, but he
didn't mean to enter life.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
It would seem to that wouldn't be surprised if he
was coached to set the scene in this fashion.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Oh that's a great point, Noel, because he did have
a defense team, and he lawyered up very quickly when
the sheriffs initially contacted him. So he tells the court
he puts their daughter back to bed, and after you know,
he calms the kid down and puts her to bed.
Speaker 4 (49:53):
He returns only to find right that has happened.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Now instead of calling nine, one.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
Dumps her body in a field.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, Christ take her, takes her clothing and burns it.
And also I would assume you guys told me. I
would assume this is at the point where he also
captures the phone, right.
Speaker 4 (50:17):
At least imagine.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
So yeah, So with all this, I mean, it's very
hard for us to hear an argument that this is circumstantial,
because it's legal to buy all all those items at
one point or another. It's also legal to buy a
gun and leave it in the store, or to go
to a store not by a gun.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
Yeah, I get I get caught up on this sometimes, guys.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts, like, you know, yes,
those things create this like seemingly sure a sense of
what happened, and yet they are considered circumstantial. I'm just
wondering what that being considered circumstantial and it admissible or
whatever for direct you know, conviction. What protects does that
(51:01):
offer us from that being misused? Because this just seems
like an example where it should be a slam dunk
because of these things. But no, it's circumstantial. I was
wondering what the idea of circumstantial evidence, like, where does
it actually protect the innocent? I don't know, it's maybe
all at home think about it. It's just something that
I get caught up on sometimes.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Yeah, let us know what you think fill a conspiracy realist,
I believe that's a great question. I mean, you could see,
we know in the past circumstantial evidence has led to
wrongful convictions. Right, A kid who maybe buys a cell
phone from someone who's fencing cell phone, so that cell
phone was from a murder victim.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
Sure, but why didn't this circumstantial evidence on its own?
It seemed like it required the confession.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean
it goes back to the burden of proof, right, What
is beyond a reasonable doubt, what is a reasonable out?
The jury Eventually, based on this discourse, they find McDonald
guilty not a first degree murder to the earlier point,
but of manslaughter. And like you're saying, it's primarily due
(52:14):
to his testimony in court, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
And we should have mention there too. According to some
of the jurors after the fact, they were split down
the middle six and six for manslaughter or murder, and
nobody thought he was innocent, nobody thought he was self defense.
They were just like, no, this dude killed his wife,
but do we charge him with murder or manslaughter because
of the situation surrounding, you know, whatever was happening and
(52:40):
the moment of panic and all that other stuff like
how much do we how much do we weigh that?
And eventually, and at least according to two jurors that
are interviewed for that forty eight hours episode, they went
with manslaughter because they could not get the other six
people to agree with murder.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
Yeah, there's also another ten gentile twist here. A few days,
I think, like two days forty eight hours before the trial,
he texts family members and talks about this, but kind
of like getting his story straight to them via text,
in what some called a move to make sure he
(53:19):
could steer the conversation towards manslaughter rather than murder. Either way,
he is sentenced. He gets twenty years in prison, where
he remains at the time of this recording. The public
as well as Andrew McDonald's family not happy with the verdict.
Furious in fact, they felt justice was not served. Twenty
(53:41):
years in prison is a finite amount of time, and
we'll never know what, you know, his victim would have
done that shud been allowed to live.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
Yeah, And after all that, a custody battle kind of rages,
because of course there was the most heartbreaking part of
this story to me anyway, the child there who might
have witnessed not only ongoing potentially domestic abuse and you know,
disturbances between the parents who had seemed perpetrated by by
(54:15):
mister McDonald, but also potentially was a witness to her
mother's murder.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
Yeah. Yeah, And with this, with this custody battle, eventually,
you know, Andrew McDonald's mother wins the case.
Speaker 4 (54:35):
As civil at this point, right.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
Yeah, Well, they're trying to figure out, you know, where's
the safest home for the kid. So then yes. In
twenty twenty three, Andrew McDonald's family wins a pretty significant
civil that's also wrongful death case for two hundred and
ten million US dollars and damages against Andre McDonald.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
I had that kind of money, No.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Not that we know of. And in August of this year,
as we record August of twenty twenty four, his most
recent appeal was just denied. So it seems for now
he will continue to serve the time. But this there's
a stranger profile here, you guys, because it's portrayed as
a crime of passion, no premeditation other than post fact
(55:26):
right trying to cover up the crime. Not long after
Andre MacDonald was convicted, his own father found himself in
court accused of murdering both his first and his second wives.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
What the heck? Yeah, that's a twist, I mean, but
it was also been to your point, especially here in
the Dog. Perhaps it is an indication of that continuum
of generational trauma and violence that we talk about a
lot on the show.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
I'm wondering, I'm wondering. We know the father, Everton McDonald,
known as Beachy Stout to his friends and his co
defendant Oscar Barnes were later found guilty in Jamaica's Supreme
Court for at least the death of Tanya McDonald. You
can find a piece on this in the Jamaica Observer
(56:18):
and a couple of other local papers. Apparently he had
tried to pay a guy named Denvelen Bubbla Minote three
million dollars to kill his wife or Beachy stout hat,
and he gave him exact instructions. He said, stab her
and then burn her body. This guy couldn't do it,
(56:39):
so he sub contracted the hit to a guy named
Oscar Barnes, and both of those guys got convicted. I
believe they are in jail for life.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
That's there is this cay getting three million bucks.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
That's another question, right.
Speaker 4 (56:56):
I'm sorry. I do feel like we're ending with a
few open questions, yes, which is fine.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
And folks, I love the point you made. Know about
bringing up more questions. There are things we can't answer.
But we can't answer one question right now. Why are
we bringing up this case long after it's been solved,
long after this innocent child has been saved. Well's primarily
because we see a disturbing trend in violence against women.
(57:27):
You know, and in these cycles of abuse, did the
son learn from the father and feel physical violence was appropriate.
How do we in the audience raise children in community
to avoid such horrific acts? And you know, right now
the United States is struggling to preserve the rights of
(57:47):
women over the next four years and beyond. This is
something to think about.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Well, it's a big deal her in Andrea's life too,
because according to her co workers, according to some of
her good friends, she was in an abusive relationship and
she was she would come in with scratches on her
face that her friends would take note of and ask
her about, and she would, you know, she would even
say to them, ohs Andre, you know it's Andre, But
(58:14):
I don't know, Like how when there's something like that,
how do we effectively have stuff in place so that
so that someone can really be loud about it, Hey,
I'm under attack at home.
