December 4, 2025 • 46 mins
Rebecca Kay Park is 38 weeks pregnant when she goes missing on November 3.
Three weeks later, her body is found by volunteer searchers. On the same day the body was discovered, authorities arrested Park's fiancé, Richard Falor, 43, and her sister, Kimberly Park, 21.
Those arrests are not directly tied to the murder of Rebecca, but the arrests of her biological mother, Cortney Bartholomew, and stepdad, Bradly Bartholomew, are....
Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack break down the latest information on what the prosecutor calls "Evil Personified," the death of Rebecca Kay Parker and her baby.
Transcribe Highlights
00:00.00 Joe loves babies
04:06.04 Pregnant woman missing three weeks
09:36.88 Volunteer searchers find body
14:49.78 Last seen with biological mother, fiancé and sister arrested the day Rebecca's body is found
19:47.97 Wounded areas decomposing quicker
25:08.60 Average temps, mid 30s
31:15.44 Biological mother charged in murder of Rebecca
35:06.76 Stabbed, compelled to go into wooded area
40:12.66 Rebecca was kept alive while baby cut from womb
44:57.98 Will case be a double-homicide?
45:45.54 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Bodybags.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
But Joseph's gotten more any of y'all that have listened
to body bags for anytime at all. You know that
I love babies, I truly do. I love holding babies.
I love taking care of babies. I miss those days
(00:23):
when my kids were tiny. I miss those days my
grandbabies were tiny. There's nothing quite like it, because you
know that they're in your arms swaddled. You've got this
fragile little gift. Today on body bags, Dave McK and
(00:46):
I are going to dig into a case that has
just suddenly burst on the radar for us, particularly as
of today, that is so dark and it's so very
evil that I don't know if I have the words
to describe the horror that is involved. But I can
(01:09):
tell you this, and I know this down in my heart. Science,
as in all matters of death, investigation is going to
point the way to the truth. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
and this is body bags. Dave. When you reached out
(01:32):
to me today, I got to tell you I had
a vision in my mind of forking the road where
I'm thinking, do I want to go down this path?
Because looking down it, I see all kinds of sinister
elements here that are so very troubling that I again,
(01:54):
words kind of fail me here. But we're going to
make it through this and we're going to take a
look at this case because people need to know.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You. You mentioned a fork in the road. Yeah, okay,
you mentioned fork in the road, and it reminded me
of Yogi Berra, yea baseball player. Oh yeah. One of
his sayings was, when you come to a fork in
the road, take it. Now. The truth of it is
that to get to Yogi Berra's house, there truly was
(02:25):
a fork in the road, and either way you went,
it became the driveway for his house. So something that
sounds weird was perfectly sensible to him. In this story,
we're going to talk to you about Rebecca K. Park.
She's twenty two years old and she is thirty eight
(02:45):
weeks pregnant. The last time she has seen is on
November third, leaving her mother's house. Now, there's a very
interesting part of the story that you have to know
right off the bat. Rebecca Park was not raised by
her biological mother, Courtney Bartholomew, whether her children, whether Courtney
(03:06):
Bartholomew's children were taken from her, or whether they were
given up for adoption. Were not clear on that. We
just know that Rebecca and her sibling maybe plural, were
adopted out and raised by an adoptive family. And here
we are now, she's twenty two and thirty eight weeks pregnant,
(03:27):
and her mother's back in the scene. We know very
little of their interaction, but it is not uncommon for
children that are adopted to find their way back to
a biological parent. Oftentimes it's the biological parent who tries
to reach back and establish contact. They feel bad about
what they've done in their life. They know for whatever reason.
(03:49):
I'm not putting words into anybody's mouth because while that
might be your situation, it is not this situation. So
when she goes missing, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We've all got questions, right, I mean, we all have questions,
you know. And I'm kind of fleeing to the defense
here of people that have been adopted out because you
have questions about who you are from whence you came.
We talk a lot about genetics on this on this program,
and uh, you know, there's no need here for you know,
(04:23):
I don't know for forensic genetic genealogy in this case
that you know, the information that we have forensically to
this point. Boy, when I say dark, it paints such
a dark picture from what we know at this point.
Now we've heard there's been information in the wind that's
kind of floated about, uh for about the past week.
(04:47):
But now I got to tell you you you pinged
me today, and BOYD do we have more information now?
And that's why we need to move forward with us.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
When this story first happened a couple of weeks ago,
I remember you were on I don't know if this
Core TV or what channel what, I don't know what
network called you. But there's this missing woman, a twenty
two year old woman who is thirty eight weeks pregnant,
and she's missing. We've got to find her. And this
was It's crazy to think of somebody at that that's
(05:17):
that's your I mentioned this. My daughter Hannah was born
at thirty seven weeks gestation. We're a little bit early. Yeah,
so she's at thirty eight weeks, This baby can come
any minute, and she is missing. What kind of condition?
What physically can a woman at that stage of pregnancy
deal with if they're out in the woods.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well particularly, and let's back up a second this is
a technician place in Michigan. Okay, So we've got a
young woman who is out there and let's face it,
Dave a thirty eight week pregnancy or gestational age. Let's
(05:58):
say that that it's that far down down down the
line with a pregnancy. They're the most vulnerable among us,
all right. I mean, because they're living for two at
this point in time. You have to wonder what kind
of care is she receiving because she kind of vanishes
off the radar. And I think that that's one of
(06:20):
the things that's very chilling about this. But she's got
kind of even though it's very distorted and muddled, she
does have a group of people that are in her world,
including a biological sister. Now, you had mentioned that she
(06:41):
had been adopted out, but the biological sister had also
been adopted out as well. And I'm curious as to
and we don't have an answer to this, but I'm
just kind of throwing this out there. How did they
both go to the same family and they were both raised,
you know, what was the impetus behind them perhaps making
contact with their actual biological mother. I think that that's
(07:04):
an interesting dynamic here. But the sister in this case,
the biological sister does play a role in Rebecca's case.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well, when the case was rolling out, Joe, and there
were searches, volunteers, and many times when people have been
out searching, and we've done so many crime related shows
where searches were under were being done, And I've always
wondered how prepared people are to take part in a search,
because it's not just going out to help look for somebody.
(07:34):
At a certain stage, you're not looking for a living being.
You're looking for the body of somebody. And I wonder
how prepared people really are, because well, yeah, there's no preparation, Joe.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, there's not. And there's some parallels here between. It's
often been said that labor and delivery in a hospital
is literally the most ful place in the world. You know,
when you walk down the hallway in a labor delivery
ward and you can actually see those babies, you hear
(08:09):
laughter and happiness, h with the birth of a new life.
But brother, let me tell you something. When things go
dark on a labor and delivery ward, it gets really dark,
really quick. And what I mean by that is that
when you have a child that dies, when you have
a mother that has severe complications. Brother, it didn't get
(08:32):
much darker than that. And you know, with with Rebecca,
we have a young woman who is this far along
in her pregnancy. Dude, She's not surrounded by anybody that
can provide any kind of substantive care for her at all.
All we know is that she's missing, and she's out
(08:56):
there all alone in Michigan, in nova and she's at
full term. And again, that makes the most resilient among
us kind of shaking our boots a little bit. And
back to the idea that when you're on a search
team and you're looking for somebody, just like on the
(09:18):
obg Y n Ward, you're thinking you have hope. Right,
searchers have hope too. They're not going out, Dave, to
find a deceased person. There is that kernel of hope
that is within them where they're hoping that they're going
to find her safe and protected, that there is going
(09:39):
to be a celebration, if you will, that they have
found her securedor and Dave, that's just not the case here, brother.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
You know, I'm so glad you pointed that out because
there was a show on It's on Netflix right now
and it's out of South Carolina. It's missing anyway, they
had they were doing an episode of a missing child,
and they sucked me in early, and based on how
the mother was acting in just the scene and everything,
I'm like, oh, this kid's gone, you know, and they're
(10:07):
searching in the woods, and it's like, I just they
found this child. Okay, he's a toddler, And they did
find him out in the woods after a number of hours,
I mean, And it was a great feeling. I'm not
kidding as I was watching that, because I didn't think
they were going to find an actual child, because we
don't get those stories very often, and in this particular case,
there was hope at first that they would find her.
