Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a family desperate searching for Matthew.
Last scene in his Hyundai Tucson leaving Vegas. Good evening.
I mean, see, Grace, this is Crime Stories. I want
to thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Twenty eight year old Matthew Spencer embarked on a cross country.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Moved his family, with whom he shares a deep bond,
grew anxious when days.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Passed without word on his whereabouts? Where is Matthew tonight?
His family desperate, begging you for help with us tonight.
Two very special guests, Kara Spencer that's Matthew's sister, very
close and Randy Green, Matthew's cousin, both of them joining
(00:50):
us tonight, asking for your help and in that vein.
The first thing I want to do is give you
a tip line. It's the flagstaff PD eight seven seven
fourteen fourteen repeat nine two eight seven seven four fourteen fourteen.
Look at Matthew. Don't look away. Look at Matthew. His
(01:12):
disappearance has torn apart in the lives of everyone in
his family. Where is he? Can we bring him home?
Straight out to his sister Randy. Randy explain to me
what was happening in the days leading up to Matthew
seemingly just dropping into thin air.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Yeah, and that's exactly how it was.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Everything was very normal, Like Kara was saying, he had
talked to his older sister and her they were through
a messenger and it wasn't like an actual phone call
because he said he didn't have enough you know service.
He was in a dead zone area and he everything
was fine. He asked them how dinner was going. He
talked to his other sister, let her know that she was,
(01:57):
you know, he was okay, he was driving, and you.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Know, that was it.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Joining us in addition to Matthew's family, an All Star
panel straight out to Evan Short joining US Director Search
Operations for Missing an America network who is actually involved
in the search for Matthew Spencer. Evan, what do you
note as we go to air tonight.
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Well, there was a lot of search that we conducted,
following the steps in the data that was received within
the Google account that the searches and corresponding with the
information we received from law enforcement, the flat cameras in Flagstaff,
Pingdom And we also confirmed that with his Google search
(02:47):
data that matched up with that.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You have been conducting an extensive search. Evan, how many
people are looking for Matthew.
Speaker 7 (02:57):
Well, we have.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
Myself, my wife, who's my business partner in the searches.
We've had a couple of volunteers that were shown up
with the searches from the local area.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
This must be excruciating for the family. Sidney Sumner, what
do we know, Sydney Crime Story's investigative reporter about his
initial disappearance. Where was he, where was he headed and why?
Speaker 8 (03:24):
Well, Matthew was headed from Vegas to a new home
in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 9 (03:29):
That was his destination. And we know that.
Speaker 8 (03:32):
Matthew left Vegas on August the fourth. He traveled through
Arizona and then he told his sisters he made it
to New Mexico. But with cameras, we know that he
only made it into Arizona. There were no cameras capturing
him going into New Mexico as far as we know.
(03:52):
So we know that this camera captured Matthew going into Flagstaff, Arizona.
And then in the next two two days they were
able to use his Google account to track his location
on and off, so that last no location. On August sixth,
at eleven forty two PM is somewhere between Williams and Belmont, Arizona,
(04:15):
and this is just a little bit west of Flagstaff.
So we made it going east through Flagstaff and then
for some reason decided to track backtrack a little bit
and we're now in between Belmont and Williams off of
B forty Rayby.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You were recounting what led up to the realization that
Matthew had seemingly vanished into thin air, and you said,
that was it, okay, what happened?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Then they thought, well, maybe it's just because he doesn't
have any service and he's just one of those people.
If he stops and he sees something, he's going to
take the scenic rout. He's going to try to look
around see what he can find and things like that.
And so they gave it a few days. But after
that you start to get a little worried because at
that point, this is the long anybody's gone without talking
(05:01):
to him ever.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So got it. He moved on from Vegas and Saunders, Arizona.
Speaker 10 (05:07):
But we think that he was lost, maybe because that
he never made it into New Mexico, because there's no cameras,
no nothing saying that he even crossed the broad border
going into there, and from his Google searches, can you.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Say no cameras, what do you mean.
Speaker 10 (05:28):
Like flock cameras or highway cameras. They checked a system
called Vigilant, and they checked a system called flock. So
there's no nothing showing him after the fifth in any
other states in Arizona, and on his Google searches on
the fifth, sixth, and seventh only show him in Arizona,
(05:51):
never making it into New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Okay, So when you said that he communicated he was
in the desert or it's of New Mexico. Yeh, then
he wasn't, that was what he said.
