Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You place your left hand on the bay of Bible
and raise your right hand and repeat after me. I
do solemnly swear the jury trying it attended, not scared.
The protest continued that weekend in Ferguson and around the country.
Resistant makes no sense. If it doesn't fit, you must equit. Judge.
You are the last line of reason in this case.
(00:30):
Every one of us took it all the office, and
we're sworn to uphold the Constitution. From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta,
this is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. Every lead
that has been followed in, every person who's come forward,
(00:52):
and every little bit of evidence leads one place, then
that's actually called m M hi. I'm your host, Philip Holloway.
On this episode of Sworn, we continued delving into the
(01:13):
Tiffany within disappearance. We've seen the walmart In first, and
we've gone through the timeline as best as we know
it to be. We now have a better idea of
who Tiffany is. Now it's time to talk about what
is being done a little over four years later to
keep this case actually alive. This is Sworn. I'm Jesse Evans,
(01:52):
I'm chief Assistant District Attorney with the Cobb d A's office.
My I have the opportunity to sit down with both
Prosecutor Jesse Evans and to Afy's mother, Lisa Daniels, and
we were able to discuss this case as a group.
Is everybody basically working off the presumption that this is
a homicide at this point. At this point, there's no
other reasonable explanation for what could have happened to Tiffany,
(02:14):
So we are treating it as an active homicide investigation,
looking at all the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, in the
complete lack of contact that anyone has had with her
since her disappearance in September of two thousand and fourteen.
I don't think there's any way for us to look
at this objectively and see that it needs to be
treated in any other way. Is there any specific set
(02:34):
of criteria that you used to decide when the treat
a missing person's case is a homicide or is it
sort of a totality of the circumstances. I think it's
really got to be a totality of the circumstances. Um
you know, every case is a little bit different, and
while open to the possibility that certain people might in
some instances want to make themselves scarce, they mightn't want
to go live a different lifestyle, there are certainly circumstances
(02:57):
you can look at that show that, well, that person
is still around, that person's still able to be found
if somebody wanted to find them, and this is not
one of those cases. There have been similar cases I've
worked on where you just look at all the facts
and circumstances and you realize something is wrong here, something
is different than your normal situation, where perhaps a person
is involved in this drug culture and immerse themselves in
(03:19):
such a way that they don't want to be found
by a loved one. This is simply not the case
with Tiffany Winton. There's always challenges when you're dealing with
cold cases in general. There are added challenges when there's
been a delay in US being able to get involved
in the investigation, and I think that's one of the
biggest challenges that we started off with. You know, I
personally get involved in these major crimes investigations very early on,
(03:41):
and early on for us was not until after January
of two thousand and fourteen unfortunately, and by that time,
there have been some months that had passed before she
had disappeared, and that creates a lot of issues for us,
a lot of legal and factual issues for cold case
investigators and prosecutors such as myself to go back and
try to piece together and a quick timeline of of
what could have happened. We have a unique circumstance here
(04:04):
where we actually have video footage of the last time
that Tiffany Witten was known to be alive, and that
creates a good starting point for where we need to
go from there to figure out what were the last
moments like, what were the last hours like with her
before she essentially disappeared from the face of the earth,
And people don't just disappear from the face of the earth.
(04:25):
What additional challenges can arise due to a delay in reporting? Sure,
I think probably a lot of your listeners and a
lot of the general public are familiar with the show
the First forty eight And there's a lot to be
said about the first forty eight reality based TV show
where they talk about the importance of the first forty
eight hours of an investigation, and and I would agree
with the premise that early on in the investigation. That's
(04:46):
when you're right to get clues that could assist with
a criminal investigation. We had a compounding problem with the
beginning of this investigation in that um she she had
already sort of been living in this this culture where
she didn't have very much contact with family members and
loved ones. Add to it that she was admittedly involved
in the crime shoplifting caught on video at a Walmart
(05:08):
locally and probably had some concerns about that. Then you
add to it that there's a delay in reporting, and
then once it is reported. I don't fault my investigators
for this, but there's a kind of a skepticism that
sometimes law enforcement as when they first look at these
cases and see, well, here's a person that's got a
criminal history and admittedly has been involved in the drug
scene for some period of time. Here is this merely
(05:30):
a missing person's case or something more sinister going on.
So it wasn't until we really started appealing the layers
of the young that we started to realize, Hey, something
happened in September of two thousand and thirteen, and all
the red flags are there. What do we know about
the last known moments of her life on video. We
(05:51):
saw her with her then boyfriend, individual named Ashley Caudle.