(10:27):
But you know what, Joe, you mentioned, it's cold. She's
last scene at her mother's house getting into a car,
a dark colored car, And there was enough bad about
this that that was the tone. She's last scene getting
into a dark colored car on November three at her
mother's And I have to go back to this because
(10:48):
when they first reported her mother, I just assumed that,
like most people at her mother's house, the mother of
the raised her, you know, But that's not the case. No,
this mother that reported that she was last seen with
is actually a boy named Courtney Bartholomew. Courtney Bartholomew did
not raise Rebecca or her sister, and we don't know
(11:11):
when she came back into their life, but she was
the biological mother, but did not raise and they were
raised by adoptive parents. I want to point that out
because what's coming up next is, as Paul Harvey used
to say, the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, well, I can tell you this. This search party
that had been formed and they were feverishly looking for Rebecca.
They did find her, and unfortunately, when they found her
in this dark forested area, on that dirty forest floor,
(11:47):
the circumstances, it's not like she's found. How can I
say this intact, She's found three weeks downrange from the
point time when she was last seen, in a state
that we can only think is in decay. And the
(12:09):
baby that we're so hopeful for it's not there. It's
not there. All we have are the remains of Rebecca
laying on the ground. Her body, by all accounts at
this point, has been greatly traumatized, and the story that
(12:31):
her body reveals is the stuff of nightmares. Brother Dave
The story is so muddled here because there's so many actors.
(13:00):
You know, the shakespeare In comment about you know the
world is a stage, you know, and you've got these
actors that come back and forth. Boy, this is there's
quite a cast here, I have to say. And I
think that this all begins with this biological sister. Who
remind me of did you say that or isn't it
(13:23):
out there that the sister Rebecca is like twenty two
and the sisters twenty one on one?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, they're very close in age. They were both adopted
by their biological mother is Courtney Bartholomew, who's forty years old. Now,
Courtney Bartholomew did not raise her girls. An adoptive parents
took them and raised them. And now it is Courtney
(13:51):
Bartholime the viol that's who is last scene with Rebecca.
Her sister Kim is twenty one. Now I didn't want
to add one quick thing. Yeah, on this day, November three,
Rebecca had inherited two thousand dollars, so she had two
grand in cash with her and I'm wondering what that
(14:13):
may have come into play because she's got two grand.
Last person's caesar is the biological mother who did not
raise her, and she goes missing. The day she has
found on November twenty fifth by volunteers. Volunteers found the
body of Rebecca k. Park in the woods while they
were looking for her. But that day you and I
(14:35):
were on the phone, because on November twenty fifth, they arrested.
Police arrested her fiancee and her sister. Now, Rebecca's fiance
is a forty seven year old drug dealer. His name
is Richard. What's his age again? Forty three?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, he's forty three and she's twenty two.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Right, And to be very very specific here, Richard Fowler
at forty three is older than Rebecca's biological mother, who's
only forty okay. Now, Kimberly Park twenty one, the little
sister of Rebecca. Again, Rebecca thirty eight weeks pregnant, gone
for three weeks. Her body is found in the woods
(15:16):
and there's no baby, and her fiance, her forty three
year old fiance, Richard Fowler, is arrested and her twenty
one year old little sister, Kimberly is arrested. Now this
is the interesting part, Joe. I remember I was on
the phone with you on November twenty fifth, when this happened,
and I said, hey, what do you think you know?
(15:37):
Because were they having a relationship? What was going on?
You know, try to figure this out. No, they arrest
Richard Fowler. He's a drug deal. He was arraigned on
two counts of delivering methamphetamine. He's got a million dollars bond.
That's not a little yeah, Kimberly Park. The victim's sister,
Rebecca is twenty two and dead. We don't know what
(15:58):
happened to her baby, and is charged with this Joe
tampering with evidence, okay, lying to a police officer, and
filing a false report.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
He likes, Oh my lord, Okay. So it's at that point,
you know, because you and I have discussed this before,
and will I'll beat this drum until the day I
close my eyes in eternal sleep. You're more at risk
(16:32):
with the intimates in your life than you are with
total strangers, okay. And I think that anybody is potentially
capable of anything. I find it interesting also that you
put this element in here, of the two thousand dollars
that she suddenly come into at this point in time,
and you're talking about a man who has gotten her pregnant.
(16:58):
He's a drug deal I don't you know. I don't
know if he is a drug user. I would say
if I were a betting man, that might be the case.
Money can really tempt people and drive people to do
incredible things. I'm not saying that he's necessarily involved. You'd
(17:19):
said that he's not charged in her disappearance at all.
But go back to this baby sister. She's charged with
filing a false police report right, lying to the police.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You know, I gotta tell you certain things are not
adding up here, but I can tell you this going
back to Rebecca when they found her in this wooded area.
You know, we had gotten information about this case. We've
kind of held off on talking about it, but I'll
go ahead and let the cat out of the back.
(17:55):
At this moment, there had been information that was floating
about that not only was the baby missing when she
was found, but Dave, there's some indication that when she
is initially observed, she sustained some kind of significant abdominal trauma.
(18:17):
And it has to be significant. And let me tell
you why. Because downrange we talk a lot about post
warum interval here and we've talked a lot about decomposition.
I think that we even did an entire episode we
voted to decomposition on body backs, and we probably will
revisit that again. If you're able at a scene to
(18:39):
delineate between decomposition of a body that's been down for
three weeks now maybe if we're using that date of
November three, if you're able to delineate between decompositional artifact
and trauma, the trauma must be unimaginable. I can only imagine.
(19:05):
My heart goes out to these people that. Again I
go back to that word of hope. They're holding out
hope that they can actually save her in some way,
you know, return her to safety. That's not the case
here what they witnessed. And I cannot even begin to
fathom how the search party, and particularly the person that
put their eyes on her first, they're going to be
(19:27):
able to process this. This is something that will haunt
them the rest of their lives, because you know pregnant women,
you think about how vulnerable they are. You're hoping that
you can find them, and that's just not the case here.
What they found was a woman that had apparently been
severely traumatized and She's been left and discarded out in
these woods like garbage.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
For three weeks. Joe, Now what's her body going to
be like in three weeks time? The areas that were injured,
you know, being stabbed, cut, whatever, aren't those areas going
to dec in that area quicker than other parts of
her body?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Holy smokes, you've been listening to what I've been preaching
now for all this time. I feel, Okay, this is it.
My work here is done. Let's revisit this just for
a second. Anytime a body is traumatized in any way,
Let's say it's a cut or even a gunshot woman,
(20:24):
and I'd say a bludgeoning as well, particularly where the
tissue is open, and it accelerates this process of decomposition,
so over a three week period. And I don't know
environmentally what the attempts have been in Michigan at this point.
(20:45):
I know that I have friends that live in Michigan,
and I love going to Michigan, particularly you know, up
around Traverse City and all of this. I know that
they get snows in Michigan. They always measure when they
receive their first snowfall by Halloween. I've had friends that
are up there that said that they've trick or treated
(21:06):
in snow before whatever it is, you know, which for
us down here in the South is something that's so odd.
But yeah, it's going to be you have to balance
that against you know, environmental temperatures. We know that heat
speeds things up. But if a body is traumatized already, Dave,
and it's left out, you know, it's subjected to the environment,
(21:27):
it will rapidly accelerate. It's going to accelerate the process
of decomposition, particularly when you're talking about any kind of
abdominal injury. Okay, you've already got little nasties that are existing,
you know, within our bowel. If that area, that space
has been compromised at all, it'll even further exacerbate the
(21:50):
process of decomposition. So I think that what we the
takeaway here is that they would have had to have
controlled that scene very carefully, because if she were to
have been killed in that location, you're not just looking
(22:10):
at decompositional artifact with things like we talked about decompetitial
fluids and all those sorts of things, David. If she
was killed in that spot, and I have to assume
that she was you're gonna have blood depositions surrounding that area.