Speaker 10 (06:05):
So maybe he thought like he was in like the
desert of New Mexico, but he was actually in like
the desert of Arizona. Maybe his map was not because
he kept starting on Google where am I, and he
like he was lost basically.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay, So you mentioned Vigilant, that's by Motorola Solutions. It's
a license plate recognition and LPR system. Where did you
learn that LA law enforcement had used Vigilant?
Speaker 10 (06:39):
By the detective, he told me it was about what
two weeks ago, Landy. I think he told me that
they looked into the.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, it was two weeks into the search. He had
taken a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Randy, what do you know, Well, when.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
We Las Vegas had to take it at first, they
were because that was the last place that he was seeing,
So Las Vegas had to take it for first.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
The detective you know, really didn't work fast.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
But when he did finally let her know, he let
her know, Hey, we looked at the cameras. He was
caught going into Flagstaff, Arizona, so you have to turn
it over to Flagstaff.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
That was on the fifth of August.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Joining us now is Ronda de care. She is a
founder of Missing an American network that is a nonprofit
organization raising awareness, supporting families and missing people, and facilitating searches.
And you can find them at Missing in americannetwork dot org. Ronda,
thanks so much for being with us. Do you hear
(07:37):
what Randy is saying? That's Randy Green cousin and Kara
Spencer sister that there was a jurisdictional problem that when
Matthew left Vegas. The moment that it came up that
he may have crossed over into Arizona, Vegas was like, well,
(08:00):
you'll have to call them, and I get it. Yeah,
they're trying to deal with their own missing people in
Vegas and in Nevada. I understand that, but it seems
like there's no communication between jurisdictions. And I've had that problem, Arise.
I can't even count the hundreds of times that that
(08:20):
has happened. Here's a good one. You know, Colorado doesn't
even know that Bundy's in Florida, Okay, until a murders
women in the Coyo House. Now that's a murder example,
but that's an example of jurisdictions having no idea left
hand doesn't know what right hand is doing. Way in. Yeah,
we come across it just like you. Quite often.
Speaker 7 (08:43):
They always say it has to be the last person,
the last place that somebody was, and that's the police
department that needs to do the investigation. So anything that
was done prior to them discovering that he was in Flagstaff,
really all they did was run the cameras, so all
of the other work has been done by flag stuff,
and they did pick it up and start investigating as
(09:04):
much as they could after they found out he had
been seen in Flagstaff.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, both jurisdictions, I fully believe, Emmon Short, you've got
the Nevada jurisdiction in the Arizona jurisdiction. I don't think
that they're trying to push it off on each other.
But the reality is, Emmon, that's what happened.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Yes, there was a handoff from the Nevada police over
to the Flagstad police when he was payed through the
flat camera and of course finding you GPS coordinates.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Okay, let me confirm, Randy Green. You're saying that we
know he made it to Arizona because he turned up
on the vigilant system correct.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Okay, which is a tag reader? Now? Who told you
that his car turned up on the licensed plate reader?
The LPR? Who told you that in Arizona?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
That was the detective in Las Vegas, Nevada was the
one that told her that.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Okay, where else, if anywhere? Guys, you're seeing his vehicle
and here's his tag see j M C California Jjoy
M mother two two three five, repeat C JM two
two three five. All you truckers out there, help me out.
This is what we're looking for. See JM two two
(10:29):
three five. Kara, tell me describe the vehicle as you know,
it did have any dents on it. Tell me about the.
Speaker 8 (10:36):
Car, no dent or anything.
Speaker 10 (10:39):
It was. It's like a silver based hi Iyanda Tucson.
There's like no really like nothing like distinguishing about. It
has Washington plate.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
It looks silver. It looks silver to me, a silver
Tucson c JM two two three five. No dance, no wreckage,
nothing there. You go take a look, Randy Green, where
do you believe he was spotted or his vehicle was
(11:13):
spotted or his tag was spotted within Arizona? What part
of Arizona?
Speaker 5 (11:19):
So they said he was going into Flagstaff, Arizona. That's
where they caught it. He was like, you know, the
road he was traveling on. They caught him going into Flagstaff, Arizona.
And that was the last time that any camera had
caught him, anyone had seen him.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That was it to Ronda de Care joining us, the
founder of Missing an American Network. And believe me, she's
not in it for the money. It's a nonprofit. Ronda.