Speaker 4 (58:27):
It's just so difficult, though, because oftentimes there's that Stockholm
syndrome of it all, where they know they don't want
to be loud about her, they feel compelled to defend
the abuser. And that's the real complex part of it.
And it also involves a lot of psychological abuse. And
coercion and just having people breaking people down to make
them feel as though they need you.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
You know. Normalization and erosion of boundaries can sent the
one thing and then driving tonimalize your horrific behavior toward others. Yeah,
I agree with these points. Domestic violence cannot simply be
legislated away. It's a multi, multi generational pattern. It comes
from many different sources. There are resources available to help folks,
(59:11):
and that's why we're looking at this story today. Please please,
please be safe. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We would love to hear your thoughts. We try to
be easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
It's very You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
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Speaker 2 (59:37):
We have a phone number one eight three three STDWYTK.
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us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
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This is a last, but not least way to contact us.
We can all see it, we can all respond. There
are we haven't put in rules yet. Please please don't
make us do so, but do let us know if
we can share your message on air, to give us
(01:00:14):
the links, take us to the edge of the rabbit hole.
Tell us what's on your mind, and even if it's
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Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Bed. We are joined as always with
our super producer Andrew Triforce Howard. Most importantly, you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
we've talked about it before, but you know how social
media has created a weird double life for people.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's sick out as something we have to
contend with. It's hard, especially for younger folks who are
just seeing idealized versions of everybody they know and you know,
kind of forcing them to compare themselves. But it's honestly
not exclusive to young people. I fight with it myself,
as I'm sure you guys do from time to time.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The weirdest thing for me is that people will create
triple and quadruple and quintuple lives with varying social media
and other apps where they're interacting with people online as
varying personas with different names, different looks, different lifestyles. It's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
And don't get us started on online dating or do
because we have an episode coming out about that. It
is very much a conspiracy. Appreciate that that note too
about the as a Whitman said, we are vast. We
contain multitudes that can't be more literally true online and
even without the social media thing. Some lives look perfect
(01:46):
on paper, just like some laws look perfect on paper.
I don't know about how we're all feeling, but it
seems like, especially in this era of information, it's so
damningly easy to hear about another person's financial, romantic or
social success and think, WHOA they have it made right? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Absolutely, I mean to quote Biggie once again, I think
this came up recently. More money, more problems. I mean,
it's cliche, because it's absolutely true. People get to a
place where they just kind of want more and more
and more, and then with that comes more and more
concessions and more and more kind of issues that they
have to contend with. It maybe didn't even know existed.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
And past a certain threshold of financial success, it does
not positively affect your emotional success. We could call it.
There was a great study I remember seeing a Ted
talk but not the name of the paper, which proved
at the time that over a certain US dollar per
year threshold, money did not necessarily make you happier. It
(02:55):
makes you happier up to a point.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I think it's seventy, ok, is what I had heard.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, yeah, are somewhere around seventy, maybe a little north.
We'd have to check back with inflation. And really quickly
I realized that I didn't quote that big a thing
on this podcast. It was on Ridiculous History where we
had an episode on the nation of Bhutan and their
happiness based economy.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Uh so they kind of have all this stuff figured out,
but again not perfect.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, that was a good one. Everybody go to Bhuta
because we certainly can't out afford to do so ourselves.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, because the money thing doesn't change, well, I guess
it does affect like who you hang out with, who
you end up being able to meet, right and then
sure access, but it doesn't. The weird thing is that,
along with having multiple versions of ourselves on you know,
the Internet, there are multiple versions of ourselves that have
(03:50):
existed over time. If you think about stuff used to
be into when you were you know a younger person.
Of course, people used to know then, people used to date,
then people you were in love with. All of that
stuff is wrapped up and they're almost different, like almost
fully different versions of ourselves that exist in these eras
or something.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
But even some of those things stick around, even if
they're not front and center.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yes, yes, the multi generational consequences of every version of you.
And let's also keep in mind one thing I appreciate
about that point is that the version of you that
interacts with other people currently may not be the version
of you that you think you are, because they're really
talking to their opinion about you that has largely been
(04:34):
determined by their own thing going on.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
There, it's the kind of projecting on you.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
The filters and projections thing that we've been talking about
over several episodes. Now this keeps coming up, just that
we project a lot of what we see in here
onto everything else.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
I mean, classic human Right, you hear something you say, well,
what is how is that about me? Right? Thea the
old joke about the narcissist that says, hey, I learned
what a narcissist is, and I'm trying to figure out
how that applies to me.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
And let me man explain that to you.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I think in some way it's less about narcissism and
more about remember how we talk about when you remember something,
it's the last time you remembered it. So it's almost
like when the last time you see a person, the
last time you have a conversation about a thing, It's
almost like with that person there really is, truly for
you a different version of what's being said or how
it's being said, or even I don't know the objects,
(05:28):
the physical objects that are being discussed, or the actions
that are taking place.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Well, and oftentimes too, when you see like maybe unhappy
marriages or relationships that deteriorate, it's because one or the
other have realized that they have given up some of
that past part of themselves and they are now kind
of pining for that time and their life, and some
people go to great lengths to get that back, whether
it be having an affair with an old lover from
(05:54):
that era or whatever. That is. The there's a big
draw to wanting to turn back the clock, like be
young again.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Excellent excellent segue, Noel. In tonight's episode, we're exploring a
tragic tale that true crime enthusiast may have heard of before,
but we'll find some extra twist along the way, and
that's what we're setting up tonight's question, what happened to
Andrene McDonald? Here are the facts, all right, for anybody
(06:25):
who's unaware. Who was Andrene McDonald.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Andrew McDonald was born on September twenty third of nineteen
eighty nine and Port Antonio, Jamaica, Andrene and Nicole McDonald.
She was the second of three daughters.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
And Jamaica, port Antonio, technically Norwich District, Portland. Their life
there was tough growing up. The father later left for
England after serving in the Armed Forces. Lives in England. Now.
Something of about the life that they lived in childhood
(07:03):
forged great determination amid the siblings. They believed what we
call the American dream. Hard work and discipline can make
all the difference between failure and success. And from the jump,
Andrea MacDonald was highly driven and there in Norwich District, Portland.