So if you think about fallen leaves on a forest floor,
did you know that we can actually pick up on
blood droplets on leaves, But you have to be very
(22:32):
very careful. You have to control that space. Once you
find the body, it's like, thank you for your assistance,
Everybody back out. At this point in time, we're throwing
up a barricade of something you know, the yellow tape,
and only certain people are allowed in this case. In particular,
out there in that location would take such a protracted
(22:53):
period of time to process because you're dealing with a
lot of unknowns here. What we do know is that
we've got a woman that has previously been identified as
having been pregnant. You have to take that into consideration.
And you don't know the path that she came in on,
or that those that brought her to that location. We
(23:14):
don't know what path they use to approach the location
where she is killed. That's going to be very fragile.
Then all of the blood deposition that is there surrounding
her body is going to be very fragile. We're talking
about footprints, which in a forested area where many times
you have that kind of I don't know, loamy kind
of soil. Impression evidence is going to be key here
(23:36):
as well. If she was killed in that location, we
have to assume and particularly if she's pregnant, she's going
to be lying down. You can actually pick up many times, Dave,
I've actually seen this where you can see where perpetrators
kneeled beside bodies. Wow, you can't say definitively that this
(23:57):
is the mark of a knee, but you can speculate
on that, you know, when you're trying to understand the
movements of potential perpetrator. So this area is just rife
with fragile evidence in here, and I'll be very curious
to see how they process this and is there any
way to tie back I think specific say impression evidence
(24:19):
related to footprints, movement. How many people were in this
party that took her out there. It's got to be
more than just one person. We've got a sister that's
already been charged. What kind of information did she know?
Was she physically present there when this happened?
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Based on the charges, you kind of can lead that away.
And by the way, I did look up the temperatures
I wanted to know this because there was on average
about thirty four degrees in this in Wexford County where
this it took place in Michigan. But during the course
between November third and November twenty fifth, when every body
was found, they had the lowest temperature of the month
(24:55):
happened on the nineteenth and it was thirteen degrees. Wow,
the highest brid dread the month, and it was a
major anomaly. It was fifty six degrees on November fifteenth.
So in a four day window, you have a higher
fifty six and the low of thirteen. And you know
that's pretty that's a big disparity of temperature. And yet
you've got really cool temperatures. What about Okay, we've got
(25:20):
to deal with rodents, animals. You're out in the woods.
What if the body was killed somewhere else and brought
to this place and dumped?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, if if she were to have been killed in
another location. I began to think about conveyances at that
point in tom Okay, because we've had cases where individuals
have been killed obviously I'm stating the obvious here, have
been killed in other locations and then dumped. But they've
got to tell you there's information that's kind of coming
(25:54):
to light that kind of sounds like that ain't the
case here. But going back to conveyances, if you think
about motor vehicles, you mentioned at the top that we've
got this kind of mysterious vehicle that she's placed into,
or that she's maybe lured or compelled to get into
by threats. We don't really know, And she's now moved
(26:17):
out to that direction. I want to know what did
the sister know? When did she know it? It's kind
of interesting too, this quote unquote, and I'm using this
term very loosely, this father of the child, what did
he know? But it sounds as though that he I
(26:39):
don't know if he's he just happens to have been
kind of a peripheral character here. Did he actually have
knowledge of what was going on? But isn't it interesting
that they hooked him up on charges as well? Almost
can we say sopaneously.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yes, At the day, the day that her body was found,
he's charged with two counts of well, first they weren't
told that, we didn't tell us the charges. They put
him in jail and her sister in jail the same
day that she was found, and didn't have charges on
him at first. The charges came later, and that's when
they hooked him up on two counts of delivering metamphetamine
(27:14):
before the judge even set his bail at one million dollars.
Then Kimberly, the sister who's twenty one, was arranged the
same day on charges of tampering with evidence, lying to
a police officer, and filing a false report. Now it's
unclear if those charges are related to the case of
her sister who's dead and a baby that's missing, but Joe,
her bail is set at seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Oh loose smokes.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The information that we have about who Rebecca was last with,
seen getting into a dark colored car comes from her
biological mother, who lo and behold was the reason I
called you today.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Let me hang on, let me hover over the sister
one more time? Would give me that number again.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
The bail for her seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
and the charges are tampering with evidence, lying to a
police officer, and filing a false report.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Why fifty thou? Why that huge number? The only thing
I can think of is I don't know from and
again I'm not a prosecutor or a judge obviously don't
want to be, trust me. The word that comes to
mind is leverage. That is a huge number to hang
(28:37):
on a twenty one year old. I don't know if
she's got priors. I have no idea, but you know,
and yeah, I mean those charges are you know that
those things that she has been charged with are quite egregious.
But three quarters of a million dollars they're holding her
on at this point in time, I don't know. I
(28:59):
don't know if these people are people of means. I
would say probably not, because at least in Rebecca circle,
she's in an intimate relationship with a guy who is
essentially delivering meth and they've hooked him up on two charges.
(29:19):
I don't think that this guy has got you know,
like stashes of cash laying around necessarily, So what would
be the purpose of putting these astronomical numbers on them
other than the fact they're trying to get more information?
And I can tell you this, the police, as it
turns out, do have a virtual cornucopia of information that
(29:47):
is going to reveal something that is so dark and
so evil that I don't know that we can completely
describe it without breaking down tears. That brings us to today. Dave, Oh,
(30:17):
my lord, and I'll go ahead and let all of
our friends know you and I are speaking about this
on December twenty twenty five. As of today, we've got
additional people that have been charged in this case, Brother Dave,
let me have it. Let me know what we have got. Man.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You know, there is one person who's actually proud of
this broadcast today is because we didn't lead with what
we normally do. We actually carried it through. Because this
is the reason we're doing this story today. When Joe
first brought this story up, it was because you were
being asked to talk about this missing pregnant woman, then
missing pregnant wom who's found in the woods. You know, well,
(30:56):
now we have discovered Courtney Bartholomew, the forty year old
biological mother who did not raise Rebecca or her sister Kimberly,
but is the mother, and they keep referring to her
as the mother. She's now been charged, as has Bradley Bartholomew,
Courtney's husband, who's forty seven, and they keep referring to
(31:17):
Courtney and Bradley as the parents. They are not the
parents of Rebecca. Okay, Courtney is the biological mother. Today.
Both the biological mother and her husband were charged with
one count of first degree murder, one count of felony murder,
(31:39):
one count of torture, one count of conspiracy to commit torture,
one count of assault on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage
still birth, and one count of conspiracy to commit assault
on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage still birth.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
My lord, that is a lot of information to digest.
There's also charged.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
With They were also charged with one count of unlawful imprisonment.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Oh god, yeah, sorry, okay, let's just start with that charge,
unlawful imprisonment and you use the T word there, torture. Yeah, okay.
So the police have enough information at this point in
time to kind of paint a picture for us. The
(32:31):
one thing that look, I'm very interested in Rebecca, but Dave,
huh you mentioned it one of the big Kimberly. I'm sorry,
you mentioned Kimberly in the seven hundred fifty thousand dollars bond. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
she was the source. She has to have been. She
(32:51):
has to have been the source. She's the wellspring that
all of this comes from. The One thing I'm really
curious about is the baby, because to this point we
don't we don't have a child. At least that is
(33:11):
information that's coming out where we say we have a
body of an infant. They're not saying that now. They
are saying that this crime was perpetrated against a pregnant
woman and that she was assaulted in order to was
it induce was it what's the phraseology here in induce
(33:32):
a miscarriage or birth or what's going on with us?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It was they were the charge was committing assault on
a pregnant individual causing miscarriacter stillbirth, and it's the conspiracy
to commit assault and the pregnancy being ended through a
miscarriacter still birth is the result of that, you know,
the assault. But j let me share something with you
that we shared in court today. The prosecutor for Wexford County,
(34:04):
her name is Joanna Carey. She told the judge in
trying laying out the case and asking for a huge bail,
they bring out a lot of information at these not
all of it, but enough. This is what the prosecutor
told the judge today. Mister Bartholomew brought Rebecca to their home.