We just heard the sister and cousin referring to an
lp R. How do they work? What are they?
Speaker 10 (11:55):
So?
Speaker 7 (11:55):
They are license plate readers that law enforcement can to
look up and see when a license plate has traveled
by a camera, and it's very useful when they're trying
to locate a missing person. And so in this case,
the only they did a search of his license plate
and the only place that it has turned out was
in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
You know what's interesting about the license plate readers to
Sidney Summer, joining US crime stories, investigative reporter, individuals can
have them and people can be identified through the license
plate reader. Now, what you get from it is the
car registered to the license plate. But then it's just
(12:40):
a simple matter of comparing that to the DMV Department
of Motor Vehicles and finding out who owns it. Also,
in addition to LPRs license plate readers, there are LPR
cameras that help record when the car goes by, and
they're their technology is not hard to understand. Lice's plate
(13:04):
readers work by using high speed cameras and they capture
images of licensed plates. Then they employ optical character recognition
or OCR to convert the plate images in to text.
They're very common, Sydney Sumner.
Speaker 8 (13:20):
Absolutely, they're all over the country. This is one of
the best ways. We have to track someone who is
in a car, and we should be able to tell
if a plate has been removed and placed on another vehicle.
Speaker 9 (13:35):
So you should be able to check.
Speaker 8 (13:36):
Registry records and find if that plate does pop up,
it should be on Matthew Spencer's two thousand and six
on day Tucson.
Speaker 9 (13:45):
But from that image.
Speaker 8 (13:47):
You can clearly tell whether or not that car is
a Tucson.
Speaker 9 (13:51):
So if the plate has been.
Speaker 8 (13:52):
Removed and put on another car, we should be able
to find that out as well.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Sidney, You're right. They text data that you get from
the optical. The high speed camera image is compared against databases.
It's looking for stolen or wanted vehicles. When a match
is found, the system alerts. Now you would never know
you're passing one. Because the ALPRs are usually mounted on
(14:18):
objects like road signs, they can be on police vehicles.
They operate day and night, in the daylight and the
night time. They work no matter what the temperature, what
the visibility doesn't matter, and they capture those plates and
important they get the location, the date, and the time
(14:39):
of the skin. So that is going to be invaluable
what we know right now. Straight back out to the family.
I'm very curious, Kira, what about in and around the
town of Flagstaff as you follow that same route. Wouldn't
(15:00):
there be red light cams, business cams. Wouldn't there be
something that would pick him up.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
That's what I thought, And then to have him going in,
But then when we got the Google account for him
to be going back.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Out, they don't have anything.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
So he would have had to go into flag Staff
and then come back out of Flagstaff to end up
in Williams. So how how they didn't get him anywhere else?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Did?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
It just doesn't sit right. But I mean, I think
at one point the detective did say that sometimes they
can't catch all vehicles, and maybe they called him going
in they just didn't catch him going the other way.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
But I mean, it wouldn't just be license plate grabbers.
It would be business sides, it would be red light cams,
it would be all sorts of security cam capability, not
just the one license plate grabber. Now joining me is
Matthew Mangino, a veteran trial attorney, former Attorney of Lawrence County,
(16:01):
and author of the Executioner's Tool, Crimes, Arrests, Trials Appeals,
last meals, final words and executions of forty six people
in the US. Matt man Gino, thank you for being
with us. I cannot impress upon anyone the power of
the cam. I'm talking about red light cams, security cams,
(16:24):
doorbell cams, home video, business video, even and I will
direct you to the case of missing Connecticut mom of
five Jennifer Dolos. Her husband Photos Delos, murdered her and
then his mistress helped get rid of evidence caught on camera.
(16:46):
They were spotted on camera throwing away her bloody bra
her bloody clothing, rags, towels soaked in her blood. It
was all you know, found in drains all around town
to trash out a multiple spots that said. They then
the Connecticut Police Department. It was pretty amazing. Matthew Manjin
(17:11):
and I'm sure you would freak if they was done
one of your clients. They cobbled together a video montage
showing the husband photos Dulos going along in a borrowed car.
Jennifer's DNA and hairstrand was found in the back. He
later replaced the back seat of the borrowed car. That's
(17:33):
not unusual, right, and they get him traveling to and
they're using doorbell cams, they're using red light cams, they're
using surveillance cams from businesses all along going to get
the car detailed and cleaned out. He couldn't destroy the
car because he had borrowed the car to pen the
crime on somebody else. Long story short, they even have
(17:55):
a public bus and when the door.