Again Jamaica, not Oregon. We're going to be saying Jamaica
(07:26):
pretty often here. You've heard us say it because this
is a big part of the story. So our protagonist
graduates from high school in Jamaica in this area in
Norwich District, Portland, and is an academic powerhouse. She goes
on to earn her associate degree in marketing by the
time she's eighteen. And when she's there, right, she has
(07:51):
a boyfriend before, as many teenagers do. That's important to
the story. She also meets and falls in love with
a guy named Andre McDonald. It's about ten years older
than her. He's a fellow Jamaican kid. He's risen through
the ranks of the US Air Force. He's becoming a major.
His special special areas of focus are what Jaysak would
(08:14):
loosely call cyber because those guys are old.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, cybersecurity, not what we used to call cyber yeah yeah,
but yeah, but internet activities, monitoring and securing them.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, early days for that kind of stuff, right, I mean,
in terms of like that being a specialty.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
It's definitely forward facing for the Air Force at that point.
And you know, they have all kinds of toys to
play with. She and her husband spoiler, they hit it off,
they got married, that happened, they moved to Florida, and then,
you know, for anybody who has grown up in a
military family, or has had a partner who's in the military,
(08:58):
or if you yourself have served, you know that for
a great deal of your career, you kind of have
to go where they tell you to go. So they
didn't get to stay in Florida forever. They ended up
moving to Texas, right.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
They moved to the very partially named Canyon Golf and
Wilderness Oak area of North Bay Are Texas or County
rather in San Antonio, Texas. Guys, what is going on
in the Canyon Golf and Wilderness Oak area? Everything?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I see a lot of internal O rhymes O sounds fascinants.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
By the way, if you see it on paper. Speaking
of things on paper, they are bear is spelled like bexar.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
So bx aar. And thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist
from Texas who wrote into us multiple times many years
ago to U kind fully correct us on that one
to clarify. We get it. Sometimes there's an X and
you just don't mention it. Oh, that's gonna have a
(10:02):
weird level to it later tonight.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Isn't a little strange.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It's just odd to me that they moved from Port Antonio,
Jamaica to San Antonio.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Texas, and that they're named Andrene and Andre.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, that actually struck me a little lot as well. Guys.
I mean, there's nothing to it, but it's still those
kind of synchronicities you can't help but notice them.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
It's such a power couple thing too, you know, because
these folks do become a power couple in San Antonio.
Andreing goes on to earn a business administration degree in
finance from University of Texas, San Antonio, and you can
find interviews with her from local press, from local community initiatives.
(10:50):
One we found that I think really speaks to her
personality is an interview in her a character profile in
San Antonio Woman, where we learned some of her inspiration, right,
some of her foundational guiding principles, and honestly, she sounds
like a badass.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
She seems like a tough cookie. She says, for me
to get a job, one has to be available. Someone
has to create a job. But she said, basically she
decided to create a job for herself at the young
age of twenty two. Talk about feeling like the stuff
on paper is making you feel like you're behind the
eight ball.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Right right, Yeah, She knew that a college degree does
not necessarily guarantee a career. Shout out to all her
fellow English majors. So, like you said, Noel, twenty two
years old, A lot of people in twenty two are
farting around, flitting back and forth between, you know, trying
(11:50):
to find their true north. Not so with McDonald. She
founds a place called Starlight Homes, a community, a assisted
living facilitator, right close with real estate, close with recommending care.
And her reasoning was super sharp. Why would you pursue
a business like this? Why would you put so much
(12:12):
money in when you're twenty two years old? Her reasoning
was if I fail, I'm young, I could do something else,
which I wish someone had told us earlier.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, And in that same article you can read about
how she would often travel back to Jamaica, where she
grew up, to do things like speak at graduations, you know,
to hang out with family and friends for specific business stuff.
So she was constantly I just think it's important to
mention her she was constantly going back and forth from
Jamaica to San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, she regularly returned to Jamaica for a lot of
philanthropic endeavors. She was also in many ways a one
woman army for her business, which she technically owned a
partnership with her husband. But let's remember being a US
Air Force major, it's a pretty time consuming job. So
she was running operations, human resources, she was running marketing.
(13:10):
She was pretty much responsible for steering the ship. And
this made her and her hubby a millionaires, maybe not
you know, billionaires, but doing very well for San Antonio.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And it's interesting too to think that this you know,
fortune was made with what would seem like a pretty
benevolent and charitable business model, you know. I mean, if
you look up Starlight Holmes, it's basically ready made homes,
kind of geared towards the elderly, maybe with some subsidies
of some kind. I don't know exactly the deal, but
(13:43):
it would seem like it is meant to be a
positive resource, you know, folks that are entering the ends
of their lives.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It was really interesting if you look at the two
locations that they had on the map, they were just
kind of it looked like houses where they would have
people living in the house, the houses in the care
would be given to them. And it literally started with
like one person, and then there are over twenty people
that she was taking care of with you know, or
I guess they the couple the company was taking care
(14:10):
of between these two homes.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
And a lot of this was informed by her mother's
career as a CNA certified nursing assistant and perhaps more
powerfully informed by watching how her in laws took care
of Andre's McDonald's grandmother. She had had to have her
(14:33):
left leg amputated due to an accident. And so Andrena
is looking at this and thinking, to your point, Noel,
how can I help people right? What is a good business?
And of course, yes, we know that assisted living and
nursing homes are riddled with corruption and abuse often here
(14:53):
in the United States. It does not appear to be
the case with Starlight homes. Everything wasn't perfect for the couple,
even though they are, you know, a power couple and
I'm sure the envy of many other San Antonians. They
had a daughter, special needs daughter named Elena, who's on
the autism spectrum and primarily nonverbal. So if this kid
(15:19):
see something, this kid can't really communicate what they have seen,
which will be important later. What we're saying is this
By her late twenties, Andrea M MacDonald had achieved the
kind of success most Americans dream about, ticking off every box.