(34:27):
He and Courtney forced her Rebecca into another vehicle and
took her into the woods where they stabbed her, forced
her to lie on the ground while they cut her
baby out, and ultimately caused her death and the death
of the baby. Then they then left Rebecca in the woods. Joe,
(34:51):
she was alive while they were cutting the baby out.
They kept her alive. That's the torture. They were torturing
her to try to steal the baby, keeping her alive
and to take the baby. They were trying to get
a live baby out of her.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Okay. So with that said, and thinking about what the
prosecutor said in the statement that was made in court,
we can kind of put some things together here because
the first statement that she makes is that she was stabbed,
and that's to me, that sounds like menacing, Okay, because
(35:26):
the stabbing necessarily the way they kind of ordered their
comments here, It's like she stabbed, but it's a non
lethal stab. Okay, it's a non lethal sharp force injury.
They're trying to compel her to get into the woods.
Can you imagine the terror here? I can't on any level.
(35:47):
So she stabbed. She's compelled to go into this wooded area,
and oh my lord, you're talking about taking I don't
know the same instrument. Perhaps I doubt. Knowing what I
know about having worked in the more for years and years,
I can guarantee you I don't think they had a
number two twenty. They had a number twenty two scalpel
(36:10):
blade with you know, with retractors, wow, and forceps and
everything else that you need in order to facilitate a
cesarean birth in a clinical environment. Oh my god, Dave,
this is so evil.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
So hey, Joe, there's another line in here that they
got to give you. You're ready. The prosecutor called it
a case of premeditated torture and murder, alleging that the
Bartholomew's created a plan and conducted research.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Okay, this harkens back to a case that I've talked
about before, cases with the piked in Massacre. Been involved
in that docuseries and the podcast we've covered. Dave and
I have covered it, and that was where one family
killed another family on one night. They had four different
crime scenes, eight people dead. I've often wondered, how do
(37:07):
you get to this point just from dare I say
a morality standpoint where you're sitting around the kitchen table,
because Dave, you're talking about planning now and research to boot.
You're sitting around the kitchen table and you're saying, just
like they did in Piked, and this is what we're
going to do, and that this is what you come
(37:28):
up with. You're going to go out taking a pregnant
woman who is full term by the way, take her
out there and torture her in order to extract a
full term baby so that they can do what with
the baby. I have no idea, but you're leaving the
(37:49):
mother there again being tossed out. I think that one
of the things that's going to be really interesting to
follow here from a forensic standpoint is not just the
level of decomposition and the PMI and all that stuff
that we talk about, but also I want to understand
the status of these injuries. Okay, because what was mentioned
(38:10):
here is that she has been stabbed. So going on
what the prosecutors saying, that stab wound obviously is going
to have hemorrhage in the wound track, okay, and even
in the state of decomposition, we can pick up on
that Okay, However, as we begin to move down her
(38:31):
body and we think about this insult that has taken
place in her abdominal region, on my Lord Dave, is
their hemorrhage in that area? Because if there is hemorrhage
in that area where this incision has been made with
whatever kind of rudimentary tool that they have brought with them,
(38:51):
if there is hemorrhage in there, if they did not
wait for her to bleed out and die, and do
this in a post warm state, this this reaches depths.
I was going to say, heights. This reaches depths that
I don't know that you and I have really probed
before here on body backs, because there will be distinct
injuries if they are doing some kind of some kind
(39:15):
of rudimentary cesarean incision on her where in that wound track,
as that blade is drug across the surface of her skin,
where you will see focal areas of hemorrhage, she will
have to be restrained. That's why this would have taken
more than one person. If she's found in say and okay,
(39:36):
and let me go back just a second. If she
is found lying in a supine position, which means face up,
my thought is someone would have to a minimum hold
her shoulders down on the ground while the other person
is wielding this instrument to drag across her abdomen. And
it's not just making a superficial cut day. We're talking
(39:57):
about a cut that's going to go through the dermis.
It's going to go through the subcy fat, through the
fascia that's in there, to get down actually to the womb,
to open the womb, to get through the placenta, and
then to extricate the baby. At that moment in time,
I only pray, I only pray that she passed out
(40:20):
as a result of blood loss, that she did not
have an awareness that this was occurring. Because when this
thing is presented in court and if we have an
indication now, because it sounds like the prosecutor they have
a lot of data here, this is going to be
a tail so dark that I can't imagine that this
(40:42):
would even be defensible. You cannot say. I don't think
that any right thinking person can actually say, well, this
was a case of temporary insanity. You know, no, no, no, no,
that's not going to work in this case. You've got
two people that purposed in their life to rob this
woman of her life and also, as it turns out,
(41:05):
the life of her unborn child, who at this point
she's thirty eight weeks dave. This baby is viable. But
they're saying now, according to the charges, that this was
apparently a still birth. Going back to the sister in
this point of leverage, what did she know and when
did she know it? Is this something? Was she present
(41:26):
for this? Did she stand by and watch as her
biological sibling is tortured and literally, I don't know how
to say it, disemboweled there in that forest. Did she
watch that or was this conveyed to her? You know?
(41:46):
Did these two alleged perpetrators did they come back home
and say, well, yeah, the baby didn't make it. Still
I have to say, where is the baby? You know,
because they're talking about stillbirth. That tells me that the
baby is deceased. So where is the baby? Was the
(42:07):
baby at the scene? It sounds like the baby wasn't
because they've said over and over again that you've got
this young woman twenty two years old, Rebecca, who's found
with her abdomen literally open and left in this forested area.
Where did they take the baby and where did they
deposit the baby? What's the status of the baby. Did
(42:29):
the baby here's another question, Dave, did that baby ever
draw breath? Okay, did that baby ever draw breath? Was
that baby living outside of the womb at that point
in time? How long did this event? I was going
to say procedure, This is not a procedure. How long
did this horror last? Did when mom died? Finally? Did
(42:52):
the baby die in utero? Did they not get to
the baby in tom You know, we've covered other cases
like this. I recall a case out of the Judas.
There was another case in Chicago. There was a case
where was it in Oklahoma or Kansas? Or in Kansas
where this is.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Lisa Montgomery was just put to death over that one
a couple of years ago where she lured the woman
over a dog, a pregnant woman and ended up choking
around and taking the baby and the woman's die and
she was convicted and sentenced to death, and they just
it took years, but they finally did put her to
death with Joe. I think the charge, the charging here
(43:30):
actually tells us what happened to the baby. Both Courtney
Bartholomew and her husband Bradley were charged with first degree murder,
one kind of felony murder, one kind of torture, one
kind of conspiracy to commit torture, one count of assault
on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage, stillbirth, miscarriage and still
(43:58):
means the baby was not very thing, did not breathe, right.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I would, yeah, I would. I would think so if
they're if they're talking about this is not okay, this
is not a miscarriage. A miscarriage implies that that's that's
kind of a natural event. You could say that she miscarried.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
That's the charge assault on a pregnant individual causing a miscarriage. Yeah,
there are.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Cases out there there, Yeah, there are there are cases
out there where you have pregnant, uh, pregnant women that
have been kicked in the abdomen and that results in
a miscarriage. Okay, But to say still born, if you
take that component of the law and the charge there,
that gives you an indication that the baby was deceased
(44:47):
at that point in Tom, I think here here's another
bit to this, because if I remember correctly, Scott Peterson, right, okay,
with him, they doubled up on him. Is there another
charge to follow with this. Are they going to say
that this is in fact a double homicide? In my worldview, yeah,
(45:08):
this is a double homicide here. So you're not just
looking at Rebecca's murder, Okay, you're also looking at a
homicide a murder of this baby as well. I think
that there's probably we had to hop on and do this.