Speaker 11 (17:58):
Opens to let people on an off, you see photos
and photos. You see photos Doulos drive by very quickly.
I mean they had his route from a to ze
soup to nuts straight out in the ynang On video.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It was amazing. So what type of cameras would you
be looking for in this case? Man Gino?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Well, you're right, Nancy, that was extraordinary police work in
that case. But I think in this situation investigators may
be a disadvantage because this appears to be a two lane.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Maybe more rural road at times.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We know that they were able to get a plate
scan when he went into Flagstaff, but you know, if
you look at some of the video that we've seen,
this isn't a place where there's video cameras on every
corner or every intersection, or traffic lights or even businesses
that have cameras so that's a bit of a disadvantage.
(18:59):
You know, I would like to know more about this
is you know, why was there uh you know this
idea that number one, he thought he was in New
Mexico and then he may have been turned around. Is
there is there any issues with regard to to his
health potentially, And also we have the idea that this
(19:19):
car had broken down. Where is it? I mean, you know,
typically you know, you know, someone is is kidnapped or
taken from a vehicle, They're not going to come back
and get the vehicle. You know, was there was the
vehicle toad. There's a lot of unanswered questions here based
on what we know at this point.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Then we have Google searches.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
So Kara had gotten into his Google account. She had
gotten into his Google account. She gave it to their
older brother and they worked together and they were able
to get a location of a timeline, if you will.
And so it was from what they did was from
the fifth until the seventh. On the seventh, everything stops.
(20:03):
And that was the screen graps that we had given
you all. It shows like why was my car not
turning over?
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Where am I?
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Things like that, and it was showing that he was
in between Williams and Belmont, which is a little bit
back from from Flagstaff, so it was going back the
other way.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
From Flagstaff.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace to doctor John Delatory joining us.
He is a renowned psychologist and mediator and he specializes
in forensic psychology. He's at resolution fcs dot com, Doctor Delatory.
This is excruciating for the family. They're like stabbing in
(20:49):
the dark trying to if you ever woke out in
the middle of the night and your eyes haven't adjusted
and you kind of think you know where you are
and you're just walking feeling trying to see they only
have tidbits. They've got this Google search where he's searching
things like where am I, why is my car not
turning over? There's a whole other aspect of are these
(21:10):
searches real or are they fake? Searches like the one
we saw in the case of Gabby Patito where someone
well we know who her fiance was, Brian Laundry, faking
texts from her to suggest she's still alive. We've seen
(21:30):
it even in the Rex Huerman Long Island serial killer
suspect calling the victims' families from the victim's phones, suggesting
they're still alive. It's horrible, but we don't know these
texts are really from or these searches really are Matthew.
But I see no reason to think that they're not.
(21:50):
That said, the family is just, you know, feeling their
way in the dark. That is horrible for them. They
don't have all the pieces.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
And listen, you know, I used to live in Arizona
for seven years. I have family in New Mexico. I
know this route. I don't know why this is the
route he's taken to go to Houston, but I know
this route, and there's nothing there there. There are long
stretches where there is absolutely nothing there, and if you're
not familiar with the area, it is very easy to
(22:21):
get lost. And there are some reservations there that you're
maybe not allowed to enter into. So there's so much
that is going on that may have kind of confused
Matthew and may have put him in a position where
he was making decisions that he didn't have to think
to make. And so now his family members are struggling
to try to find him when he's probably in a
(22:42):
panic mode himself, trying to figure out, how do I
get to the next place that I'm supposed.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
To be going.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Maybe it's been too long, that I should have been
someplace else already, and that this isn't working, This route
isn't working. There's so much that is happening, and trying
to follow in those kinds of footsteps can be excruciatingly
painful and saddening because you don't know why someone is
making the decisions that the data that we have is
(23:08):
leading you.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Towards well Delatoria. You just says something I find very
very primitive because to Ronda to care joining us from
Missing in America network along with Evan short Ronda we
it sounds like, oh, he was confused. I don't think
he was confused. He was out in the middle of
nowhere without signs. I mean, if I were to cross
(23:33):
from Georgia to Tennessee all the way up to New York,
which I have taken the job many many times, unless
you see a road sign, you may think you're still
in Georgia and not realize you're in Tennessee, or on
and on. You may be in New York and not
realize you've crossed into New Jersey yet unless you are
(23:55):
reading the signs, so if he's in the middle of
the desert, like DELATORI just said, they're a lot of
Indian reservations. They are Indian land you can't get into.
