December 31, 2024 • 37 mins
At 17, Jennifer Wix welcomes her daughter, Adrianna Nicole. With support from her family, Jennifer finishes high school while raising the baby girl she lovingly nicknames Nina. At 19, Jennifer begins working nights and meets Joey Benton. They move in together at his parents’ home.
In late March, Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family. She usually speaks with her mother at least once a day and frequently stays in touch with other relatives. Adrianna, 2, had been sick all week. After two days without contact, Jennifer’s family reports her missing.
The Robertson County Sheriff's Office begins its investigation at the home Jennifer shares with her boyfriend, Joey Benton, and his parents, Joe and Cynthia Benton. Nothing appears out of place on the property, and foot searches reveal no sign of Jennifer or Adrianna.
Deputies follow up on several possible sightings of the mother and daughter, but the sightings either can’t be verified or are determined to be someone else.
What happened to Jennifer and Adrianna Wix?
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Casey Robinson - Sister
- Buddy Mitchell - Wix Family Private Investigator, ABC Investigative Services
- Ben Powers - Criminal Defense Attorney, Facebook: Legal Powers PLLC, https://legalpowers.com
- Dr. Jeff Kieliszewski - Forensic Psychologist, Author: Darksides", darksides.podia.com YouTube: "Dr. Jeff Kieliszewski, Forensic Psychologist"
- Lauren Conlin - Podcaster/Reporter/Host- The Outlier Podcast & Co-Host of Primetime Crime on YouTube. Website: www.popcrime.tv & primetimecrimeshow.com, X- @Conlin_Lauren, Instagram- @LaurenEmilyConlin,YouTube: @PopCrimeTV
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, haunting new leads in the
case of a beautiful young missing mom and her two
year old little girl. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This
is Crime Stories.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Mom and daughter missing, their case classified as a homicide investigation.
Still no suspects.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
How can that be?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
But in the last days, as I said, very chilling,
haunting new leads have emerged in the case of this
beautiful young mom and her taught girl, Adriana just two
years old.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
With me an all star panal.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
But I'm trying to figure out how the whole thing started.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
In late March, Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family members.
Jennifer usually speaks with her mom at least once a
day and is in frequent contact with other family members.
Even more strange, Adriana too had been sick all week.
It isn't like Jennifer to travel with a sick baby.
After two days of no contact, Jennifer's family reports her missing.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You know, that's often called routine evidence, not that it
is routine or typical or expected, but that it is
evidence of a certain routine, and when that routine is broken,
it bodes ill again with me an all star panel.
But first I'm going to go to a special guest
joining us. This is Jennifer Wicks's sister, Adriana's aunt, Casey
(01:50):
Robinson joining us. Casey, thank you for being with us
and keeping the case alive. Casey, I'm very curious the
smoke signals in the distance that something ill was afoot
seemed to start. Genesis would be when she was not
(02:12):
contacting your mother as she normally did. Tell me about
their relationship and how often they contacted each other and.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
How Yeah, I mean, Jennifer was very dependent on our family,
and she would speak to not only my mom, but
a family member of hers on her dad's side or
my mom's side almost every day and multiple people, so
not just one person, but she would talk to someone
a couple times a day, and so it was really
odd whenever she didn't do that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You know, that's very curious, Casey.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Not that she was in close touchp before my mom
moved in with me, I told to my mother and
dad in the morning when I would be driving home
from HLM and at night to make sure that they
were okay. You said she was dependent. Now, very curious,
(03:04):
what do you mean jan was dependent?
Speaker 5 (03:07):
She lived with a family member. She was just twenty
one whenever she disappeared, But she lived with a family member,
either my aunt, her grandmother, or my mom and me
and my other sister her whole life, even after she
had Adriana, and she did not have a steady job,
She didn't have a vehicle, she didn't have a means
(03:29):
or resource.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Hold on just a moment, just a moment, just a moment.
She was taking care of her baby, wasn't she. That
sounds like a pretty steady job to me.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Yeah, well, yeah, I stay at home mom as a job,
you're right, And she was a good mom. So she
definitely took care of Adriana with the help of all
of our family members. So she relied on everyone for childcare,
a means to get to and from because she didn't
have a car, she didn't have a cell phone of
her own, a bank account. So when I say she
(03:57):
was dependent, I mean she was truly stilled dependent of
childlike still living with family.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You know, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Of course, having given birth to twins, and when I
got pregnant, I didn't know I was going to have twins.
I learned much later in the pregnancy. I don't know
what I would have done without my mother and father.
You know, they would drive up. I was in Atlanta
at that time, at the drop of the hat, my husband,
David's mother and father, everybody pitching in for me to
(04:29):
keep working and to try to raise the twins the
way I wanted them to be raised. And I don't
know what I would have done without them. So I'm
hearing what you're saying. I don't find that curious, but
it is. I understand why you knew immediately, Casey, when
no one had heard from Jennifer that something was wrong,
(04:52):
so she lived with the family. She didn't have a car,
and so she which is also not unusual, so they
would give her rides wherever she had to go. She
had to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, or
the mail, the post office is anywhere, and with a
young child, you're going to the pharmacy. I would send
my husband out at midnight for if we needed a
(05:14):
formula or whatever we needed. And that's pretty tough.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
In the middle of New York at midnight, trying to
find baby for mere. You did it, so I get it.
I get it now, Wen.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Did you first realize Hey, wait a minute, I haven't
heard from Jennifer.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
Yeah, that would be on Friday in March twenty sixth
My mom last spoke to her on Wednesday evening and
on Friday. By that time, we were like, something's wrong
because she would have normally contacted my mom by then,
and she had spoken to other family members on Thursday,
but by Friday she hadn't called. My mom told her
(05:50):
that she would on their last phone call, and that
was when we knew.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Don't stop the videos, New York. I'm seeing the most
incredible videos. I believe I'm looking at you when you're
a little girl. Yeah, I'm seeing the most incredible videos
baby Audriana, and she is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
She's got these piercing eyes. Her eyes blue.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yeah, they're very very bright blue, which is which is
odd because Jennifer had brown eyes.
Speaker 6 (06:21):
But Adriana resembles her dad.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
You know. There she is in the hospital after giving birth.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The bond between Jennifer and that's the one where she's, oh,
my goodness, she I don't know if you can see
what I'm seeing, but Adriana is just she's like a
little angel.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
She's beautiful, like a little cherub. And what's so disturbing.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
About this case? I'm going to circle right back to you,
Casey Robinson. Lauren Colin joining me. I'd like to keep
the videos going because I want to keep looking at
everything I can see and learn. Lauren Colin joining me,
investigative reporter and host of The Outlier podcast and Primetime
Crime on YouTube. Lauren, it's not just that Jennifer goes missing,
(07:14):
Adriana goes missing too.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
That is very rare, actually, Lauren Conlin.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
If you look at statistics regarding criminal law, that a
mother and the baby both go missing and there's no trace.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
Yes, Nancy, it's incredibly suspicious. And what's even more suspicious
is that the family cannot exactly piece together Jennifer and
Adriana's last days because the.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
Stories have been so conflicting.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Two people to disappear at the same time. Joining me
now is a special guest along with Casey Robinson. This
is Jennifer Wicks's sister and the aunt of baby Adriana.