I think that there is going to be a lot
(45:28):
more to come information wise. I'm going to be very
interested in a couple of things here. I want to know,
First off, did they ply her with anything? Did she
have any drugs on board at all? And I'm not
saying she was using drugs, I'm saying did they did
they give her anything? Did they harm her in any way?
(45:52):
I want to know that relative to her toxicology. And
I want to know I want to know exactly what
happened to this baby, where the baby wound up, and
what was the motivation behind this. I don't know. More
shall be revealed until then. We'll keep you abreast as
(46:13):
further data comes out. I'm Joseph Scott Morton and this
is body Bags
Bodybags.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
But Joseph's gotten more any of y'all that have listened
to body bags for anytime at all. You know that
I love babies, I truly do. I love holding babies.
I love taking care of babies. I miss those days
(00:23):
when my kids were tiny. I miss those days my
grandbabies were tiny. There's nothing quite like it, because you
know that they're in your arms swaddled. You've got this
fragile little gift. Today on body bags, Dave McK and
(00:46):
I are going to dig into a case that has
just suddenly burst on the radar for us, particularly as
of today, that is so dark and it's so very
evil that I don't know if I have the words
to describe the horror that is involved. But I can
(01:09):
tell you this, and I know this down in my heart. Science,
as in all matters of death, investigation is going to
point the way to the truth. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
and this is body bags. Dave. When you reached out
(01:32):
to me today, I got to tell you I had
a vision in my mind of forking the road where
I'm thinking, do I want to go down this path?
Because looking down it, I see all kinds of sinister
elements here that are so very troubling that I again,
(01:54):
words kind of fail me here. But we're going to
make it through this and we're going to take a
look at this case because people need to know.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You. You mentioned a fork in the road. Yeah, okay,
you mentioned fork in the road, and it reminded me
of Yogi Berra, yea baseball player. Oh yeah. One of
his sayings was, when you come to a fork in
the road, take it. Now. The truth of it is
that to get to Yogi Berra's house, there truly was
(02:25):
a fork in the road, and either way you went,
it became the driveway for his house. So something that
sounds weird was perfectly sensible to him. In this story,
we're going to talk to you about Rebecca K. Park.
She's twenty two years old and she is thirty eight
(02:45):
weeks pregnant. The last time she has seen is on
November third, leaving her mother's house. Now, there's a very
interesting part of the story that you have to know
right off the bat. Rebecca Park was not raised by
her biological mother, Courtney Bartholomew, whether her children, whether Courtney
(03:06):
Bartholomew's children were taken from her, or whether they were
given up for adoption. Were not clear on that. We
just know that Rebecca and her sibling maybe plural, were
adopted out and raised by an adoptive family. And here
we are now, she's twenty two and thirty eight weeks pregnant,
(03:27):
and her mother's back in the scene. We know very
little of their interaction, but it is not uncommon for
children that are adopted to find their way back to
a biological parent. Oftentimes it's the biological parent who tries
to reach back and establish contact. They feel bad about
what they've done in their life. They know for whatever reason.
(03:49):
I'm not putting words into anybody's mouth because while that
might be your situation, it is not this situation. So
when she goes missing, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We've all got questions, right, I mean, we all have questions,
you know. And I'm kind of fleeing to the defense
here of people that have been adopted out because you
have questions about who you are from whence you came.
We talk a lot about genetics on this on this program,
and uh, you know, there's no need here for you know,
(04:23):
I don't know for forensic genetic genealogy in this case
that you know, the information that we have forensically to
this point. Boy, when I say dark, it paints such
a dark picture from what we know at this point.
Now we've heard there's been information in the wind that's
kind of floated about, uh for about the past week.
(04:47):
But now I got to tell you you you pinged
me today, and BOYD do we have more information now?
And that's why we need to move forward with us.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
When this story first happened a couple of weeks ago,
I remember you were on I don't know if this
Core TV or what channel what, I don't know what
network called you. But there's this missing woman, a twenty
two year old woman who is thirty eight weeks pregnant,
and she's missing. We've got to find her. And this
was It's crazy to think of somebody at that that's
(05:17):
that's your I mentioned this. My daughter Hannah was born
at thirty seven weeks gestation. We're a little bit early. Yeah,
so she's at thirty eight weeks, This baby can come
any minute, and she is missing. What kind of condition?
What physically can a woman at that stage of pregnancy
deal with if they're out in the woods.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well particularly, and let's back up a second this is
a technician place in Michigan. Okay, So we've got a
young woman who is out there and let's face it,
Dave a thirty eight week pregnancy or gestational age. Let's
(05:58):
say that that it's that far down down down the
line with a pregnancy. They're the most vulnerable among us,
all right. I mean, because they're living for two at
this point in time. You have to wonder what kind
of care is she receiving because she kind of vanishes
off the radar. And I think that that's one of
(06:20):
the things that's very chilling about this. But she's got
kind of even though it's very distorted and muddled, she
does have a group of people that are in her world,
including a biological sister. Now, you had mentioned that she
(06:41):
had been adopted out, but the biological sister had also
been adopted out as well. And I'm curious as to
and we don't have an answer to this, but I'm
just kind of throwing this out there. How did they
both go to the same family and they were both raised,
you know, what was the impetus behind them perhaps making
contact with their actual biological mother. I think that that's
(07:04):
an interesting dynamic here. But the sister in this case,
the biological sister does play a role in Rebecca's case.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well, when the case was rolling out, Joe, and there
were searches, volunteers, and many times when people have been
out searching, and we've done so many crime related shows
where searches were under were being done, And I've always
wondered how prepared people are to take part in a search,
because it's not just going out to help look for somebody.
(07:34):
At a certain stage, you're not looking for a living being.
You're looking for the body of somebody. And I wonder
how prepared people really are, because well, yeah, there's no preparation, Joe.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, there's not. And there's some parallels here between. It's
often been said that labor and delivery in a hospital
is literally the most ful place in the world. You know,
when you walk down the hallway in a labor delivery
ward and you can actually see those babies, you hear
(08:09):
laughter and happiness, h with the birth of a new life.
But brother, let me tell you something. When things go
dark on a labor and delivery ward, it gets really dark,
really quick. And what I mean by that is that
when you have a child that dies, when you have
a mother that has severe complications. Brother, it didn't get
(08:32):
much darker than that. And you know, with with Rebecca,
we have a young woman who is this far along
in her pregnancy. Dude, She's not surrounded by anybody that
can provide any kind of substantive care for her at all.
All we know is that she's missing, and she's out
(08:56):
there all alone in Michigan, in nova and she's at
full term. And again, that makes the most resilient among
us kind of shaking our boots a little bit. And
back to the idea that when you're on a search
team and you're looking for somebody, just like on the
(09:18):
obg Y n Ward, you're thinking you have hope. Right,
searchers have hope too. They're not going out, Dave, to
find a deceased person. There is that kernel of hope
that is within them where they're hoping that they're going
to find her safe and protected, that there is going
(09:39):
to be a celebration, if you will, that they have
found her securedor and Dave, that's just not the case here, brother.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
You know, I'm so glad you pointed that out because
there was a show on It's on Netflix right now
and it's out of South Carolina. It's missing anyway, they
had they were doing an episode of a missing child,
and they sucked me in early, and based on how
the mother was acting in just the scene and everything,
I'm like, oh, this kid's gone, you know, and they're
(10:07):
searching in the woods, and it's like, I just they
found this child. Okay, he's a toddler, And they did
find him out in the woods after a number of hours,
I mean, And it was a great feeling. I'm not
kidding as I was watching that, because I didn't think
they were going to find an actual child, because we
don't get those stories very often, and in this particular case,
there was hope at first that they would find her.