I don't think he's confused. He's just driving, he's just
making his way. I don't like it when people make
it sound like he's confused, like he was high on
drugs or drinking. There's no evidence of that at all. Yeah,
(24:17):
that's absolutely true.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
There may be some confusion as to why he said
he was in New Mexico when he wasn't. I mean,
one of the thought processes is that he just didn't
want his family to worry about him.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
But those Google.
Speaker 7 (24:30):
Searches do go on to show he was searching a
lot about the lake areas. He was of fishermen and
he loved fish, and so there was Google searches where
he was researching the lakes right in that area near
Williams in Parker, Arizona. And so one of the theories, one
of the things that we have been trying to explore,
is if he went looking at those lakes, and so
(24:51):
that's where Evan and the team have been searching is
around those lake areas.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Randy Ronda is right. He was a nature enthusiast. He
loved high key, he loved new places, he loved fishing.
So if you see maybe a back and forth in
his route or a secuitous route, that's not unusual for him, right,
that was just it.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
It was like he was making kind of a circle.
I guess you would say he was looking for like
fishing places and things like that. That's what we just
found out because someone else had gotten to his Google account,
they were able to see, you know, a little bit
more in depth where he was going.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
But yeah, he just stayed pretty much in that same set.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I don't even say Belmont on this map. So you're
saying he gets from Flagstaff.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Towards it's in between Williams and Flagstaff.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Gotcha, Flagstaff to Williams and then will which is thirty
seven minutes, and then from Williams to Belmont is about
twenty three minutes back towards flag Staff. So why do
you believe he was last in Belmont? So we've talked
a lot.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
We I mean, me and Kara talk every day, and
we've tried to obviously come to our own conclusions and
from what we have gathered ourselves and obviously from the
help of others that have been looking with us as well,
we think that maybe he.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Started having car troubles of some problem.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
He didn't want to worry anybody, so he just kind
of turn turned back the other way, maybe going back
to his sister's house, trying to make it back that way.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
He stopped.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
He was looking around, just kind of trying, wait a minute,
did you know that in Belmont?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I was checking this out? In Belmont, they have a
lot of I mean, if there's anything famous there that
Patrouce would stop to look at, I would think. You know,
they've got those natural springs in Belmont. You said something
about payl like to go fishing, and Belmont has local
(26:55):
springs that a lot of people go to look at.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Yes, two of those.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
One was dog Dogtown Lake and then the reservoir, and
then the other was Shoals I think it's pronounced Shoals Lake.
So they know for a fact that he was looking
at those ones because it was also on his Google
a timeline, so he was.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
I think he probably stopped he was having car.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Trouble, He didn't want to worry anybody, so he just
thought he would get out look around explore a little bit.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
That's just was kind of his nature.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So you know, he was looking around, checking things out,
maybe would stop to fishially figured out what he was
going to do, and then everything just kind of stops
from there.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Well, what about those two lakes you mentioned, Shoal Lake
and one other were they explored. Is there a place
that he would have parked to go fishing anything like that.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
We're not sure he was able to get a timeline
like he's he's doing way more into it than we could.
He's the one that got know these locations that he's
been going to and he flies a drone around, you know,
as much as he can, and he's been looking into
those the lake he just did, the Dogtown Lake he
just did that one, and then next he'll be moving on.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
To Shoals Lake.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
We just did a thing where we were asking for
volunteers to go out and help because it's so vast that.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
You know, it's it's going to take him a little
while to cover it all.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Evan Short, that person doing all the searching would be
you tell me about the use of drones and what
you know about these two lakes.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
Yes, we based off of the GPS location of the searches.
Fortunately he was saying, you know, directions to Dogtown Lake
had showed the directions of his location. We were able
to visit each of the locations he did these searches
for and do extensive drone searches with the limited equipment
(28:53):
that we have do to budget, but we were able
to go to each of those locations on the fifth
and also in the six around Dogtown Lake and Schultzlake,
we were able to eliminate a lot of the areas
of where he was at. Unfortunately we weren't able to
locate the vehicle. And then on the sixth we would
(29:15):
visited the location. It was about four miles east of
Schultzlake where the last GPS location, which was the the
afternoon of the sixth, and we did a grid search
of that area as well.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Wow. Wow, when you're using a drone evan, what are
you looking for?