Buddy Mitchell is with us now number one. He is
the Wicks fan only private investigator with ABC Investigative Services.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
But for my purposes.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
This guy thirty four years on Nashville PD rising to sergeant.
That's not easy. And I can tell you in Nashville
you've seen it all, Buddy Mitchell. I've had a lot
of kidnappings. I've prosecuted them, i've investigated them, I've covered them.
(08:26):
But I don't see two people getting kidnapped at the
same time very often.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
That's rare, and there's a reason I'm pointing this out.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
What do you make of two people getting kidnapped at
the same time.
Speaker 9 (08:39):
Well, it's hard to wrap your head around. First of all,
it was put all put down as a runaway that
she just left, which I find that was a little alarming.
She would not leave her the baby stuff at the
house and the car seat.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Hold on just a second.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I'm trying to write down everything you're saying, because, Buddy Mitchell,
right off the bat, that's an incredible insight. Now it
may seem like everybody's going yeah, of course, but you.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
May have overlooked that.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And it's really important because Jeff Klishevski joining me, a
forensic psychologist, author of Dark Sides.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
You can find them on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Doctor Jeff Klishevski forensic psychologist doctor Jeff. When I would
fly home to Atlanta and then get in the car
it was an SUV and pack it full of stuff
to take the twins to make it where my parents
were living. You could hardly even look out the rear
view mirror because it was packed up to the top.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Two car seats, two baby beds.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
The whole thing, the bottle warmer, the this that you
want to tell me that this mom just takes off,
what puts her baby in a backpack and leaves by foot, didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Have a car.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's total be as And I've had it with local
law enforcement. Whenever a woman goes missing out, she's not
with her boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
What boyfriend? She's having some me time. That's not what happened.
Why does this keep happening over and over? Run Away?
She's not a runaway, right?
Speaker 10 (10:14):
You know you mentioned earlier about the idea about people
have their routines and the loved ones close to them
know their routines. And if part of her m O
and her routine in her history is not running away,
not neglecting her baby, the idea that she would leave
and leave all these things behind and run away just
doesn't make sense. You wonder, is that the people investigating
(10:37):
or asking the questions just wanting easy out to move
on from this.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Thinking every through everything back to you, Casey Robinson, this.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Is Jennifer's sister.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
When you first realized you hadn't heard from Jennifer, what went.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Through your mind? Did you ever think, Oh, she's just.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
On a walk about, she's with her other boyfriend nonexistent,
she ran away without one bottle of formula, without one
baby sought nothing.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Did that ever crossed your mind?
Speaker 6 (11:06):
No, not once. Adriana was Jennifer's life.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
I mean that was literally all that she had to
do in life at that point in time. So I
mean that would have been all that she thought about,
all that she cared about. She wouldn't have left without
any of their things, the baby's stuffed Elmo, that she
couldn't go to sleep without things like that. That a
mother like you mentioned before, she wouldn't leave. But no,
(11:30):
that never crossed my mind.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
Not once.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Also, my sister and I were very close, so she
cared for me as kind of like a motherlike figure.
There's no way in the world she would have just
left without I don't want to say telling me if
she had plans to leave, but like, it wasn't character
of her to just run off, and she cared so
(11:54):
much and had big feelings and big emotions for the
people she loved, and we were very close.
Speaker 6 (11:59):
She wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So, Casey Robinson, when you and your family realize you
haven't seen her, you can't find her. Did you believe
what the cops said that she quote ran away end quote?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What did you do to try to find her?
Speaker 11 (12:12):
No?
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Immediately, myself, my whole family, my mom, we knew something
was wrong, something wasn't right.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
This was out of character for Jennifer.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
So we just started driving around looking for her around town,
calling all of her friends, calling all of our family members,
calling the people she was living with. We just really
started looking for her because she had to be somewhere.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
What did police tell you? Local law enforcement tell you
at the get go, Casey.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
I'm at first they said that she potentially just needed
a break, that she just needed to take some time
for herself, and that she would be back.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
The police actually said to you, she needed a break.
They said that I can't believe this, Actually I can't
believe it. That doesn't make it any better. What did
you say back to that she needed a break.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Yeah, we said that's just not true. There's something wrong.
She dealt with all of her issues had on. We
had never seen her just run away from anything. So yeah,
we just didn't believe what they were saying, and we
just knew something was wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
So what did you tell them when they said that?
What was your response?
Speaker 5 (13:19):
And we said, we need you to go to where
she's living. We need you to go there. Something wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Did they do it?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
They did, Yes, they sent some deputies over to the
residence where she was living at a time.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
In late March, Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family members.
Jennifer usually speaks with her mom at least once a
day and is in frequent contact with other family members.
Even more strange, Adriana too had been sick all week.
It isn't like Jennifer to travel with a sick baby.
After two days of no contact, Jennifer's family reports her missing.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Oh worry family desperately searching for a missing mom and
daughter who disappeared from their home.
Speaker 12 (14:08):
The Robertson County Sheriff's Office starts at the home Jennifer
shares with boyfriend Joey Benn and his parents, Joe and
Cynthia Benn. Nothing seems out of place on the property,
and foots are just turned up. No sign of Jennifer
and Adriana. Deputies follow up on several possible sidings of
the mom and daughter, but the sightings either can't be
verified or turn out to be someone else. Through interviews,
(14:28):
deputies find Joey Bnnon is the last person to see
Jennifer and Adriana.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I want to talk about those sidings too, Lauren Colin,
joining us, host of Primetime Crime on YouTube. What about
the sidings?
Speaker 7 (14:42):
The sightings turned out to be completely bogused. There were
reports that Jennifer and Adriana were at a grocery store
at a gas station.
Speaker 8 (14:50):
Those turned out to be not true.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Casey Robinson, do you remember getting the news that there
had been a siding of your sister, maybe Adriana.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Yeah, we remember for hearing that initially that they had
went to the local grocery store and went to the
local gas station there in cross Planes, But again we
didn't know that for certain, so we were just asking
law enforcement to follow up on, to follow up on
those sightings and to corroborate it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You know, Casey, you just mentioned Sightings and cross Plaine, Tennessee.
Now it's my understanding there's a very low population of less.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Than two thousand people in cross Plaines. Is that right,
Lauren Colin?
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Yet, ma'am, the population was about thirteen hundred people now
in twenty twenty four?
Speaker 8 (15:40):
Is it closer to two thousand?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Just thinking through whether that helps or hurts?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Joining me being the Powers high profile lawyer out of Tennessee.
He is at legalpowers dot com. Ben, thank you for
being with us. And the reason I'm asking about the
population is because to deduce what may have happened when
you've got a giant population. I just recently was investigating
(16:07):
a body that was found a young girl's body in
a trash bag, actually on the side of the street,
a sidewalk in New York.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
That could have been anybody. There's millions of inhabitants. But
when you have a town.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
As small as this two thousand, I mean I grew
up in an area that wasn't even a town, it
was unincorporated, that vastly reduces your suspect pool.
Speaker 10 (16:33):
It does.
Speaker 13 (16:33):
It's a small community, it's tight knit and cross planes
and so with that small of a community, you're going
to notice people that are not part of that community regularly,
so you'll notice an outsider that's come in. But you're
also going to know about each other's business. Because a
lot of cross planes and small communities, it's very family oriented.