(10:27):
But you know what, Joe, you mentioned, it's cold. She's
last scene at her mother's house getting into a car,
a dark colored car, And there was enough bad about
this that that was the tone. She's last scene getting
into a dark colored car on November three at her
mother's And I have to go back to this because
(10:48):
when they first reported her mother, I just assumed that,
like most people at her mother's house, the mother of
the raised her, you know, But that's not the case. No,
this mother that reported that she was last seen with
is actually a boy named Courtney Bartholomew. Courtney Bartholomew did
not raise Rebecca or her sister, and we don't know
(11:11):
when she came back into their life, but she was
the biological mother, but did not raise and they were
raised by adoptive parents. I want to point that out
because what's coming up next is, as Paul Harvey used
to say, the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, well, I can tell you this. This search party
that had been formed and they were feverishly looking for Rebecca.
They did find her, and unfortunately, when they found her
in this dark forested area, on that dirty forest floor,
(11:47):
the circumstances, it's not like she's found. How can I
say this intact, She's found three weeks downrange from the
point time when she was last seen, in a state
that we can only think is in decay. And the
(12:09):
baby that we're so hopeful for it's not there. It's
not there. All we have are the remains of Rebecca
laying on the ground. Her body, by all accounts at
this point, has been greatly traumatized, and the story that
(12:31):
her body reveals is the stuff of nightmares. Brother Dave
The story is so muddled here because there's so many actors.
(13:00):
You know, the shakespeare In comment about you know the
world is a stage, you know, and you've got these
actors that come back and forth. Boy, this is there's
quite a cast here, I have to say. And I
think that this all begins with this biological sister. Who
remind me of did you say that or isn't it
(13:23):
out there that the sister Rebecca is like twenty two
and the sisters twenty one on one?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, they're very close in age. They were both adopted
by their biological mother is Courtney Bartholomew, who's forty years old. Now,
Courtney Bartholomew did not raise her girls. An adoptive parents
took them and raised them. And now it is Courtney
(13:51):
Bartholime the viol that's who is last scene with Rebecca.
Her sister Kim is twenty one. Now I didn't want
to add one quick thing. Yeah, on this day, November three,
Rebecca had inherited two thousand dollars, so she had two
grand in cash with her and I'm wondering what that
(14:13):
may have come into play because she's got two grand.
Last person's caesar is the biological mother who did not
raise her, and she goes missing. The day she has
found on November twenty fifth by volunteers. Volunteers found the
body of Rebecca k. Park in the woods while they
were looking for her. But that day you and I
(14:35):
were on the phone, because on November twenty fifth, they arrested.
Police arrested her fiancee and her sister. Now, Rebecca's fiance
is a forty seven year old drug dealer. His name
is Richard. What's his age again? Forty three?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, he's forty three and she's twenty two.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Right, And to be very very specific here, Richard Fowler
at forty three is older than Rebecca's biological mother, who's
only forty okay. Now, Kimberly Park twenty one, the little
sister of Rebecca. Again, Rebecca thirty eight weeks pregnant, gone
for three weeks. Her body is found in the woods
(15:16):
and there's no baby, and her fiance, her forty three
year old fiance, Richard Fowler, is arrested and her twenty
one year old little sister, Kimberly is arrested. Now this
is the interesting part, Joe. I remember I was on
the phone with you on November twenty fifth, when this happened,
and I said, hey, what do you think you know?
(15:37):
Because were they having a relationship? What was going on?
You know, try to figure this out. No, they arrest
Richard Fowler. He's a drug deal. He was arraigned on
two counts of delivering methamphetamine. He's got a million dollars bond.
That's not a little yeah, Kimberly Park. The victim's sister,
Rebecca is twenty two and dead. We don't know what
(15:58):
happened to her baby, and is charged with this Joe
tampering with evidence, okay, lying to a police officer, and
filing a false report.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
He likes, Oh my lord, Okay. So it's at that point,
you know, because you and I have discussed this before,
and will I'll beat this drum until the day I
close my eyes in eternal sleep. You're more at risk
(16:32):
with the intimates in your life than you are with
total strangers, okay. And I think that anybody is potentially
capable of anything. I find it interesting also that you
put this element in here, of the two thousand dollars
that she suddenly come into at this point in time,
and you're talking about a man who has gotten her pregnant.
(16:58):
He's a drug deal I don't you know. I don't
know if he is a drug user. I would say
if I were a betting man, that might be the case.
Money can really tempt people and drive people to do
incredible things. I'm not saying that he's necessarily involved. You'd
(17:19):
said that he's not charged in her disappearance at all.
But go back to this baby sister. She's charged with
filing a false police report right, lying to the police.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You know, I gotta tell you certain things are not
adding up here, but I can tell you this going
back to Rebecca when they found her in this wooded area.
You know, we had gotten information about this case. We've
kind of held off on talking about it, but I'll
go ahead and let the cat out of the back.
(17:55):
At this moment, there had been information that was floating
about that not only was the baby missing when she
was found, but Dave, there's some indication that when she
is initially observed, she sustained some kind of significant abdominal trauma.
(18:17):
And it has to be significant. And let me tell
you why. Because downrange we talk a lot about post
warum interval here and we've talked a lot about decomposition.
I think that we even did an entire episode we
voted to decomposition on body backs, and we probably will
revisit that again. If you're able at a scene to
(18:39):
delineate between decomposition of a body that's been down for
three weeks now maybe if we're using that date of
November three, if you're able to delineate between decompositional artifact
and trauma, the trauma must be unimaginable. I can only imagine.
(19:05):
My heart goes out to these people that. Again I
go back to that word of hope. They're holding out
hope that they can actually save her in some way,
you know, return her to safety. That's not the case
here what they witnessed. And I cannot even begin to
fathom how the search party, and particularly the person that
put their eyes on her first, they're going to be
(19:27):
able to process this. This is something that will haunt
them the rest of their lives, because you know pregnant women,
you think about how vulnerable they are. You're hoping that
you can find them, and that's just not the case here.
What they found was a woman that had apparently been
severely traumatized and She's been left and discarded out in
these woods like garbage.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
For three weeks. Joe, Now what's her body going to
be like in three weeks time? The areas that were injured,
you know, being stabbed, cut, whatever, aren't those areas going
to dec in that area quicker than other parts of
her body?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Holy smokes, you've been listening to what I've been preaching
now for all this time. I feel, Okay, this is it.
My work here is done. Let's revisit this just for
a second. Anytime a body is traumatized in any way,
Let's say it's a cut or even a gunshot woman,
(20:24):
and I'd say a bludgeoning as well, particularly where the
tissue is open, and it accelerates this process of decomposition,
so over a three week period. And I don't know
environmentally what the attempts have been in Michigan at this point.
(20:45):
I know that I have friends that live in Michigan,
and I love going to Michigan, particularly you know, up
around Traverse City and all of this. I know that
they get snows in Michigan. They always measure when they
receive their first snowfall by Halloween. I've had friends that
are up there that said that they've trick or treated
(21:06):
in snow before whatever it is, you know, which for
us down here in the South is something that's so odd.
But yeah, it's going to be you have to balance
that against you know, environmental temperatures. We know that heat
speeds things up. But if a body is traumatized already, Dave,
and it's left out, you know, it's subjected to the environment,
(21:27):
it will rapidly accelerate. It's going to accelerate the process
of decomposition, particularly when you're talking about any kind of
abdominal injury. Okay, you've already got little nasties that are existing,
you know, within our bowel. If that area, that space
has been compromised at all, it'll even further exacerbate the
(21:50):
process of decomposition. So I think that what we the
takeaway here is that they would have had to have
controlled that scene very carefully, because if she were to
have been killed in that location, you're not just looking
(22:10):
at decompositional artifact with things like we talked about decompetitial
fluids and all those sorts of things, David. If she
was killed in that spot, and I have to assume
that she was you're gonna have blood depositions surrounding that area.
So if you think about fallen leaves on a forest floor,
did you know that we can actually pick up on
blood droplets on leaves, But you have to be very
(22:32):
very careful. You have to control that space. Once you
find the body, it's like, thank you for your assistance,
Everybody back out. At this point in time, we're throwing
up a barricade of something you know, the yellow tape,
and only certain people are allowed in this case. In particular,
out there in that location would take such a protracted
(22:53):
period of time to process because you're dealing with a
lot of unknowns here. What we do know is that
we've got a woman that has previously been identified as
having been pregnant. You have to take that into consideration.