You know, you got your dream marriage with your adonnas
(15:40):
or your dream girl. You've got an awesome job, you
are your own boss, and you're also an amazing powerlifter,
which I thought was pretty interesting her. She was driven
and goal oriented and you could set your own watch
to her schedules. She was she would always be Iron
(16:01):
Tribe fitness at five thirty am through some big powerless
they called her the Beast.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Still don't feel horrible, but now I've been trying to
gym a little bit more. But I do understand that
like that drive to you know, have that control and
that agency over your body. It seems very like in
keeping and in step with her overall drive.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Oh yeah, man, oh yeah. And we know we're talking
about this established routine five thirty ish am at the gym,
to the point where if she was going to miss
a day, she would call them and let them know, Like,
if you're a regular at the waffle house, the staff
is going to miss you. I've got waffle house on
my mind. Sorry, guys, just get plunch.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
They're very kind of waffle house. They definitely remember you
and say hello. So this established this routine that she
had and a sort of predictability to her movements. So
Ardie McDonald was last seen alive about seven pm on
February twenty eighth, when she along with her husband and
then seven year old daughter, We're seen heading home.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Says twenty nineteen. And the next day, March first, twenty nineteen,
she has reported missing, no passport activity, no cell phone,
nothing unusual on the credit cards. So what happened? Here's
(17:26):
where it gets crazy. Unfortunately, as any true crime aficionado
in the audience Tonight knows, the disappearance of Andrew McDonald
has been solved. It's a tale of absolute brutality and heartbreak,
and you can hear massively exploitative versions of it in
(17:46):
all sorts of programs. Forty eight hours freely available online,
you can watch it. And I want to ask you
guys about this. I think we've spoken about in previous evenings,
but do do you guys notice how when a true
crime enterprise is being exploitative, they tend to refer to
(18:08):
women simply by their first names.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Yea, I saw an article the other day about how
that's a thing in general.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
With politics and politics.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
And I felt kind of awful that it had never
occurred to me in that exact way. But to answer
your question, and yes, I think that is maybe a
bigger problem even than just exploitative reporting and true crime.
But for sure, that's a thing.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
It is a little weird. I think it is hard
sometimes to do storytelling when you've got a husband and
wife not to use their first names and not include
their last name every time you say their names. So
I don't know, I think it might be a storytelling thing,
at least in this like with forty eight Hours in particular.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Well in this case, I would agree, just from a
writing perspective, you've got two people with the same last name,
so it's difficult, such like if you were talking about
Hillary and William Clinton, you would at some point have
to just go by first name. But what I'm talking
about in the Exploitati version really is the emotional manipulation
(19:13):
or even the diminishing to the larger point, you're raising
all the diminishing of women's work by saying Hillary instead
of you know, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Things like
that not a defense of the Clintons and whatsoever. But anyway,
there's a larger context of this we'll explore in a moment,
(19:33):
but for now we have to look at events behind
the curtain to see what led to her disappearance and
later public realization. One we know now Andrew McDonald was murdered.
Two The United States has convicted her husband, Andrea McDonald,
(19:54):
of the murder, and the charge was manslaughter. He had
some other charges along the way to that.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, And I'm sorry to keep bringing this up, but
I think it's just app the way you run up
the beginning been on paper, you know, it would seem
cut and dry, like we know what happened, but there's
just so much more to it than what's on paper,
much like the true lives of people hiding behind their
glossy you know Instagram accounts.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, and you can follow our instagrams. They're the opposite
of glossy, you know, and they're matt Finish. Yes, there,
Matte Finish. If you if we go back to the
day of the reported disappearance, you can see a lot
of you can see a lot of contemporaneous reporting from
regional news affiliates and local media because again, this is
(20:44):
a prominent figure in society, and one of the things
that stands out, you know, a lot of this reporting
is the sheer concern of the community, the amount of
people in the community who were deeply disturbed. Again, could
set or watch by this lady's routine. There's a great
interview series with Matthew Seedorff writing for News for San Antonio.
(21:10):
The coaches thought it was crazy that McDonald did not
show up to exercise at Irontribe Fitness that early Friday morning,
because she's there all the time, and a lot of
the interviews are first, yes, about how they're very concerned
and they want to help find her. And then you
notice that all the coaches are so impressed with her
(21:33):
powerlifting again the beast. The beast is never happy over
their first set, you know what I mean, She's got
to lift more. They said, you know, we saw the
people said, we saw our Thursday evening going home to
see her daughter. If she wasn't going to be there Friday,
she would call us in advance. She has not. We
(21:54):
are worried, and let's be honest, I think a lot
of us have people in our lives. Thank you, We'll
keep the cat, and a lot of us have people
in our lives who cats and cats and animals and
entities that are more consistent or predictable than others. You know,
you might have a friend like maybe this is a
(22:14):
dude thing, But I have friends I don't talk to
for years at a time, you know what I mean.
I check in, they'll tell me something's important. One buddy
of mine was like, I had heard from two years
and then he just hit me up with the text
he said, and sent a picture and he said, beat
me here, triforce, He said, the round and got married. Lmao.
(22:36):
It was true.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
I hope you're good. Yeah, But then you have those
other friends that like, you know, maybe we'll call every
single Friday at the exact same time and to the
point where maybe you know everyone's different, but that friend
not calling yes will be a big old red flag,
even if you're not like the worrying type.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And so here we arrive at one of the myths
that we've addressed in the past about reporting a missing person.
You do not have to wait twenty four hours. It
does not depend upon the person's age, their socioeconomic status,
does not matter where you saw them last as a
matter of fact, that twenty four hour window is probably
(23:17):
the best time to start searching for someone. And so
the local law enforcement, the sheriff and the deputies at
Bear County are called in. They go to the couple's home.