Larger families, you know, where moms, dads, cousins, aunts, uncles,
(16:57):
grandparents all live together and they're friends with other family unlis,
they're equally large, So everyone looks out for each other,
everyone's into everyone else's business. And so with that's small
of a pool of a populace, it does provide a
short list of possible suspects when someone goes missing from
that community, you.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Know, and I understand it's just a little over eight miles,
eight miles.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
In all, eight point three square miles.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That also reduces the territory the land that law enforcement
has to cover. Of course, someone that took her and
or killed her could easily drive past that and get
rid of a body, destroyed the body, bury the body,
burn the body, but it does give a smaller frame
of search.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
So we've got that going on as well. Now we
also learn.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Of course, the grocery store siding no good, the gas
station siding.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
No good.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So where is not only Jennifer, but she's got baby
Adriana in two How.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Easy is it to just disappear on your own?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I mean, I guess you could take a bus, a
bus route. That would be hard to do. She doesn't
have a car, there's no metro, there would be a
record of a taxi.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
None of that happened. So where is she now?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
We know that she was last sighted by the boyfriend Benton.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Joey Benton tells Robertson County Sheriffs that he last saw
Jennifer and Adriana at their home on owens Chapel Road
two days ago around nine thirty pm. Benton says, someone
driving a white four door Sedan picks Jennifer and Adriana
up and he hasn't heard from her again. Benton can't
say who was driving the car or what kind of
car it was.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I want to analyz that just in itself. Heytails Robertson
County Sheriffs, he saw her at home.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Owens Chapel Road two days before. Let me just start
with that two days before. Right there.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I've got a problem, Casey Robinson joining us. This is
Jennifer's sister number one, They go to him. He doesn't
call anybody and say, hey, where's Jennifer? Have you seen Jennifer?
Where's the baby? He doesn't go to police, he doesn't
contact mom, he doesn't contact you, nobody. Two days, two days.
(19:16):
If I had not seen my husband in two days,
I'd be standing on my head. I would have called
police after five hours, not knowing where he was, not
just singing, but not knowing where he was. No, right there,
I've got a problem. But in his defense, didn't.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
He say Casey that they were having a tiff.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Yeah, he said that they were having an argument that evening.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So Casey, in the past, was there ever an incident
where she had had an argument and that's common when
you've got a baby, in the stress of raising the baby,
all that where she had left the home with Benton
and come back and not gone back to benchon.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yes, had that happened before?
Speaker 6 (20:06):
Yes, a couple months prior to this.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, Okay, be in powers.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
You see where I'm going with this high profile defense
attorney like yourself can make a lot of hay with that.
He would argue that, well, this wasn't unusual whenever they
have a fight, she goes home to Mommy.
Speaker 13 (20:20):
Yeah, the past relationship and the history of it where
there's some kind of dust stop that leads to her
leaving and going to some other location to reside, seems
to be a basis to say this was more normal
than unnormal that after an argument she would go somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
But on the other hand, see, this is the way
you win a case.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You figure out what they're going to say, and then
you figure a way to destroy what they're going to say.
All right, that may be true Casey Robinson that she
had left where she lived with the boyfriend Benton, that
she had left before and come home to mom but
he didn't even call and ask about her. After two days,
(21:04):
authorities had to go to him. And then he goes, yeah,
I hadn't seen him in two days. He didn't even call.
Is that normal, Casey.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
No, it's not normal at all. The first time that
it happened because they ran a short relationship, it was
very short. The first time that it happened, they stayed
in contact with each other. He kept trying to get
her back, and so no, that's not character for that situation.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
March Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family members. Jennifer usually
speaks with her mom at least once a day and
is in frequent contact with other family members. Even more strange,
Adriana too had been sick all week. It isn't like
Jennifer to travel with a sick baby. After two days
of no contact, Jennifer's family reports her missing.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Where is young mom Jennifer Wicks and her baby girl Adriana?
Now we know that they live in the boyfriend Benton
stated they had an argument about where they were going
to live two days before, and he hadn't called to
check on the baby or her in the last two days. Curious,
(22:08):
he gave a story, but then he elaborates.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Listen.
Speaker 11 (22:12):
Benton says he picked Jennifer and Adriana up and they
drove around town, having a conversation about their tense living arrangements.
That conversation turned into an argument. Jennifer ended their relationship
and refused to return to their home, so Benton dropped
her off at a gas station in Cross Plains around
nine thirty pm. Benton claims he watched Jennifer from a
church parking lot across the street for ten minutes before
(22:34):
someone driving a white four door sedan picked Jennifer and
Adriana up.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Okay, Lauren Colin joining me, investigative reporter and star of
Primetime crime on YouTube. Okay, Lauren, give me that again,
very slowly. Now. At first he states that she left
in a white four door Sedan, but then he elaborates
didn't necessarily change the story, but did add some facts.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Explain to me what he said.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Yes, so, Joey claimed that first he brought her to
a grocery store to use the phone, and then Jennifer
asked if he could bring her and Adriana to this
gas station where some friends were going to pick them up.
Speaker 8 (23:15):
He says, he drives to the church parking lot.
Speaker 7 (23:17):
He waits about ten minutes, and actually his story was
that he saw them get into a white four door Mustang,
which we later.
Speaker 8 (23:26):
Finds out it doesn't exist. A four door white Mustang
does not exist.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
You know, I can't stress how important car makes and
models can be. For instance, in the case of Rex Humerman,
the accused Long Island serial killer, multiple witnesses point out
they see the victims leaving with a giant of a
man and a Chevy Avalanche, which was no longer made
(23:51):
since about twenty thirteen, I believe, years later, when bodies
are starting to be discovered along Gilgo Beach. What's in
his driveway the avalanche?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
If that had been followed.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Up on at the time, maybe some lives that could
have been saved. Let's see, what's another one. Oh, here's
a great one. Coburger, coburger. Remember, the whole way he
ends up getting arrested is because a white Elantra is
seen and he drives a white Elantra.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I mean, it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
How cars, vehicles connect back to solving a case.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now, in this.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Case, it's really curious, Lauren Colin that he gives the
specificity of a four door white Mustang, and there's.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
No such thing as a four door Mustang.
Speaker 8 (24:46):
No, there's not.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Now, no one has been named as a suspect in
this case, much less a defendant.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
But you know, when.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
People add details to their story, the devil is in
the details.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
A four door Mustang.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Later that story is a white four door Sedan picked
up Jennifer and Adriana. So Casey Robinson, this is Jennifer's sister.
When you first heard that story about your sister, And
he didn't tell you himself, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Didn't he tell the police that?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Yes, he told that to the police.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Did he ever tell you what happened?
Speaker 5 (25:28):
He told my older sister, So she was in between
Jennifer and I in age, and my sister actually got
in contact with them, and he said that they had
broken up and he dropped her off at this gas station.
But he didn't go into detail about the car with us, No,
just law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I mean you'd think doctor Jeff Kelschewsky that when the
baby and the mommy are both gone, that every detail
would matter. And Casey's telling us, Yeah, he didn't say
anything about our getting picked up. I mean, they're trying
to find her. And he didn't mention anything about the
white sedan nothing.