And you don't know the path that she came in on,
or that those that brought her to that location. We
(23:14):
don't know what path they use to approach the location
where she is killed. That's going to be very fragile.
Then all of the blood deposition that is there surrounding
her body is going to be very fragile. We're talking
about footprints, which in a forested area where many times
you have that kind of I don't know, loamy kind
of soil. Impression evidence is going to be key here
(23:36):
as well. If she was killed in that location, we
have to assume and particularly if she's pregnant, she's going
to be lying down. You can actually pick up many times, Dave,
I've actually seen this where you can see where perpetrators
kneeled beside bodies. Wow, you can't say definitively that this
(23:57):
is the mark of a knee, but you can speculate
on that, you know, when you're trying to understand the
movements of potential perpetrator. So this area is just rife
with fragile evidence in here, and I'll be very curious
to see how they process this and is there any
way to tie back I think specific say impression evidence
(24:19):
related to footprints, movement. How many people were in this
party that took her out there. It's got to be
more than just one person. We've got a sister that's
already been charged. What kind of information did she know?
Was she physically present there when this happened?
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Based on the charges, you kind of can lead that away.
And by the way, I did look up the temperatures
I wanted to know this because there was on average
about thirty four degrees in this in Wexford County where
this it took place in Michigan. But during the course
between November third and November twenty fifth, when every body
was found, they had the lowest temperature of the month
(24:55):
happened on the nineteenth and it was thirteen degrees. Wow,
the highest brid dread the month, and it was a
major anomaly. It was fifty six degrees on November fifteenth.
So in a four day window, you have a higher
fifty six and the low of thirteen. And you know
that's pretty that's a big disparity of temperature. And yet
you've got really cool temperatures. What about Okay, we've got
(25:20):
to deal with rodents, animals. You're out in the woods.
What if the body was killed somewhere else and brought
to this place and dumped?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, if if she were to have been killed in
another location. I began to think about conveyances at that
point in tom Okay, because we've had cases where individuals
have been killed obviously I'm stating the obvious here, have
been killed in other locations and then dumped. But they've
got to tell you there's information that's kind of coming
(25:54):
to light that kind of sounds like that ain't the
case here. But going back to conveyances, if you think
about motor vehicles, you mentioned at the top that we've
got this kind of mysterious vehicle that she's placed into,
or that she's maybe lured or compelled to get into
by threats. We don't really know, And she's now moved
(26:17):
out to that direction. I want to know what did
the sister know? When did she know it? It's kind
of interesting too, this quote unquote, and I'm using this
term very loosely, this father of the child, what did
he know? But it sounds as though that he I
(26:39):
don't know if he's he just happens to have been
kind of a peripheral character here. Did he actually have
knowledge of what was going on? But isn't it interesting
that they hooked him up on charges as well? Almost
can we say sopaneously.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yes, At the day, the day that her body was found,
he's charged with two counts of well, first they weren't
told that, we didn't tell us the charges. They put
him in jail and her sister in jail the same
day that she was found, and didn't have charges on
him at first. The charges came later, and that's when
they hooked him up on two counts of delivering metamphetamine
(27:14):
before the judge even set his bail at one million dollars.
Then Kimberly, the sister who's twenty one, was arranged the
same day on charges of tampering with evidence, lying to
a police officer, and filing a false report. Now it's
unclear if those charges are related to the case of
her sister who's dead and a baby that's missing, but Joe,
her bail is set at seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Oh loose smokes.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The information that we have about who Rebecca was last with,
seen getting into a dark colored car comes from her
biological mother, who lo and behold was the reason I
called you today.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Let me hang on, let me hover over the sister
one more time? Would give me that number again.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
The bail for her seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
and the charges are tampering with evidence, lying to a
police officer, and filing a false report.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Why fifty thou? Why that huge number? The only thing
I can think of is I don't know from and
again I'm not a prosecutor or a judge obviously don't
want to be, trust me. The word that comes to
mind is leverage. That is a huge number to hang
(28:37):
on a twenty one year old. I don't know if
she's got priors. I have no idea, but you know,
and yeah, I mean those charges are you know that
those things that she has been charged with are quite egregious.
But three quarters of a million dollars they're holding her
on at this point in time, I don't know. I
(28:59):
don't know if these people are people of means. I
would say probably not, because at least in Rebecca circle,
she's in an intimate relationship with a guy who is
essentially delivering meth and they've hooked him up on two charges.
(29:19):
I don't think that this guy has got you know,
like stashes of cash laying around necessarily, So what would
be the purpose of putting these astronomical numbers on them
other than the fact they're trying to get more information?
And I can tell you this, the police, as it
turns out, do have a virtual cornucopia of information that
(29:47):
is going to reveal something that is so dark and
so evil that I don't know that we can completely
describe it without breaking down tears. That brings us to today. Dave, Oh,
(30:17):
my lord, and I'll go ahead and let all of
our friends know you and I are speaking about this
on December twenty twenty five. As of today, we've got
additional people that have been charged in this case, Brother Dave,
let me have it. Let me know what we have got. Man.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You know, there is one person who's actually proud of
this broadcast today is because we didn't lead with what
we normally do. We actually carried it through. Because this
is the reason we're doing this story today. When Joe
first brought this story up, it was because you were
being asked to talk about this missing pregnant woman, then
missing pregnant wom who's found in the woods. You know, well,
(30:56):
now we have discovered Courtney Bartholomew, the forty year old
biological mother who did not raise Rebecca or her sister Kimberly,
but is the mother, and they keep referring to her
as the mother. She's now been charged, as has Bradley Bartholomew,
Courtney's husband, who's forty seven, and they keep referring to
(31:17):
Courtney and Bradley as the parents. They are not the
parents of Rebecca. Okay, Courtney is the biological mother. Today.
Both the biological mother and her husband were charged with
one count of first degree murder, one count of felony murder,
(31:39):
one count of torture, one count of conspiracy to commit torture,
one count of assault on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage
still birth, and one count of conspiracy to commit assault
on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage still birth.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
My lord, that is a lot of information to digest.
There's also charged.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
With They were also charged with one count of unlawful imprisonment.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Oh god, yeah, sorry, okay, let's just start with that charge,
unlawful imprisonment and you use the T word there, torture. Yeah, okay.
So the police have enough information at this point in
time to kind of paint a picture for us. The
(32:31):
one thing that look, I'm very interested in Rebecca, but Dave,
huh you mentioned it one of the big Kimberly. I'm sorry,
you mentioned Kimberly in the seven hundred fifty thousand dollars bond. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
she was the source. She has to have been. She
(32:51):
has to have been the source. She's the wellspring that
all of this comes from. The One thing I'm really
curious about is the baby, because to this point we
don't we don't have a child. At least that is
(33:11):
information that's coming out where we say we have a
body of an infant. They're not saying that now. They
are saying that this crime was perpetrated against a pregnant
woman and that she was assaulted in order to was
it induce was it what's the phraseology here in induce
(33:32):
a miscarriage or birth or what's going on with us?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It was they were the charge was committing assault on
a pregnant individual causing miscarriacter stillbirth, and it's the conspiracy
to commit assault and the pregnancy being ended through a
miscarriacter still birth is the result of that, you know,
the assault. But j let me share something with you
that we shared in court today. The prosecutor for Wexford County,
(34:04):
her name is Joanna Carey. She told the judge in
trying laying out the case and asking for a huge bail,
they bring out a lot of information at these not
all of it, but enough. This is what the prosecutor
told the judge today. Mister Bartholomew brought Rebecca to their home.
(34:27):
He and Courtney forced her Rebecca into another vehicle and
took her into the woods where they stabbed her, forced
her to lie on the ground while they cut her
baby out, and ultimately caused her death and the death
of the baby. Then they then left Rebecca in the woods. Joe,
(34:51):
she was alive while they were cutting the baby out.