They conduct a welfare check, and this is where they
discover increasingly disturbing things.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, and this is on the day she disappeared, on
March first, twenty nineteen. So the friends and everybody that
were concerned actually went and got Andrine's mom, Maureen Smith,
and brought her to the house. And that's when they
called the police. That's when the Sheriff's office shows up
and they start doing a walk through the house with
Andre not being present currently.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Right he is, he is not on the scene. All
in all, they end up executing two search warrants. Without
getting too far in the details. Both of these warrants
were warranted during their investigations in Andrene's car. And you
know how marriages people are sharing cars and stuff. They
(24:19):
uncover a shovel and acts work gloves, and gasoline to
containers of gasoline. Those are curious things. It might remind
some of us if you've ever spent a lot of
time in a grocery store or any place with a
what's that thing called little treadmill for checkout where the
(24:39):
stuff rolls down.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
The conveyor belt, yes, yes, the cave belt.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah yeah. Yeah. So it's a fun game to play
if you're ever waiting in line, kind of imagining the
stuff people buy as clues to their lives. Right, what's
an interesting eclectic mix of stuff?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, I mean if the guy in front of you
by a bunch of work gloves, heavy duty rope, and
a bag of lime and a shovel, you might wrinkle
your nose at that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Right, But that's exactly what he did. He bought all
of those things in one go, and he had a
messy There's a receipt that you can find and a
handwritten note about like things I need to get from
either Low's or home depot.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
And it's murder stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Including a hand axe and a big old axe. And
you're just like m.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
I already had the hammer.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, and you need big bags also with all of
this stuff, hefty bags.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Now, tell me about your burn barrels.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, yeah, Well the burn barrel is really important because
what they found on that first day on March first,
So this is what we're talking about here, and finding
this stuff is just it's like a couple of days
later when they find this stuff. I think it's March
second when they find this. But on that first day
when the sheriff's office shows up, they and the family
and the sheriff's office find blood and hair on like
(26:00):
a light switch in the bathroom. And in the backyard
they find a small what appears to be impromptu little
not burn pit, but like a burn pile where something
was piled up and then burned.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Like if you were cleaning your yard and you burned track,
like burned leaves. But stuff in there is not leaves.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
No, yeah, exactly. There was clothing. There was a zipper
that the mother identified as being a zipper from one
of Andrene's blouses.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
This does not look no, it doesn't. There were also
cleaning supplies recently purchased. The point about buying those items
all at once is that if they are purchased separately
over time, these are all innocuous. Sometimes you need gloves,
sometimes you need an axe or some gas. But buying
them all at once is we'll see what happens to
(26:51):
the receipt look altogether, there's a damning context, and so
authorities begin to believe that this is not someone skipping town,
which does sometimes happen. But usually when someone skips town,
you're gonna find them sooner, yeah or later.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, Well, they usually would take their person id and
you know, important things. If she did leave, the only
thing she took was her cell phone, and she didn't
let her mother, her husband, or her daughter or any
of her friends or family know where she was going, which,
you know, if you think about somebody like Andrina, at
least the way she's portrayed, like in that magazine we
(27:29):
mentioned where she was written up all the people around here.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And yeah, it just seems, well, she's buttoned up if
she was, you know, like if if she was gonna
go like that, she would have taken some key items.
If she was leaving her husband, you know, there are
definite signs for that she would I mean, unless that
is to say, though, unless there was some significant abuse
and she truly just had to drop everything and leave
(27:54):
in the night. There are scenarios where that absolutely absolutely
because there's horrible domestic situations, agreed.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
And that's a great point. We also know the previous
patterns of behavior which are not necessarily predicted to be fair.
But we know that when she was returning to Jamaica,
which was by far her main destination homeway from home,
she let people know both in Texas and in Jamaica
where she was going to be a when, because that
(28:21):
was part of what she was doing. So if somebody
had to skip down, how do we explain the blood,
how do we explain the supplies that were around the items,
the fire, the unburned zipper.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
The stuff that he bought the day after, right right
the day after your wife goes missing, and when you
get when you are talking to the sheriff's office, you're
weird and cagey about it and just like, yeah, I
don't know, she's not here, and then made up a
story about her being in the hospital. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Even before that, the authorities started to believe something was
very up and they were like, we got to look
at this. Andre mcdonnald guy and Bear County Sheriff's Office
deputies had already detained him that Saturday for what they
called mental evaluation.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
By well, yeah, of course, because he went to a
gun store there he was under investigation. Well yeah, they
pick him up for an evaluation because because earlier in
the day, on March second, that's when he's on surveillance
camera at Low's buying all of that stuff we talked about.
Right then at two pm, he's under a surveillance an
(29:33):
undercover officer is watching his house basically, and they watch
him drive to a local gun store and purchase a
nine millimeter and ammunition attempt to purchase. Well, no, he does.
He purchases it, but then he leaves the store without
taking the gun.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
And leaves his ID behind.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Yeah, he's just who does that? That's bizarre?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Andre McDonald, Well, something is going on with this guy
where clearly something's wrong, right, and he's also a pretty
high level military officer.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
So which, by the way, I was just gonna ask you, guys,
does that give you more way more leeway when it
comes to purchasing a firearm as a citizen, Like it
doesn't supersede the waiting periods or anything like that. Right,
you don't have like any special treatment because you're a
ranking military person.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Shouldn't. You can get as signed weaponry, but that's from
you and buying.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Something I didn't think. So I was just wondering, but
it would seem that he didn't have to. I don't
know what the laws are there, but he did. There
was no waiting period for he got spooked. It was
seeming and it's an almost behavior. Up to this point,
Bear County sheriffs have not named McDonald as a suspect,
but they are noting that he is extremely uncooperative, seems
(30:52):
to be not super worried about where his wife is
and when they When different people ask him about this,
he gives them different stories, which is also going to
come into play later.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
No spoilers. Eventually under question, I don't know how much
we want to get into the step by step with this,
but eventually he admits, Okay, my wife and I had
an argument. We visited our tax dude, basically the person
who prepares our taxes. We were arguing over our business,
which would both own.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
I left.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I left during the argument. I run away during arguments,
that kind of guy. And I went and got some
gas and just cool off, get some space, clear my head.
I have no idea where my wife could be, he
eventually told the police after you know, saying what was it?
She was in the hospital floated the idea that she
(31:49):
might be out of town.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well, yeah, it's weird. That hospital thing brings me out
to you guys. And that's part of this whole thing,
because it was on that first day, right when she
was missing and he was at work. He had taken
his daughter to school or you know, taken her to
wherever she was going early in the morning, then went
to work. When he got home, the sheriff's office was
(32:11):
already there, you know, basically with the rest of his
family looking for his wife. And he was like, oh,
I don't know, I don't know where she is. He thought, oh, well,
she gets migraines. Maybe she's in the hospital. And he
goes to the hospital asks the person at the front, hey,
is McDonald in here, like just asking for a McDonald.
The person at the front says, yeah, there is a
(32:32):
McDonald in here, and he goes, oh, okay, and then
he leaves, but he doesn't check to see if that
McDonald is his wife. And he goes back and he
tells that his family, his wife's mother, Yeah, she's in
the hospital.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
What That's another example of.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
So the mom calls a hospital and the hospital is like, no,
that is not No, your daughter is not here that
is a whole different person with the last name McDonald.