Speaker 10 (26:03):
Yeah. I think there's a couple of things here. First
of all, when you approach this from an investigative angle,
you think, what would people reasonably do? You know, just
the idea that he never called to report them missing
or where the whereabouts were for a couple of days,
that's not what a reasonable person would do. Another thing,
this guy just breaks up with his girlfriend, probably pretty emotional.
(26:24):
He drops her off, she gets into a strange car,
and he doesn't he's not interested in who she's going
away with, so you know, what would a reasonable person do.
The other part, too, is if a person's not being
entirely truthful and they haven't really planned out what their
report is going to be, they blurt things out and
(26:46):
then they try to either embellish if it's a falsehood,
or they try to provide details, sometimes losing track of
what their concocted story is because they hadn't planned it
out yet, and that's where they make mistakes, and that's
why the devil's in the details for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
And then there's more. Listen.
Speaker 12 (27:05):
Ben says the next day, Jennifer returned to their home
without Adriana, driving the same white car that picked her
up the night before. Bennen says Jennifer collected some of
her belongings and wanted her tax return money, which had
been deposited into Joey's parents' account. Joey says his parents
weren't home, so Jennifer planned to return for the money later.
Benton says this is the last time he saw on Jennifer.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
And then we learn about an intense argument in the
Benton home listen.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Jennifer told family members Benton's parents were upset by Adriana's
constant crying while the toddler was sick, and they had
a blowout argument during dinner.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
My mom talked to her on Wednesday night, but apparently
there had been a lot of arguing and fighting with
the family that night. His family the baby had been
crying a lot. I don't know what they could have
been fighting about. Jennifer didn't go into a lot of detail,
but she just said like his mom had like thrown
their dinner out the back door onto the ground until
her to go and get it. She better hurry and
(28:02):
get it before the dogs do just like a bunch
of like really mean, nasty things. So Jennifer was in
the room, my mom could hear the baby crying. So
my mom asked her, like after they talked about the
fighting and everything, like let me come get y'all and
like we're not that far, you know, twenty minute drive maybe,
(28:25):
And Jennifer's like, no, it's okay, Mom, Like I can
handle this. Joey and I we're gonna go on a
picnic tomorrow. We're gonna talk about everything. Because she wanted
to move out of their house. Mom said, Okay, call
me tomorrow, let me know how everything goes.
Speaker 6 (28:43):
Well, she never did. She never called my mom.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So Casey Robinson, Jennifer's sister, there was a lot of
trouble brewing in the bench and home the night before
she goes missing.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
Yeah, the family was fighting. Everything had been tense for
that entire week. There were some events leading up to
that argument on Wednesday, March twenty fourth, and Jennifer had
gotten into an argument with Joey's mom and she was
throwing their food out like I mentioned in that video
(29:15):
and talking about how she's an unfit mother, and Jennifer
just wanted to move out.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Of this house, and Joey wasn't listening.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Bottom line, she didn't have a car.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
She couldn't just crank up and drive away, but everyone
wanted her to come home.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Jennifer made a couple of phone calls that day, So
she made one phone call to my aunt and one
phone call to her dad, and both phone calls they
both talked about like the fight from the night prior
that she had had with his parents, and my aunt
had left her a key outside and they had talked
(29:58):
about like well, if things get crazy, you know, you
can come here. Okay, So there was her plan.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
I'll call you tomorrow. I love you, the last words
a mother hears from her daughter as her granddaughter wales
in the background to.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Casey Robinson, that has always been of the story all
this time, since Jennifer and Adriana missing. In the last days,
you have a conversation with Benton.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
What happened.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
We had a conversation recently with him, and we hadn't
talked to him in twenty years, and I reached out
to him and just said, hey, can we talk and
he said sure, and so we jumped on a phone conversation.
We talked for about an hour and he stuck to
the gas station story. I asked him, did that really happen?
Speaker 6 (31:00):
Is that true?
Speaker 5 (31:00):
And he said, yes, that's all true. I took her there,
I did what she asked me to do, and we
talked a little bit about their relationship and how I
just wanted to talk more about her and learn more
about her because I was so young. Then he said
he'd be willing to talk to me anytime. He said,
call me anytime after seven o'clock. And that was the
(31:22):
first conversation that I had with him, and I've had two.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
What happened next, well.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
What happened next is is we had some meetings set
up with local law enforcement and our District attorney's offices
here in Robertson County, and I had let Joey know
that on that first phone conversation and also social media,
so he knew that we had these meetings coming up,
and he actually visited the District Attorney's office on the
(31:51):
same day that we had our.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
Meeting, so our meeting was cut short.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
He came in and we learned from him directly that
he came there to tell them everything. And it wasn't
until maybe like a month or two later that my
mom sat down with him for the first time in
twenty years.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
An astonishing development in the search of a missing mom
and her baby girl. To you, Buddy Mitchell, joining us
a Wick's family private investigator, former and national PD thirty
four years Buddy, what other evidence is there? And of
course no one has been named to suspect. No one
has been named to suspect at all in this case.
Speaker 9 (32:32):
A very important uh, and you're talking about details in
this case is the car seat, he said, the car
seat was when she took the car seat and the
baby and got into the four door car. And two
days later the first officer that went to check on
him put in his report and that the car seat
(32:56):
within the living room, so that couldn't be in the
living room if they took it to the car. And
he asked the person to Joy Bitten how many car
seats they had. She said he told them only the one.
So the car seat is still in the living room.
So I think that's a very important part of the evidence.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So at this point, so much forensic evidence is gone.
So bottom line, you've got to either have another witness.
You don't have to have a body, but you have
to have at least another witness. You've got to catch
him in conflicting statements if.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
They even exist.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Again, he's not charged, so there's going to have to
be a corroborating witness. One of the other alleged purpose
is going to have to crack, or they've got to.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Find the body. Bottom line, Buddy Mitchell.
Speaker 9 (33:53):
That's exactly right. And we have looked several places for
the body. How was there when the mother met with
Joy We was like five feet away, heard the whole conversation.
There is, like Casey said, a lot of important information
(34:15):
that we cannot give out now because the police and
DA asked that's not too but there is details that
would lead to a conviction.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I believe details well.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I know there are not anything forensic because it's too
late to use doing all at the home or anything
that's absolutely correct. So I can deduce that you're referring
to a corroborating witness that saw something or can confess
to something.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Can you at least tell me that much it is.
Speaker 9 (34:44):
Other witnesses, And I think we can find the bodies.
If it might take a little time, but we can
find the bodies.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
And another thing, even if the killer discussed what happened
with someone else, that can come into evidence.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
If you're talking.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
About what the defendant said and the defendant is there
that that's not going to be subject to a Hear'Say
rule objection. So if it was discussed amongst other people,
if they bragged about it or talked about it, or
got someone to.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Help bury the body, all of that.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Can prove the case without the actual body. But for
some reason, buddy, you feel convinced you'll find the remains.
Speaker 9 (35:33):
Yes, and I can promise you, myself and the Wicks
family will never give up until we find the bodies
and have closure. In this case, I promise you that
we will never ever give up.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You know, taking an adult is bad enough an unarmed
young mom, but the baby too. To kill the baby
two case you rob, This is Jennifer's sister, Adriana's aunt
has never let go of this case. You're not telling me,
(36:08):
and I understand that, and I actually applaud that.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I don't want to hurt the investigation in any way.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
I think that just the dynamics of their family and
how things are playing out. That's typically in cold cases
and longer term cases, how you know, cases are solved.