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Well, there's different type of searches for different type of methods,
for different type of searches. For this one, it's kind
of like a high pass grid, you know, point down
the cameras and see if we can locate a vehicle.
That's the big object that we're looking for right now.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
So if we can.
Speaker 6 (29:56):
Locate the vehicle, that would provide us a more es
centralized location for additional on foot surgeon.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
I know we've mentioned this was quote out in the
middle of nowhere, but actually, isn't this a long route
sixty six where everybody travels?
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
You know another thing, speaking of Belmont, you know the
population there is very low, around one thousand people. So
when we're talking about a town and saying, wow, nobody
saw him, because it's a little community like where I
grew up, it's very possible nobody saw him if he
was there.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
That I had actually talked to.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
So in the first couple of weeks, Kara and I
had called I mean, anybody that you can think of.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
We hopped on TikTok Live.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
We got every single route that he could have taken,
and we deduced it to three routes that.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
He could have taken to get where he was.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
We took every single city and went googled hospitals, tow
truck companies, gas stations, anybody that would hear us. So
we called them all and just this last week I
called the tow truck company again, just in case there
was some kind of you know that maybe they found something.
And the lady explained to me that, you know, she well,
(31:10):
she wanted me to send her a flyer and she said, listen,
this is a very small place. She's like, it's it's
a lot of land, but everybody knows everything. She's like,
so I'm going to send this out to all my guys.
But you know, if anybody is going to see anything,
it's them.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
They are tow truck drivers. They have to go, you know, everywhere.
And she kind of was saying the same thing.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
She just didn't understand how the whole car was gone
and nobody's seen anything.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, that's another issue. To Matthew's sister, Kara Spencer. It's
not just that Hayes disappeared. His car has disappeared too.
How does that happen?
Speaker 10 (31:50):
I'm not sure. I think maybe he parked it somewhere
at a gas station or a grocery store, and maybe
somewhere just nobody can see it and nobody just noticed it.
There's a lot of different possibilities that's been running through
my mind. Maybe somebody stole it and took the license
(32:12):
place off of it. There's a lot of possibilities.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Evan it's short actually searching for Matthew. You were saying
that very thing, that it's going to be easier for
you to spot a car versus a person. So is
that what you're honing in on when you're using your drone?
And how are you conducting this search? That's pretty rough
terrain in some areas.
Speaker 6 (32:40):
Well, We've got some unfortunately, we have some experience in
this type of searching, so we have equipment vehicles.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
That can.
Speaker 6 (32:51):
Drive out in these remote locations. The searching for the
drone easy. You can see, it's like a high pass
search over through some of the areas. We've actually been
able to identify other vehicles that were similar to Matthews,
but upon this section it was just like the same
(33:11):
make a model, just a different year. Unfortunately, so we
be able to locate from a high pass the vehicle
and that's really what we're hoping to locate is see
what the vehicle is so we can then conduct additional
more focus searching in that area.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Guys, we were showing you the actual drone footage Evan
Shore you and wanted to care from missing an American
Network are amazing. First of all, your volunteers, you're not
getting paid for this. You're seeing the drone footage that
Evan records and then scours through it looking at it
with a fine tooth comb to see if he can
(33:53):
spot a person or the vehicle. This is extremely detailed.
It's amazing. Back to the family, Has he ever disappeared
like this, gone for this many days without speaking to you?
Speaker 10 (34:09):
No? Never, And his last message was how was your
dinner and how was your night? And the next day's
phone was just off. That's never happened.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Just thinking through everything that you're saying. Would he be
wary if someone came up and offered to help him.
Speaker 10 (34:28):
No, He's had help before when he's ran out of
gas or car broke down before when he was driving,
people would stop and help him. He want to put
a guard up, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
But what's interesting and curious is it's not just him missing.
The car's gone too. Just like vanished Sidney Sumner Crime Stories,
investigative reporter. This guy loved nature, He loved hiking, he
loved fishing, he loved exploring. In fact, he this trip
from Vegas to his new home in Texas and was
(35:04):
stopping at intervals. The family knew that to sightsee, to fish,
to look around. He was an adventurer, hard worker, but
he loved his fishing.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Right, So.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I'm just trying to figure out did he meet somebody
while he was fishing, while he was taking photos? Has
he uploaded any of those photos that could tell me anything?