And then immediately after that he has for an attorney
he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Woof.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
And we know that this kind of behavior increasingly added
up to a picture that does not look good for
either member of this couple, particularly Andrew McDonald. Now they
are thinking less in terms of disappearance and more in
terms of a fatality. So when McDonald Andre McDonald is arrested,
(33:31):
he is initially arrested, not on suspicion of this murder,
not officially, he's initially arrested for evidence tampering because, going
back to the receipt we mentioned, he had allegedly torn
up the receipt, the physical receipt he had for these items,
all of which had been recently purchased. And it's still
(33:51):
not quite a red flag yet, but it is tampering
with evidence, and it's definitely on the gradient toward a
red flag.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
With all the learning that was going on, Why the
hell didn't he burn it? He just tore it up
and then they pieced it back together. That's so sloppy
and bizarre.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Well, it is, really, it is really weird because it's
on March second when they find that stuff in his trunk, right,
it's on March second when the search warrant occurs, and
that's when he buys the gun, and he gets picked
up right and gets evaluated. Then on March third, they
arrest him because he's basically going to walk free again
and they can't let him do that, so they at
(34:29):
least get him on that evidence tampering because they already
thought somebody whose wife is missing and is buying all
these things the next day, that's disposing of a body,
and that's all that could be. That's what at least
the Sheriff's department was thinking.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
And he initially admitted to buying these cleaning supplies. He's
being led away by deputies. He reportedly kept his statement
very short. He said, I love my daughter, I love
my family. That's it. He denied any involvement with his
wife's disappearance. He got released on bond. Meanwhile, all the
(35:05):
while the search Frandrine McDonald continued.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
And we're back, guys. This stuff is so damning, Like
every piece of evidence that has come up, it's borderline
makes you think was someone setting this guy up? Like
how could somebody be this stupid and and committing this
kind of crime. And I'm not suggesting that, but it's
just good lord.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's very hot dog story. Yeah, I think you should leave.
Uh huh yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, well, to my mind analyzing it, you know, from
this high up, in this far away in time, it
does seem like there was a lot of panic happening
here and that it wasn't fully planned out. It was
Oh crap, what do I do now? Oh crap, Well,
I I guess I gotta buy these things. Oh crap,
I guess I need a gun because if it goes bad.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Or whatever, be meditated the cover up, it might have
happened in a big old blow up, knock down, drag
out fight.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And that's not according to what he eventually says in
any either trial or anything. That's just what I'm well,
actually does kind of line up with what he's.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Saying he does. Yeah, it's pretty apparent. I think that
this was not This was not a plan decades in
the making, you know what I mean. This was not
a pre medicate, premeditated execution or operation. But we do know,
if we go back to this twenty nineteen era, we
do know that the Sheriff of Bear County grows increasingly
(36:35):
certain that Andre McDonald has for some reason murdered his wife.
He had killed her during an argument, and then, you know,
however that argument transpired, he panicked and attempted to dispose
of her body, and then attempted to erase the evidence
of his crimes, and every attempt he made only again
(36:58):
added to suspicion and made him a more prominent suspect
in the case. After six months of investigation, the community
members are still searching for this much beloved person, and
one of the people searching stumbles across scattered remains a
cadaver on a private ranch six miles away from the
(37:21):
McDonald family home. It's messed up. The authorities have to
resort to dental records to confirm identity, and those records
confirm this is indeed the body of Andrew McDonald. At
this point, Bear Counting closes in. Andre McDonald is charged
with first degree murder. It's all over the news. We
(37:44):
know that sometimes getting to trial in a court of
law takes longer than getting to trial in public opinion,
so it might surprise some of us to learn that
Andre McDonald doesn't go to trial until twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, that is kind of odd that there would be
that much of a backlog that you can't even get,
you know, to a trial unless they were doing some
kind of investigation still and they had to wait for
that to conclude before they could take him to trial.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Just seems so open and shut, you know. I mean,
but again, we're not, you know, the ones prosecuting cases
like this, So perhaps there is something to what you're.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Saying that, Well, if you've got a body that's that
decomposed and you don't have proof, like, how do you
convince a jury that he is definitely the guy that
killed his wife? Right?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Because technically all the physical evidence we've talked about would
be deemed circumstantial, all of that stuff that he.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Bought, right exactly, Yeah, it doesn't prove anything in it,
and any defense attorney could probably throw that stuff away.
So what you needed is, I'm assuming a DA would
say we need to find something that's really going to
make this.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Stick Dnair confession. I mean, a defense might not be
able to sway the jury against the conviction. There there's
a lot more context to it, I think, but the
possibilities there and yeah, DA would be much more happy
with evidence that was conclusive rather than circumstantial. I mean,
the prosecution establishes McDonald has a history of domestic violence,
(39:19):
which we'll get to in a moment. They also establish
all the circumstantial evidence the timeline we're talking about, and
the scrutiny shows that despite the public image of this
power couple, this amazing life, things had not been going
well at the McDonald homestead for a little while now.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
So, on the sixth day of the murder trial, nearly
four years after Andrea's death, Andre McDonald detailed his version
of events. This included the sharing of text messages that
were retrieved from his phone showing that she had likely
been having an affair.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Or he believed she was. Allegations of infidel that's right,
she was still The big point of contention between the
couple and at this juncture was that we mentioned Andrew
McDonald grew up in Jamaica and had previous boyfriends. Andre
McDonald was intensely concerned about Andrene being in contact with
(40:23):
one of her ex boyfriends, a businessman named Aubin au
b Yn Hall, who was also from Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Oh and what his part about leaving to go get
gas in the night of the argument that checks out.
He's on camera doing.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
That, and that's when the text chain was happening. That's
when Andrene says, quote, if you bring up Auben again,
I will divorce you myself. And then he responds, I
don't care if you get a divorce. You brought Auben
into our life, right.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
And one of the some of the high octing gas
on the fire here is that Andrine had gotten tattoos recently.
One was the initial A stylistically tattooed on her on
her hand and that cool little part between the thumb
and the pointer finger, and then a date tattooed on
(41:18):
her wrist. Audre is good at the internet, so he
does the digging, you know, the obsessive partner digging, and
he finds that the guy he considers his romantic rival, Aubin,
has the same tattoo.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Right here on like on his throat, the big A.
And it's the exact same it's.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
The same style. It's like a twist in a noir,
you know. I mean, it's the moment that you realize
what's happening. It all comes into full focus. And this
guy was clearly a very jealous man. He'd already made
ultimatums about the stuff, and yeah, it was well.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Also in a court of law that would still be circumstantially.
You can't get mad at people for tattoos. But if
you're a partner and you're already worried about something, just
imagine if the love of your life you getting a
tiff with them and then you see, oh, they've got
your tattoos. Oh they got oh matching tatty makes it
sound even dirtier.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Oh yeah, because it's not just one tattoo, it's multiple tattoos.