It takes time and someone turning on the other person.
I definitely think that's going to happen. And there's never been,
you know, a full thorough search of their property the
(36:35):
last place that they were seeing. So that's something that
we're pushing for. I think that law enforcement and the
DA are working on. And yeah, he's right, we'll never
give up most of our evidence as circumstantial, but I
know that there are cases built around circumstantial evidence. But
I think with everything that we have and if law
(36:56):
enforcement and we continue working on it, we can definitely
solve fine Jennifer and Adriana.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Again, let me say that there are no formal defendants
or suspects named in this case and we are waiting.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
For justice to rain down like water. Nancy Grace signing off,
good night friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, haunting new leads in the
case of a beautiful young missing mom and her two
year old little girl. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This
is Crime Stories.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Mom and daughter missing, their case classified as a homicide investigation.
Still no suspects.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
How can that be?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
But in the last days, as I said, very chilling,
haunting new leads have emerged in the case of this
beautiful young mom and her taught girl, Adriana just two
years old.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
With me an all star panal.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
But I'm trying to figure out how the whole thing started.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
In late March, Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family members.
Jennifer usually speaks with her mom at least once a
day and is in frequent contact with other family members.
Even more strange, Adriana too had been sick all week.
It isn't like Jennifer to travel with a sick baby.
After two days of no contact, Jennifer's family reports her missing.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
You know, that's often called routine evidence, not that it
is routine or typical or expected, but that it is
evidence of a certain routine, and when that routine is broken,
it bodes ill again with me an all star panel.
But first I'm going to go to a special guest
joining us. This is Jennifer Wicks's sister, Adriana's aunt, Casey
(01:50):
Robinson joining us. Casey, thank you for being with us
and keeping the case alive. Casey, I'm very curious the
smoke signals in the distance that something ill was afoot
seemed to start. Genesis would be when she was not
(02:12):
contacting your mother as she normally did. Tell me about
their relationship and how often they contacted each other and.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
How Yeah, I mean, Jennifer was very dependent on our family,
and she would speak to not only my mom, but
a family member of hers on her dad's side or
my mom's side almost every day and multiple people, so
not just one person, but she would talk to someone
a couple times a day, and so it was really
odd whenever she didn't do that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
You know, that's very curious, Casey.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Not that she was in close touchp before my mom
moved in with me, I told to my mother and
dad in the morning when I would be driving home
from HLM and at night to make sure that they
were okay. You said she was dependent. Now, very curious,
(03:04):
what do you mean jan was dependent?
Speaker 5 (03:07):
She lived with a family member. She was just twenty
one whenever she disappeared, But she lived with a family member,
either my aunt, her grandmother, or my mom and me
and my other sister her whole life, even after she
had Adriana, and she did not have a steady job,
She didn't have a vehicle, she didn't have a means
(03:29):
or resource.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Hold on just a moment, just a moment, just a moment.
She was taking care of her baby, wasn't she. That
sounds like a pretty steady job to me.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Yeah, well, yeah, I stay at home mom as a job,
you're right, And she was a good mom. So she
definitely took care of Adriana with the help of all
of our family members. So she relied on everyone for childcare,
a means to get to and from because she didn't
have a car, she didn't have a cell phone of
her own, a bank account. So when I say she
(03:57):
was dependent, I mean she was truly stilled dependent of
childlike still living with family.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
You know, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Of course, having given birth to twins, and when I
got pregnant, I didn't know I was going to have twins.
I learned much later in the pregnancy. I don't know
what I would have done without my mother and father.
You know, they would drive up. I was in Atlanta
at that time, at the drop of the hat, my husband,
David's mother and father, everybody pitching in for me to
(04:29):
keep working and to try to raise the twins the
way I wanted them to be raised. And I don't
know what I would have done without them. So I'm
hearing what you're saying. I don't find that curious, but
it is. I understand why you knew immediately, Casey, when
no one had heard from Jennifer that something was wrong,
(04:52):
so she lived with the family. She didn't have a car,
and so she which is also not unusual, so they
would give her rides wherever she had to go. She
had to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, or
the mail, the post office is anywhere, and with a
young child, you're going to the pharmacy. I would send
my husband out at midnight for if we needed a
(05:14):
formula or whatever we needed. And that's pretty tough.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
In the middle of New York at midnight, trying to
find baby for mere. You did it, so I get it.
I get it now, Wen.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Did you first realize Hey, wait a minute, I haven't
heard from Jennifer.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
Yeah, that would be on Friday in March twenty sixth
My mom last spoke to her on Wednesday evening and
on Friday. By that time, we were like, something's wrong
because she would have normally contacted my mom by then,
and she had spoken to other family members on Thursday,
but by Friday she hadn't called. My mom told her
(05:50):
that she would on their last phone call, and that
was when we knew.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Don't stop the videos, New York. I'm seeing the most
incredible videos. I believe I'm looking at you when you're
a little girl. Yeah, I'm seeing the most incredible videos
baby Audriana, and she is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
She's got these piercing eyes. Her eyes blue.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Yeah, they're very very bright blue, which is which is
odd because Jennifer had brown eyes.
Speaker 6 (06:21):
But Adriana resembles her dad.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
You know. There she is in the hospital after giving birth.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The bond between Jennifer and that's the one where she's, oh,
my goodness, she I don't know if you can see
what I'm seeing, but Adriana is just she's like a
little angel.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
She's beautiful, like a little cherub. And what's so disturbing.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
About this case? I'm going to circle right back to you,
Casey Robinson. Lauren Colin joining me. I'd like to keep
the videos going because I want to keep looking at
everything I can see and learn. Lauren Colin joining me,
investigative reporter and host of The Outlier podcast and Primetime
Crime on YouTube. Lauren, it's not just that Jennifer goes missing,
(07:14):
Adriana goes missing too.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
That is very rare, actually, Lauren Conlin.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
If you look at statistics regarding criminal law, that a
mother and the baby both go missing and there's no trace.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
Yes, Nancy, it's incredibly suspicious. And what's even more suspicious
is that the family cannot exactly piece together Jennifer and
Adriana's last days because the.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
Stories have been so conflicting.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Two people to disappear at the same time. Joining me
now is a special guest along with Casey Robinson. This
is Jennifer Wicks's sister and the aunt of baby Adriana.
Buddy Mitchell is with us now number one. He is
the Wicks fan only private investigator with ABC Investigative Services.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
But for my purposes.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
This guy thirty four years on Nashville PD rising to sergeant.
That's not easy. And I can tell you in Nashville
you've seen it all, Buddy Mitchell. I've had a lot
of kidnappings. I've prosecuted them, i've investigated them, I've covered them.
(08:26):
But I don't see two people getting kidnapped at the
same time very often.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
That's rare, and there's a reason I'm pointing this out.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
What do you make of two people getting kidnapped at
the same time.
Speaker 9 (08:39):
Well, it's hard to wrap your head around. First of all,
it was put all put down as a runaway that
she just left, which I find that was a little alarming.