They kept her alive. That's the torture. They were torturing
her to try to steal the baby, keeping her alive
and to take the baby. They were trying to get
a live baby out of her.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Okay. So with that said, and thinking about what the
prosecutor said in the statement that was made in court,
we can kind of put some things together here because
the first statement that she makes is that she was stabbed,
and that's to me, that sounds like menacing, Okay, because
(35:26):
the stabbing necessarily the way they kind of ordered their
comments here, It's like she stabbed, but it's a non
lethal stab. Okay, it's a non lethal sharp force injury.
They're trying to compel her to get into the woods.
Can you imagine the terror here? I can't on any level.
(35:47):
So she stabbed. She's compelled to go into this wooded area,
and oh my lord, you're talking about taking I don't
know the same instrument. Perhaps I doubt. Knowing what I
know about having worked in the more for years and years,
I can guarantee you I don't think they had a
number two twenty. They had a number twenty two scalpel
(36:10):
blade with you know, with retractors, wow, and forceps and
everything else that you need in order to facilitate a
cesarean birth in a clinical environment. Oh my god, Dave,
this is so evil.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
So hey, Joe, there's another line in here that they
got to give you. You're ready. The prosecutor called it
a case of premeditated torture and murder, alleging that the
Bartholomew's created a plan and conducted research.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Okay, this harkens back to a case that I've talked
about before, cases with the piked in Massacre. Been involved
in that docuseries and the podcast we've covered. Dave and
I have covered it, and that was where one family
killed another family on one night. They had four different
crime scenes, eight people dead. I've often wondered, how do
(37:07):
you get to this point just from dare I say
a morality standpoint where you're sitting around the kitchen table,
because Dave, you're talking about planning now and research to boot.
You're sitting around the kitchen table and you're saying, just
like they did in Piked, and this is what we're
going to do, and that this is what you come
(37:28):
up with. You're going to go out taking a pregnant
woman who is full term by the way, take her
out there and torture her in order to extract a
full term baby so that they can do what with
the baby. I have no idea, but you're leaving the
(37:49):
mother there again being tossed out. I think that one
of the things that's going to be really interesting to
follow here from a forensic standpoint is not just the
level of decomposition and the PMI and all that stuff
that we talk about, but also I want to understand
the status of these injuries. Okay, because what was mentioned
(38:10):
here is that she has been stabbed. So going on
what the prosecutors saying, that stab wound obviously is going
to have hemorrhage in the wound track, okay, and even
in the state of decomposition, we can pick up on
that Okay, However, as we begin to move down her
(38:31):
body and we think about this insult that has taken
place in her abdominal region, on my Lord Dave, is
their hemorrhage in that area? Because if there is hemorrhage
in that area where this incision has been made with
whatever kind of rudimentary tool that they have brought with them,
(38:51):
if there is hemorrhage in there, if they did not
wait for her to bleed out and die, and do
this in a post warm state, this this reaches depths.
I was going to say, heights. This reaches depths that
I don't know that you and I have really probed
before here on body backs, because there will be distinct
injuries if they are doing some kind of some kind
(39:15):
of rudimentary cesarean incision on her where in that wound track,
as that blade is drug across the surface of her skin,
where you will see focal areas of hemorrhage, she will
have to be restrained. That's why this would have taken
more than one person. If she's found in say and okay,
(39:36):
and let me go back just a second. If she
is found lying in a supine position, which means face up,
my thought is someone would have to a minimum hold
her shoulders down on the ground while the other person
is wielding this instrument to drag across her abdomen. And
it's not just making a superficial cut day. We're talking
(39:57):
about a cut that's going to go through the dermis.
It's going to go through the subcy fat, through the
fascia that's in there, to get down actually to the womb,
to open the womb, to get through the placenta, and
then to extricate the baby. At that moment in time,
I only pray, I only pray that she passed out
(40:20):
as a result of blood loss, that she did not
have an awareness that this was occurring. Because when this
thing is presented in court and if we have an
indication now, because it sounds like the prosecutor they have
a lot of data here, this is going to be
a tail so dark that I can't imagine that this
(40:42):
would even be defensible. You cannot say. I don't think
that any right thinking person can actually say, well, this
was a case of temporary insanity. You know, no, no, no, no,
that's not going to work in this case. You've got
two people that purposed in their life to rob this
woman of her life and also, as it turns out,
(41:05):
the life of her unborn child, who at this point
she's thirty eight weeks dave. This baby is viable. But
they're saying now, according to the charges, that this was
apparently a still birth. Going back to the sister in
this point of leverage, what did she know and when
did she know it? Is this something? Was she present
(41:26):
for this? Did she stand by and watch as her
biological sibling is tortured and literally, I don't know how
to say it, disemboweled there in that forest. Did she
watch that or was this conveyed to her? You know?
(41:46):
Did these two alleged perpetrators did they come back home
and say, well, yeah, the baby didn't make it. Still
I have to say, where is the baby? You know,
because they're talking about stillbirth. That tells me that the
baby is deceased. So where is the baby? Was the
(42:07):
baby at the scene? It sounds like the baby wasn't
because they've said over and over again that you've got
this young woman twenty two years old, Rebecca, who's found
with her abdomen literally open and left in this forested area.
Where did they take the baby and where did they
deposit the baby? What's the status of the baby. Did
(42:29):
the baby here's another question, Dave, did that baby ever
draw breath? Okay, did that baby ever draw breath? Was
that baby living outside of the womb at that point
in time? How long did this event? I was going
to say procedure, This is not a procedure. How long
did this horror last? Did when mom died? Finally? Did
(42:52):
the baby die in utero? Did they not get to
the baby in tom You know, we've covered other cases
like this. I recall a case out of the Judas.
There was another case in Chicago. There was a case
where was it in Oklahoma or Kansas? Or in Kansas
where this is.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Lisa Montgomery was just put to death over that one
a couple of years ago where she lured the woman
over a dog, a pregnant woman and ended up choking
around and taking the baby and the woman's die and
she was convicted and sentenced to death, and they just
it took years, but they finally did put her to
death with Joe. I think the charge, the charging here
(43:30):
actually tells us what happened to the baby. Both Courtney
Bartholomew and her husband Bradley were charged with first degree murder,
one kind of felony murder, one kind of torture, one
kind of conspiracy to commit torture, one count of assault
on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage, stillbirth, miscarriage and still
(43:58):
means the baby was not very thing, did not breathe, right.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
I would, yeah, I would. I would think so if
they're if they're talking about this is not okay, this
is not a miscarriage. A miscarriage implies that that's that's
kind of a natural event. You could say that she miscarried.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
That's the charge assault on a pregnant individual causing a miscarriage. Yeah,
there are.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Cases out there there, Yeah, there are there are cases
out there where you have pregnant, uh, pregnant women that
have been kicked in the abdomen and that results in
a miscarriage. Okay, But to say still born, if you
take that component of the law and the charge there,
that gives you an indication that the baby was deceased
(44:47):
at that point in Tom, I think here here's another
bit to this, because if I remember correctly, Scott Peterson, right, okay,
with him, they doubled up on him. Is there another
charge to follow with this. Are they going to say
that this is in fact a double homicide? In my worldview, yeah,
(45:08):
this is a double homicide here. So you're not just
looking at Rebecca's murder, Okay, you're also looking at a
homicide a murder of this baby as well. I think
that there's probably we had to hop on and do this.
I think that there is going to be a lot
(45:28):
more to come information wise. I'm going to be very
interested in a couple of things here. I want to know,
First off, did they ply her with anything? Did she
have any drugs on board at all? And I'm not
saying she was using drugs, I'm saying did they did
they give her anything? Did they harm her in any way?
(45:52):
I want to know that relative to her toxicology. And
I want to know I want to know exactly what
happened to this baby, where the baby wound up, and
what was the motivation behind this. I don't know. More
shall be revealed until then. We'll keep you abreast as
(46:13):
further data comes out. I'm Joseph Scott Morton and this
is body Bags
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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