And if if you can just put yourself in that position,
not to like take sides in any of this stuff,
but just imagine being the partner in that. You can
be grumpy, that's what I'm not grumpy. You would be
betrayed and feel horrible that you would feel. It would
be like a different it would be like a type
of death.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
It's level, it's true.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
But so her second tattoo that she gets and her
husband doesn't know this at the time, she gets it
on her wrist fourteen three seventy six, and Andrea was
unsure what it was. Turns out it's the other dude's birthday,
so the fourteenth of March nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Yeah, she's pretty messy too, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
And I like that we're unanimously nined on this point
because this is not victim blaming. This is understanding the
perspective of another person, I knowing that is still circumstantial
in the court of law. I think it's fair to
say that anybody in a committed relationship already with problems
(43:30):
would be over a very bad moon about this kind
of activity, for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Exactly. It's just really important to note that finding out
about this extramarital affair or whatever was going on there,
which was at least according to several of Andrean's friends confirmed. Yeah,
but it didn't happen just before she was killed, right.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Just before the disappearance. Yeah it was it was years. Yeah, yeah,
it was quite a while before. But this did upset
the balance of the marriage. Andre was convinced his wife
was cut holding him with her earlier boyfriend, and she
threatened divorce, you know, unless she promised to do the following,
cut off contact with this guy, even when and if
(44:17):
she travels back to Port Antonio, cover up all those
tattoos that she gets and promises never ever to travel
to Jamaica without him, without Andre McDonald. These concerns seem
to smooth the waters a bit temporarily. It's what we
will call a band aid, But as time goes on,
(44:40):
they're still arguing about other things. They're arguing about businesses.
Because now this guy is clocking in right now, he
is always going to assume there are secrets, and he
claims that she opens a second business behind his back.
She keeps it a secret from him for more than
a year, and this brings more threats of divorce and
(45:03):
also he from his perspective, Andre McDonald is saying, look,
we partnered on this first business. She's taking funds from
what we do to start her own second business. So
essentially this my wife is robbing me. That the phrase.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Business as well, it would seem yeah, that's what he said.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
It's not great. It wouldn't be great if that were
actually the fact. But I don't know how much of
that is. You know, was established. I guess through discovery
during the trial that was like, yes, this is definitely happening.
Here is the business. She was using these funds to
do whatever we don't have all those facts. We have
we have what was reported from most of the transcripts
(45:50):
from the trial right about a lot of that stuff,
but it's not in full.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
And we don't have Andrea McDonald's testimony.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Exactly right, So we don't know fully what was happening.
This is this guy's opinion. There is stuff from there.
The tax who was it? It was their tax preparer
that they were using together, right, right, then ended up
coming up with a lot of that stuff. But theoretically,
what would that what could that mean? You guys, if
she's got a secondary.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Business, she's working our way towards escape.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Like divorce or or breaking the yeah, the thing into
like theoretically.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Having her own thing.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
That's where Yeah, that's that's where they talk about the
phrase that she would have used or maybe this is
you know, people quote each other or misquote and misconstrue
each other all the time in arguments. So we we
can read a few tea leaves in some of Audrey
McDonald's court statements at the trial. He says, quote, she
(46:47):
became extremely angry at the thought of us splitting the business,
by which I think they mean taking that first business
and splitting it in Twain.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Issues the starlight homes Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And he says, she charges into the room to confront me.
She comes right up in my face. At that moment,
she spat her spits, he says, in my face. So
at that point I grabbed her, and I think we
had a clash of heads, and I think it opened
up a cut somewhere on her face. And the rest
of his testimony is frankly quite disturbing because he is
(47:24):
describing in his mind accidentally killing someone but definitely meaning
to beat the snot out of them. He talks about
how she falls over and he kicks her twice, and
on the second kick he hears a wheezing coming out
of her. Hears the footsteps of what turns out to
(47:46):
be their daughter, who is detail Yeah, may have witnessed
the scene, he says. He argued in court that he
only struck her not because he's a domestic abuser, but
he only struck her because he was fearful that she
would harm him. He was frightened of her physical prowess
(48:06):
as a powerlifter.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
She is significantly taller than him and looks well, you
don't see a lot of him on Instagram, you know,
being super strong. But her Instagram is still up and
you can still find it, and she she was strong
as well. I can imagine him being intimidated at least,
but worried that she's gonna kill him or I don't know, I.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
Yeah, no, it's cuily. It doesn't matter in the context
of things. But like, we can't we weren't in the room.
We can't. We can't even really speculate on the ferocity
you know, of an exchange.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
Like this, Right, we only given that the only witness
is someone largely nonverbal. Right, The only non involved witness
there physically the child.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Just to remind me that she was on the spectrum
like to an extreme degree.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yes, yeah, and we're hearing. We're hearing someone choosing to
confess to a murder and then choosing the way in
which they confess it. Now, was Andrening in great shape?
Absolutely power lifter. Does hype matter that much in a
fight only if you're fighting with boxing rules or something
that can strange your activity. But that is what he said.
(49:21):
He said that he was frightened and he did not
He meant to hit her to protect himself, but he
didn't mean to enter life.
Speaker 4 (49:29):
It would seem to that wouldn't be surprised if he
was coached to set the scene in this fashion.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Oh that's a great point, Noel, because he did have
a defense team, and he lawyered up very quickly when
the sheriffs initially contacted him. So he tells the court
he puts their daughter back to bed, and after you know,
he calms the kid down and puts her to bed.
Speaker 4 (49:53):
He returns only to find right that has happened.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Now instead of calling nine, one.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
Dumps her body in a field.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, Christ take her, takes her clothing and burns it.
And also I would assume you guys told me. I
would assume this is at the point where he also
captures the phone, right.
Speaker 4 (50:17):
At least imagine.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
So yeah, So with all this, I mean, it's very
hard for us to hear an argument that this is circumstantial,
because it's legal to buy all all those items at
one point or another. It's also legal to buy a
gun and leave it in the store, or to go
to a store not by a gun.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
Yeah, I get I get caught up on this sometimes, guys.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts, like, you know, yes,
those things create this like seemingly sure a sense of
what happened, and yet they are considered circumstantial. I'm just
wondering what that being considered circumstantial and it admissible or
whatever for direct you know, conviction. What protects does that
(51:01):
offer us from that being misused? Because this just seems
like an example where it should be a slam dunk
because of these things. But no, it's circumstantial. I was
wondering what the idea of circumstantial evidence, like, where does
it actually protect the innocent? I don't know, it's maybe
all at home think about it. It's just something that
I get caught up on sometimes.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Yeah, let us know what you think fill a conspiracy realist,
I believe that's a great question. I mean, you could see,
we know in the past circumstantial evidence has led to
wrongful convictions. Right, A kid who maybe buys a cell
phone from someone who's fencing cell phone, so that cell
phone was from a murder victim.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
Sure, but why didn't this circumstantial evidence on its own?