Remember in the Delphi case where Liberty and Abby actually
took a photo of the killer, right, do we know
(35:42):
Sydney And what can you tell me about his love
of fishing and exploring? I mean he factored that into
his trip.
Speaker 8 (35:48):
Yes, well, his family believes that Matthew may have been
having some car trouble, may have run into some kind
of road bump.
Speaker 12 (35:58):
Instead of panicking and worrying anyone, he just took some
time to maybe explore the area around him, spend some
time fishing, get his mind together.
Speaker 9 (36:09):
Before he made a plan on what to do next.
So we know that Matthew loved to fish.
Speaker 8 (36:14):
There's plenty of photos of him holding absolute whoppers. So
this feels like typical behavior. Let me take a step back, relax,
and then we'll get ourselves back together and get back
on the road.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
We do know that Matthew was taking photos on his phone.
He wasn't posting anything to social media or anything like that.
Speaker 10 (36:34):
But he was.
Speaker 8 (36:35):
Scrolling through social media like Instagram and TikTok, just normal
behaviors for Matthew. According to Kara.
Speaker 10 (36:42):
And Randy.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace two doctor John Dellatore joining
US licensed psychologist specializing in forensic psychology, Doctor Delatory, this
guy was used to traveling, exploring, fishing, camping. He was
not wary of someone approaching him offering to help him
(37:12):
if his car had broken down. He did those Google
searches why won't my car turn over? Why is it
making a clicking sound? If those were truly his searches,
he would not have been he would not have had
his tackles up at all.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And unfortunately, there are some individuals who will take advantage
of someone like that, right, you know, even though this
is kind of a sparsely populated area of the state,
there are so many people that go through you never
know who you're going to run into, and so it
is certainly possible that's something maybe nefarious happened. I don't
think though, that Matthew would have been kind of triggered
(37:52):
to be worried about something like that. I think, you know,
it seems like this is his calm space to go
fishing and to be out nature. It seems like this
is a space that he's kind of comfortable in, but
that comfortability can also make you more vulnerable.
Speaker 10 (38:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I'm also curious, Randy about the Google searches. Tell me
about the searches and where you believe he was when
he was conducting the searches.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
Evan has been able to go in a little bit
more extensively, like he can see the actual coordinates of
these searches, and you know, it was just that's what
I'm saying. It's right around the same area. But the
thing that we don't understand that we just figured out
is that it was for it was from the fifth
(38:39):
until the seventh, so he was in that same area.
So I just don't I don't understand.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
He even said that he.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
Was googling different things like parts for a cat, like
a like an excavator.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
He was googling something about that. He was googling, you know,
the things that were going wrong with his car as well.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
But it just it's hard to put the pieces together
because we just don't know it. And you know, Evan
is working very hard because he's trying to fit all
the pieces together.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
Follow this map that he has created.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
So Evans Short joining us from Missing in America Network, Evan,
explain what Randy just told us, that you have the
coordinates of where he was doing the searches regarding the
car not working.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
Yeah, we have the coordinates of in the timeline of
where he was at searching on the sixth of where
his two thousand and six Tucson clicking when I turned
the pia along turned over. And then also that was
earlier in the day, and then later in the day,
right around at the same time that they were text
(39:47):
messaging care of the sister, he was searching the same thing.
And also on the seventh, so that on the sixth
we have the GPS coordinates which was off of Green
Garland and Perry Road, just the Social sleep and then
on the seventh when he searched it. Unfortunately we didn't
(40:08):
capture the GPS coordinates of that location.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Joining us the founder of Missing an America Network, Wanda Decare. Heina,
you guys have managed to find a lot of missing
people without the benefit of Google coordinates like you've got
in this case. So what is making this case of Matthew,
what's making it so hard to solve.
Speaker 7 (40:32):
Because we can't find the car. We can't locate it.
We've been out there with the drones. We've been we've
had people in the area looking. It's not a highly
populated area, and we have to just reach everybody that's
out there so they're on the lookout for that vehicle.