She would not leave her the baby stuff at the
house and the car seat.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Hold on just a second.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I'm trying to write down everything you're saying, because, Buddy Mitchell,
right off the bat, that's an incredible insight. Now it
may seem like everybody's going yeah, of course, but you.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
May have overlooked that.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And it's really important because Jeff Klishevski joining me, a
forensic psychologist, author of Dark Sides.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
You can find them on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Doctor Jeff Klishevski forensic psychologist doctor Jeff. When I would
fly home to Atlanta and then get in the car
it was an SUV and pack it full of stuff
to take the twins to make it where my parents
were living. You could hardly even look out the rear
view mirror because it was packed up to the top.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Two car seats, two baby beds.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
The whole thing, the bottle warmer, the this that you
want to tell me that this mom just takes off,
what puts her baby in a backpack and leaves by foot, didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Have a car.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's total be as And I've had it with local
law enforcement. Whenever a woman goes missing out, she's not
with her boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
What boyfriend? She's having some me time. That's not what happened.
Why does this keep happening over and over? Run Away?
She's not a runaway, right?
Speaker 10 (10:14):
You know you mentioned earlier about the idea about people
have their routines and the loved ones close to them
know their routines. And if part of her m O
and her routine in her history is not running away,
not neglecting her baby, the idea that she would leave
and leave all these things behind and run away just
doesn't make sense. You wonder, is that the people investigating
(10:37):
or asking the questions just wanting easy out to move
on from this.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Thinking every through everything back to you, Casey Robinson, this.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Is Jennifer's sister.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
When you first realized you hadn't heard from Jennifer, what went.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Through your mind? Did you ever think, Oh, she's just.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
On a walk about, she's with her other boyfriend nonexistent,
she ran away without one bottle of formula, without one
baby sought nothing.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Did that ever crossed your mind?
Speaker 6 (11:06):
No, not once. Adriana was Jennifer's life.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
I mean that was literally all that she had to
do in life at that point in time. So I
mean that would have been all that she thought about,
all that she cared about. She wouldn't have left without
any of their things, the baby's stuffed Elmo, that she
couldn't go to sleep without things like that. That a
mother like you mentioned before, she wouldn't leave. But no,
(11:30):
that never crossed my mind.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
Not once.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Also, my sister and I were very close, so she
cared for me as kind of like a motherlike figure.
There's no way in the world she would have just
left without I don't want to say telling me if
she had plans to leave, but like, it wasn't character
of her to just run off, and she cared so
(11:54):
much and had big feelings and big emotions for the
people she loved, and we were very close.
Speaker 6 (11:59):
She wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So, Casey Robinson, when you and your family realize you
haven't seen her, you can't find her. Did you believe
what the cops said that she quote ran away end quote?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What did you do to try to find her?
Speaker 11 (12:12):
No?
Speaker 5 (12:12):
Immediately, myself, my whole family, my mom, we knew something
was wrong, something wasn't right.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
This was out of character for Jennifer.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
So we just started driving around looking for her around town,
calling all of her friends, calling all of our family members,
calling the people she was living with. We just really
started looking for her because she had to be somewhere.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
What did police tell you? Local law enforcement tell you
at the get go, Casey.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
I'm at first they said that she potentially just needed
a break, that she just needed to take some time
for herself, and that she would be back.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
The police actually said to you, she needed a break.
They said that I can't believe this, Actually I can't
believe it. That doesn't make it any better. What did
you say back to that she needed a break.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Yeah, we said that's just not true. There's something wrong.
She dealt with all of her issues had on. We
had never seen her just run away from anything. So yeah,
we just didn't believe what they were saying, and we
just knew something was wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
So what did you tell them when they said that?
What was your response?
Speaker 5 (13:19):
And we said, we need you to go to where
she's living. We need you to go there. Something wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Did they do it?
Speaker 5 (13:24):
They did, Yes, they sent some deputies over to the
residence where she was living at a time.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
In late March, Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family members.
Jennifer usually speaks with her mom at least once a
day and is in frequent contact with other family members.
Even more strange, Adriana too had been sick all week.
It isn't like Jennifer to travel with a sick baby.
After two days of no contact, Jennifer's family reports her missing.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Oh worry family desperately searching for a missing mom and
daughter who disappeared from their home.
Speaker 12 (14:08):
The Robertson County Sheriff's Office starts at the home Jennifer
shares with boyfriend Joey Benn and his parents, Joe and
Cynthia Benn. Nothing seems out of place on the property,
and foots are just turned up. No sign of Jennifer
and Adriana. Deputies follow up on several possible sidings of
the mom and daughter, but the sightings either can't be
verified or turn out to be someone else. Through interviews,
(14:28):
deputies find Joey Bnnon is the last person to see
Jennifer and Adriana.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I want to talk about those sidings too, Lauren Colin,
joining us, host of Primetime Crime on YouTube. What about
the sidings?
Speaker 7 (14:42):
The sightings turned out to be completely bogused. There were
reports that Jennifer and Adriana were at a grocery store
at a gas station.
Speaker 8 (14:50):
Those turned out to be not true.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Casey Robinson, do you remember getting the news that there
had been a siding of your sister, maybe Adriana.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Yeah, we remember for hearing that initially that they had
went to the local grocery store and went to the
local gas station there in cross Planes, But again we
didn't know that for certain, so we were just asking
law enforcement to follow up on, to follow up on
those sightings and to corroborate it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You know, Casey, you just mentioned Sightings and cross Plaine, Tennessee.
Now it's my understanding there's a very low population of less.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Than two thousand people in cross Plaines. Is that right,
Lauren Colin?
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Yet, ma'am, the population was about thirteen hundred people now
in twenty twenty four?
Speaker 8 (15:40):
Is it closer to two thousand?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Just thinking through whether that helps or hurts?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Joining me being the Powers high profile lawyer out of Tennessee.
He is at legalpowers dot com. Ben, thank you for
being with us. And the reason I'm asking about the
population is because to deduce what may have happened when
you've got a giant population. I just recently was investigating
(16:07):
a body that was found a young girl's body in
a trash bag, actually on the side of the street,
a sidewalk in New York.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
That could have been anybody. There's millions of inhabitants. But
when you have a town.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
As small as this two thousand, I mean I grew
up in an area that wasn't even a town, it
was unincorporated, that vastly reduces your suspect pool.
Speaker 10 (16:33):
It does.
Speaker 13 (16:33):
It's a small community, it's tight knit and cross planes
and so with that small of a community, you're going
to notice people that are not part of that community regularly,
so you'll notice an outsider that's come in. But you're
also going to know about each other's business. Because a
lot of cross planes and small communities, it's very family oriented.