It seemed like it required the confession.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean
it goes back to the burden of proof, right, What
is beyond a reasonable doubt, what is a reasonable out?
The jury Eventually, based on this discourse, they find McDonald
guilty not a first degree murder to the earlier point,
but of manslaughter. And like you're saying, it's primarily due
(52:14):
to his testimony in court, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
And we should have mention there too. According to some
of the jurors after the fact, they were split down
the middle six and six for manslaughter or murder, and
nobody thought he was innocent, nobody thought he was self defense.
They were just like, no, this dude killed his wife,
but do we charge him with murder or manslaughter because
of the situation surrounding, you know, whatever was happening and
(52:40):
the moment of panic and all that other stuff like
how much do we how much do we weigh that?
And eventually, and at least according to two jurors that
are interviewed for that forty eight hours episode, they went
with manslaughter because they could not get the other six
people to agree with murder.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
Yeah, there's also another ten gentile twist here. A few days,
I think, like two days forty eight hours before the trial,
he texts family members and talks about this, but kind
of like getting his story straight to them via text,
in what some called a move to make sure he
(53:19):
could steer the conversation towards manslaughter rather than murder. Either way,
he is sentenced. He gets twenty years in prison, where
he remains at the time of this recording. The public
as well as Andrew McDonald's family not happy with the verdict.
Furious in fact, they felt justice was not served. Twenty
(53:41):
years in prison is a finite amount of time, and
we'll never know what, you know, his victim would have
done that shud been allowed to live.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
Yeah, And after all that, a custody battle kind of rages,
because of course there was the most heartbreaking part of
this story to me anyway, the child there who might
have witnessed not only ongoing potentially domestic abuse and you know,
disturbances between the parents who had seemed perpetrated by by
(54:15):
mister McDonald, but also potentially was a witness to her
mother's murder.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
Yeah. Yeah, And with this, with this custody battle, eventually,
you know, Andrew McDonald's mother wins the case.
Speaker 4 (54:35):
As civil at this point, right.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
Yeah, Well, they're trying to figure out, you know, where's
the safest home for the kid. So then yes. In
twenty twenty three, Andrew McDonald's family wins a pretty significant
civil that's also wrongful death case for two hundred and
ten million US dollars and damages against Andre McDonald.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
I had that kind of money, No.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Not that we know of. And in August of this year,
as we record August of twenty twenty four, his most
recent appeal was just denied. So it seems for now
he will continue to serve the time. But this there's
a stranger profile here, you guys, because it's portrayed as
a crime of passion, no premeditation other than post fact
(55:26):
right trying to cover up the crime. Not long after
Andre MacDonald was convicted, his own father found himself in
court accused of murdering both his first and his second wives.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
What the heck? Yeah, that's a twist, I mean, but
it was also been to your point, especially here in
the Dog. Perhaps it is an indication of that continuum
of generational trauma and violence that we talk about a
lot on the show.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
I'm wondering, I'm wondering. We know the father, Everton McDonald,
known as Beachy Stout to his friends and his co
defendant Oscar Barnes were later found guilty in Jamaica's Supreme
Court for at least the death of Tanya McDonald. You
can find a piece on this in the Jamaica Observer
(56:18):
and a couple of other local papers. Apparently he had
tried to pay a guy named Denvelen Bubbla Minote three
million dollars to kill his wife or Beachy stout hat,
and he gave him exact instructions. He said, stab her
and then burn her body. This guy couldn't do it,
(56:39):
so he sub contracted the hit to a guy named
Oscar Barnes, and both of those guys got convicted. I
believe they are in jail for life.
Speaker 4 (56:50):
That's there is this cay getting three million bucks.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
That's another question, right.
Speaker 4 (56:56):
I'm sorry. I do feel like we're ending with a
few open questions, yes, which is fine.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
And folks, I love the point you made. Know about
bringing up more questions. There are things we can't answer.
But we can't answer one question right now. Why are
we bringing up this case long after it's been solved,
long after this innocent child has been saved. Well's primarily
because we see a disturbing trend in violence against women.
(57:27):
You know, and in these cycles of abuse, did the
son learn from the father and feel physical violence was appropriate.
How do we in the audience raise children in community
to avoid such horrific acts? And you know, right now
the United States is struggling to preserve the rights of
(57:47):
women over the next four years and beyond. This is
something to think about.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Well, it's a big deal her in Andrea's life too,
because according to her co workers, according to some of
her good friends, she was in an abusive relationship and
she was she would come in with scratches on her
face that her friends would take note of and ask
her about, and she would, you know, she would even
say to them, ohs Andre, you know it's Andre, But
(58:14):
I don't know, Like how when there's something like that,
how do we effectively have stuff in place so that
so that someone can really be loud about it, Hey,
I'm under attack at home.
Speaker 4 (58:27):
It's just so difficult, though, because oftentimes there's that Stockholm
syndrome of it all, where they know they don't want
to be loud about her, they feel compelled to defend
the abuser. And that's the real complex part of it.
And it also involves a lot of psychological abuse. And
coercion and just having people breaking people down to make
them feel as though they need you.
Speaker 3 (58:48):
You know. Normalization and erosion of boundaries can sent the
one thing and then driving tonimalize your horrific behavior toward others. Yeah,
I agree with these points. Domestic violence cannot simply be
legislated away. It's a multi, multi generational pattern. It comes
from many different sources. There are resources available to help folks,
(59:11):
and that's why we're looking at this story today. Please please,
please be safe. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We would love to hear your thoughts. We try to
be easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
It's very You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist, on Facebook where we have our Facebook
group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube where we
have video content galore for you to enjoy, and on xfka, Twitter,
on Instagram and TikTok. We're a Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
We have a phone number one eight three three STDWYTK.
When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know if we can use your name and
message on the air. If you've got more to say,
then can fit in that voicemail. Why not instead send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. We always love to hear from you.
This is a last, but not least way to contact us.
We can all see it, we can all respond. There
are we haven't put in rules yet. Please please don't
make us do so, but do let us know if
we can share your message on air, to give us
(01:00:14):
the links, take us to the edge of the rabbit hole.
Tell us what's on your mind, and even if it's
something that you don't want to share with the larger
conspiracy realist crew, we've got your back. We're just happy
to hear from you. Join us out here in the
dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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