Because once we find the vehicle, that's gonna answer a
lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Matthew Mangina, former felony prosecutor, now civil attorney and author. Mangino,
these coordinates are pretty exact.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Well, they are Nancy, and it would give you an opportunity,
I would assume, to at least reach out to the
community or people in the area who may have seen
a vehicle broken down alongside the road, may have seen
someone working on a vehicle, may have seen this vehicle
for an extended period of time sitting there. You know,
(41:23):
that seems to be more kind of the gum shoe
work that a police department would have to do and
looking for a missing person. I mean, these things, just
what we know just doesn't seem to add up. You know,
being in the flagstaff, you know, doubling back, you know,
having a car broke down and then just vanishing the
(41:45):
person Spencer and his vehicle. There's a lot we don't know,
and we have to try to connect those dogs if
we're ever going to.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Find You're right, man, Gina. Doctor John Delatorre, forensic psychologist.
Here's the thing, delatory routine evidence. I don't mean typical
routine evidence. I mean evidence off routine. He was always
in touch with his sister and cousin all the time.
They would text or speak multiple times a day, and
(42:15):
then suddenly his routine changed. There's nothing good about that, No,
not at all.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
I mean he's even checking in to see how their
day was and how dinner was. And then we get
messages about him being in the deserts of New Mexico
and in cloud Craft, which is a completely different area
than where he was last seen.
Speaker 7 (42:36):
Right, there's just so.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Much weirdness that's going on. I think that's what's the
confusing element to it, Right, the routine that he would
normally just kind of check in even if he found it,
he would find a way to get a message out.
I think that's the key that the family is going through,
is that he would find a way to get a
message to them, but he hasn't yet, and that's what's
(42:58):
sparking the fear and the anxiety of the worst thoughts
that they could have to happen to their family member.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
That photo that we're showing of him with a big
smile and the flower behind his ear, This guy such
a happy, happy spirit, just loved his family, loved the
world around him, headed to a new job and a
new home in Texas and then just suddenly vanishes. Uh huh,
(43:26):
it didn't happen like that. Even if he vanished, what
about his car straight back out to sister and cousin.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
It's hard to put the pieces together because we just
don't know it.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
And you know, Evan is working very hard because he's
trying to fit all the pieces together. Follow this map
that he has created, and you know, he stops in
these places, like one of the places that he stopped
in there was actually like a little makeshift tpee kind
of thing with a little fire pit.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
But we don't know if maybe Matthew just stumbled upon
that or if he made it. And in one of
the other places the coordinates thatid he got there was
just nothing there.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
It didn't look like anybody had been there, so it
just the unknown is what's crazy about it.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I'll say, what was the content of the search? What
was he saying?
Speaker 10 (44:18):
Again?
Speaker 5 (44:20):
It was well, the things that we had sent you,
like the turning over his car wouldn't turnover, things like that.
But he was also searching for the Dogtown Reservoir, the
Shoals Lake, and then he was also googling something about
an excavator. Just regular things. He was on his phont
like the camera part of his phone taking pictures. I
(44:43):
think he was on TikTok on Instagram. So he was
just doing normal things.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
And the last time you have evidence of him is
August six, correct, yes, ma'am. What is your message to
him tonight?
Speaker 5 (45:00):
And that we love you and if he ever does
see this, we just want you to come home. We
want to bring you home in any way that we can.
I don't know what's happened.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
But I just know that everybody loves you and we
miss you and we just want you to come home.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Kara Spencer, what is your message to your twin brother tonight?
Speaker 10 (45:21):
I just hope that you're safe out there wherever you are,
and happy birthday.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
What is your birthday going to be like? This year
without him.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Very hard.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Do you believe he would get in touch with you
if he could.
Speaker 10 (45:38):
Yes, we lost our mom about eleven years ago, so
we were We've been very close.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Please look at the photo of Matthew. Look at Matthew.
If you know or think you know anything about Matthew's
whereabouts or if you think you saw his vehicle, please
dial nine two eight seven seven four one four one
four repeat nine two eight seven seven four one four
(46:08):
one four. I want to thank the Missing in America
Network tonight to them being on with us, also for
all the work they do every day, every night trying
to bring missing people home to their families. Now we
remember an American hero, Deputy Sheriff Jacob Sovereign Richardon County Sheriffs,
(46:32):
South Carolina, killed in the line of duty, leaving behind
a grieving sister. Ali American hero Deputy Sheriff Jacob Sovereign
Nancy Gray signing off good bye friend.