Larger families, you know, where moms, dads, cousins, aunts, uncles,
(16:57):
grandparents all live together and they're friends with other family unlis,
they're equally large, So everyone looks out for each other,
everyone's into everyone else's business. And so with that's small
of a pool of a populace, it does provide a
short list of possible suspects when someone goes missing from
that community, you.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Know, and I understand it's just a little over eight miles,
eight miles.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
In all, eight point three square miles.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That also reduces the territory the land that law enforcement
has to cover. Of course, someone that took her and
or killed her could easily drive past that and get
rid of a body, destroyed the body, bury the body,
burn the body, but it does give a smaller frame
of search.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
So we've got that going on as well. Now we
also learn.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Of course, the grocery store siding no good, the gas
station siding.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
No good.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So where is not only Jennifer, but she's got baby
Adriana in two How.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Easy is it to just disappear on your own?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I mean, I guess you could take a bus, a
bus route. That would be hard to do. She doesn't
have a car, there's no metro, there would be a
record of a taxi.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
None of that happened. So where is she now?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
We know that she was last sighted by the boyfriend Benton.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Joey Benton tells Robertson County Sheriffs that he last saw
Jennifer and Adriana at their home on owens Chapel Road
two days ago around nine thirty pm. Benton says, someone
driving a white four door Sedan picks Jennifer and Adriana
up and he hasn't heard from her again. Benton can't
say who was driving the car or what kind of
car it was.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I want to analyz that just in itself. Heytails Robertson
County Sheriffs, he saw her at home.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Owens Chapel Road two days before. Let me just start
with that two days before. Right there.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I've got a problem, Casey Robinson joining us. This is
Jennifer's sister number one, They go to him. He doesn't
call anybody and say, hey, where's Jennifer? Have you seen Jennifer?
Where's the baby? He doesn't go to police, he doesn't
contact mom, he doesn't contact you, nobody. Two days, two days.
(19:16):
If I had not seen my husband in two days,
I'd be standing on my head. I would have called
police after five hours, not knowing where he was, not
just singing, but not knowing where he was. No, right there,
I've got a problem. But in his defense, didn't.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
He say Casey that they were having a tiff.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
Yeah, he said that they were having an argument that evening.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So Casey, in the past, was there ever an incident
where she had had an argument and that's common when
you've got a baby, in the stress of raising the baby,
all that where she had left the home with Benton
and come back and not gone back to benchon.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yes, had that happened before?
Speaker 6 (20:06):
Yes, a couple months prior to this.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, Okay, be in powers.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
You see where I'm going with this high profile defense
attorney like yourself can make a lot of hay with that.
He would argue that, well, this wasn't unusual whenever they
have a fight, she goes home to Mommy.
Speaker 13 (20:20):
Yeah, the past relationship and the history of it where
there's some kind of dust stop that leads to her
leaving and going to some other location to reside, seems
to be a basis to say this was more normal
than unnormal that after an argument she would go somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
But on the other hand, see, this is the way
you win a case.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You figure out what they're going to say, and then
you figure a way to destroy what they're going to say.
All right, that may be true Casey Robinson that she
had left where she lived with the boyfriend Benton, that
she had left before and come home to mom but
he didn't even call and ask about her. After two days,
(21:04):
authorities had to go to him. And then he goes, yeah,
I hadn't seen him in two days. He didn't even call.
Is that normal, Casey.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
No, it's not normal at all. The first time that
it happened because they ran a short relationship, it was
very short. The first time that it happened, they stayed
in contact with each other. He kept trying to get
her back, and so no, that's not character for that situation.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
March Jennifer suddenly stops contacting her family members. Jennifer usually
speaks with her mom at least once a day and
is in frequent contact with other family members. Even more strange,
Adriana too had been sick all week. It isn't like
Jennifer to travel with a sick baby. After two days
of no contact, Jennifer's family reports her missing.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Where is young mom Jennifer Wicks and her baby girl Adriana?
Now we know that they live in the boyfriend Benton
stated they had an argument about where they were going
to live two days before, and he hadn't called to
check on the baby or her in the last two days. Curious,
(22:08):
he gave a story, but then he elaborates.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Listen.
Speaker 11 (22:12):
Benton says he picked Jennifer and Adriana up and they
drove around town, having a conversation about their tense living arrangements.
That conversation turned into an argument. Jennifer ended their relationship
and refused to return to their home, so Benton dropped
her off at a gas station in Cross Plains around
nine thirty pm. Benton claims he watched Jennifer from a
church parking lot across the street for ten minutes before
(22:34):
someone driving a white four door sedan picked Jennifer and
Adriana up.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Okay, Lauren Colin joining me, investigative reporter and star of
Primetime crime on YouTube. Okay, Lauren, give me that again,
very slowly. Now. At first he states that she left
in a white four door Sedan, but then he elaborates
didn't necessarily change the story, but did add some facts.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Explain to me what he said.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Yes, so, Joey claimed that first he brought her to
a grocery store to use the phone, and then Jennifer
asked if he could bring her and Adriana to this
gas station where some friends were going to pick them up.
Speaker 8 (23:15):
He says, he drives to the church parking lot.
Speaker 7 (23:17):
He waits about ten minutes, and actually his story was
that he saw them get into a white four door Mustang,
which we later.
Speaker 8 (23:26):
Finds out it doesn't exist. A four door white Mustang
does not exist.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
You know, I can't stress how important car makes and
models can be. For instance, in the case of Rex Humerman,
the accused Long Island serial killer, multiple witnesses point out
they see the victims leaving with a giant of a
man and a Chevy Avalanche, which was no longer made
(23:51):
since about twenty thirteen, I believe, years later, when bodies
are starting to be discovered along Gilgo Beach. What's in
his driveway the avalanche?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
If that had been followed.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Up on at the time, maybe some lives that could
have been saved. Let's see, what's another one. Oh, here's
a great one. Coburger, coburger. Remember, the whole way he
ends up getting arrested is because a white Elantra is
seen and he drives a white Elantra.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I mean, it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
How cars, vehicles connect back to solving a case.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now, in this.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Case, it's really curious, Lauren Colin that he gives the
specificity of a four door white Mustang, and there's.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
No such thing as a four door Mustang.
Speaker 8 (24:46):
No, there's not.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Now, no one has been named as a suspect in
this case, much less a defendant.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
But you know, when.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
People add details to their story, the devil is in
the details.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
A four door Mustang.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Later that story is a white four door Sedan picked
up Jennifer and Adriana. So Casey Robinson, this is Jennifer's sister.
When you first heard that story about your sister, And
he didn't tell you himself, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Didn't he tell the police that?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Yes, he told that to the police.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Did he ever tell you what happened?
Speaker 5 (25:28):
He told my older sister, So she was in between
Jennifer and I in age, and my sister actually got
in contact with them, and he said that they had
broken up and he dropped her off at this gas station.
But he didn't go into detail about the car with us, No,
just law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I mean you'd think doctor Jeff Kelschewsky that when the
baby and the mommy are both gone, that every detail
would matter. And Casey's telling us, Yeah, he didn't say
anything about our getting picked up. I mean, they're trying
to find her. And he didn't mention anything about the
white sedan nothing.
Speaker 10 (26:03):
Yeah. I think there's a couple of things here. First
of all, when you approach this from an investigative angle,
you think, what would people reasonably do? You know, just
the idea that he never called to report them missing
or where the whereabouts were for a couple of days,
that's not what a reasonable person would do. Another thing,
this guy just breaks up with his girlfriend, probably pretty emotional.
(26:24):
He drops her off, she gets into a strange car,
and he doesn't he's not interested in who she's going
away with, so you know, what would a reasonable person do.
The other part, too, is if a person's not being
entirely truthful and they haven't really planned out what their
report is going to be, they blurt things out and
(26:46):
then they try to either embellish if it's a falsehood,
or they try to provide details, sometimes losing track of
what their concocted story is because they hadn't planned it
out yet, and that's where they make mistakes, and that's
why the devil's in the details for sure.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
And then there's more. Listen.
Speaker 12 (27:05):
Ben says the next day, Jennifer returned to their home
without Adriana, driving the same white car that picked her
up the night before. Bennen says Jennifer collected some of
her belongings and wanted her tax return money, which had
been deposited into Joey's parents' account. Joey says his parents
weren't home, so Jennifer planned to return for the money later.
Benton says this is the last time he saw on Jennifer.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
And then we learn about an intense argument in the
Benton home listen.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Jennifer told family members Benton's parents were upset by Adriana's
constant crying while the toddler was sick, and they had
a blowout argument during dinner.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
My mom talked to her on Wednesday night, but apparently
there had been a lot of arguing and fighting with
the family that night. His family the baby had been
crying a lot. I don't know what they could have
been fighting about. Jennifer didn't go into a lot of detail,
but she just said like his mom had like thrown
their dinner out the back door onto the ground until
her to go and get it. She better hurry and
(28:02):
get it before the dogs do just like a bunch
of like really mean, nasty things. So Jennifer was in
the room, my mom could hear the baby crying. So
my mom asked her, like after they talked about the
fighting and everything, like let me come get y'all and
like we're not that far, you know, twenty minute drive maybe,
(28:25):
And Jennifer's like, no, it's okay, Mom, Like I can
handle this. Joey and I we're gonna go on a
picnic tomorrow. We're gonna talk about everything. Because she wanted
to move out of their house. Mom said, Okay, call
me tomorrow, let me know how everything goes.
Speaker 6 (28:43):
Well, she never did. She never called my mom.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So Casey Robinson, Jennifer's sister, there was a lot of
trouble brewing in the bench and home the night before
she goes missing.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
Yeah, the family was fighting. Everything had been tense for
that entire week. There were some events leading up to
that argument on Wednesday, March twenty fourth, and Jennifer had
gotten into an argument with Joey's mom and she was
throwing their food out like I mentioned in that video
(29:15):
and talking about how she's an unfit mother, and Jennifer
just wanted to move out.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Of this house, and Joey wasn't listening.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Bottom line, she didn't have a car.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
She couldn't just crank up and drive away, but everyone
wanted her to come home.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Jennifer made a couple of phone calls that day, So
she made one phone call to my aunt and one
phone call to her dad, and both phone calls they
both talked about like the fight from the night prior
that she had had with his parents, and my aunt
had left her a key outside and they had talked
(29:58):
about like well, if things get crazy, you know, you
can come here. Okay, So there was her plan.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
I'll call you tomorrow. I love you, the last words
a mother hears from her daughter as her granddaughter wales
in the background to.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Casey Robinson, that has always been of the story all
this time, since Jennifer and Adriana missing. In the last days,
you have a conversation with Benton.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
What happened.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
We had a conversation recently with him, and we hadn't
talked to him in twenty years, and I reached out
to him and just said, hey, can we talk and
he said sure, and so we jumped on a phone conversation.
We talked for about an hour and he stuck to
the gas station story. I asked him, did that really happen?
Speaker 6 (31:00):
Is that true?
Speaker 5 (31:00):
And he said, yes, that's all true. I took her there,
I did what she asked me to do, and we
talked a little bit about their relationship and how I
just wanted to talk more about her and learn more
about her because I was so young. Then he said
he'd be willing to talk to me anytime. He said,
call me anytime after seven o'clock. And that was the
(31:22):
first conversation that I had with him, and I've had two.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
What happened next, well.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
What happened next is is we had some meetings set
up with local law enforcement and our District attorney's offices
here in Robertson County, and I had let Joey know
that on that first phone conversation and also social media,
so he knew that we had these meetings coming up,
and he actually visited the District Attorney's office on the
(31:51):
same day that we had our.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
Meeting, so our meeting was cut short.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
He came in and we learned from him directly that
he came there to tell them everything. And it wasn't
until maybe like a month or two later that my
mom sat down with him for the first time in
twenty years.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
An astonishing development in the search of a missing mom
and her baby girl. To you, Buddy Mitchell, joining us
a Wick's family private investigator, former and national PD thirty
four years Buddy, what other evidence is there? And of
course no one has been named to suspect. No one
has been named to suspect at all in this case.
Speaker 9 (32:32):
A very important uh, and you're talking about details in
this case is the car seat, he said, the car
seat was when she took the car seat and the
baby and got into the four door car. And two
days later the first officer that went to check on
him put in his report and that the car seat
(32:56):
within the living room, so that couldn't be in the
living room if they took it to the car. And
he asked the person to Joy Bitten how many car
seats they had. She said he told them only the one.
So the car seat is still in the living room.
So I think that's a very important part of the evidence.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So at this point, so much forensic evidence is gone.
So bottom line, you've got to either have another witness.
You don't have to have a body, but you have
to have at least another witness. You've got to catch
him in conflicting statements if.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
They even exist.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Again, he's not charged, so there's going to have to
be a corroborating witness. One of the other alleged purpose
is going to have to crack, or they've got to.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Find the body. Bottom line, Buddy Mitchell.
Speaker 9 (33:53):
That's exactly right. And we have looked several places for
the body. How was there when the mother met with
Joy We was like five feet away, heard the whole conversation.
There is, like Casey said, a lot of important information
(34:15):
that we cannot give out now because the police and
DA asked that's not too but there is details that
would lead to a conviction.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I believe details well.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I know there are not anything forensic because it's too
late to use doing all at the home or anything
that's absolutely correct. So I can deduce that you're referring
to a corroborating witness that saw something or can confess
to something.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Can you at least tell me that much it is.
Speaker 9 (34:44):
Other witnesses, And I think we can find the bodies.
If it might take a little time, but we can
find the bodies.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
And another thing, even if the killer discussed what happened
with someone else, that can come into evidence.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
If you're talking.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
About what the defendant said and the defendant is there
that that's not going to be subject to a Hear'Say
rule objection. So if it was discussed amongst other people,
if they bragged about it or talked about it, or
got someone to.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Help bury the body, all of that.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Can prove the case without the actual body. But for
some reason, buddy, you feel convinced you'll find the remains.
Speaker 9 (35:33):
Yes, and I can promise you, myself and the Wicks
family will never give up until we find the bodies
and have closure. In this case, I promise you that
we will never ever give up.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You know, taking an adult is bad enough an unarmed
young mom, but the baby too. To kill the baby
two case you rob, This is Jennifer's sister, Adriana's aunt
has never let go of this case. You're not telling me,
(36:08):
and I understand that, and I actually applaud that.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I don't want to hurt the investigation in any way.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
I think that just the dynamics of their family and
how things are playing out. That's typically in cold cases
and longer term cases, how you know, cases are solved.
It takes time and someone turning on the other person.
I definitely think that's going to happen. And there's never been,
you know, a full thorough search of their property the
(36:35):
last place that they were seeing. So that's something that
we're pushing for. I think that law enforcement and the
DA are working on. And yeah, he's right, we'll never
give up most of our evidence as circumstantial, but I
know that there are cases built around circumstantial evidence. But
I think with everything that we have and if law
(36:56):
enforcement and we continue working on it, we can definitely
solve fine Jennifer and Adriana.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Again, let me say that there are no formal defendants
or suspects named in this case and we are waiting.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
For justice to rain down like water. Nancy Grace signing off,
good night friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com