They were at a local Walmart city of Marietta about
two o'clock in the morning. By just a lay persons observations,
it was clear that she was probably on drugs at
the time and he probably was too. She's there for
some period of time, going through clothing gracks and things
(06:12):
like that, and eventually gets to the checkout location. It's
one of those areas where you can check out on
your own, you don't need a customer service representative to
help you. And this entire time not known to her,
but there were lost prevention officers that were watching her
in the store. That would be easy to do considering
how early morning hour than this was. There weren't rent
many people in the store anyway. So what happened is
(06:33):
she attempted to steal something, something minor. It was. I
think it's probably worth fourteen eighteen dollars from what Loss
Prevention has told me. And as she passed the point
of sale and was about to leave the store, she
was approached by two loss prevention officers who attempting to
detain her. They did so as is their practice and
custom by grabbing an item of hers knowing that she
probably wouldn't want to leave it, that being a purse,
(06:55):
you could see that she literally left out of a
sandal and left out of her purse and ran out
into the darkness through the doors of the Walmart and
out into the parking lot. Her boyfriend remained for just
a brief moment at the doorway, then he turned and
walked out into the darkness as well. And that's the
last firm independent documentation of her life, this event that
(07:16):
just happened to have been caught on Walmart surveillance video
because of the fact that she was admittedly committing this
misdemean or crime of shoplifting at two o'clock in the morning,
and are there videos in the parking lot? You know,
we attempted to get videos in the parking lot and
we were not successful in getting them understand this too.
It was my understanding loss prevention called law enforcement. They
(07:36):
did cursory check into this. I don't even know that
a full police report was made, but nobody really realized
what the gravity of the situation was. So it was
some months afterwards before we even got involved that we
even wanted to go back and look at any of
the video. Unfortunately for us, the inside video was retained
because they had kept this as a shoplifting investigation. But
we're not successful in getting any exterior video because nobody
(07:58):
realized what the significance of that might be for lost prevention.
Just like regular law enforcement, you want to keep the
evidence that as most probative, and obviously any evidence catching
somebody on video committing a shoplifting committing a crime, that's
going to be important for them, and they're gonna automatically
retain that. But most stores do not to retain all
video that they have for their store for an indefinite
(08:19):
period of time. It's kept for a finite period of time,
takes up a lot of space in their databases. Oftentimes
it's on a loop, it actually starts recording over itself.
So we attempted to get video from the exterior of
the Walmart, and we just weren't successful. Of course, there
was this pretty significant delay before we realized that that
might be of importance to us. But for the fact
that there was a shoplifting involved, we might not have
(08:39):
even been able to catch these moments um inside the store.
They were retained for any future criminal prosecution if it
ever developed. She's an adult, you know, she's not a child.
I kind of was of the same mind as law
enforcement in the beginning that she was shoplifting. We found
that out, so we knew that she had gotten caught
shoplifting at Walmart. So she's on for all. So what's
(09:01):
my first instinct. She's laying low. She knows she's gonna
be in trouble. So there was really no reason for
us to be alarmed initially. But that said, I mean,
I would encourage anybody now, knowing what I know now,
that if they have an adult child in this situation,
drug life, whatever the case may be, and you haven't
(09:23):
heard from them, and you can't put eyes on them
or hear their voice. I don't care about text messages,
hear their voice, or put eyes on them, you should
report the missing. If I had it to go back
and do over again, I would change the way I
did it. However, I don't think law enforcement would have
been inclined to investigate at that point either. The first
(09:43):
flag that went up was when my parents received a
letter that was from Walmart's attorneys. This is the standard
procedure for Walmart. If you get caught shop lift thing,
you'll get a letter from their attorneys saying, pay us
some money and we won't follow any civil charges. That
makes it look like they'll drop the charges, but they're
just promising not to follow a civil suit if you
(10:05):
pay them restitution. So two of those letters came to
my parents home because that was the address that was
listed on her driver's license, which they had because they
had her purse. Okay, so they knew who she was.
That's one reason why they didn't really go after her
was because they had her purse. They knew who she was.
So I want to follow up with that real quick.
(10:25):
Why would they be seeking restitution when she didn't get
away from the store with any property. I don't know.
That's a good question, maybe one you should ask them.
I don't know. Do you know, either of you why
Walmart didn't call nine one one or call the police
to report. I think that they did call the police.
I believe Mary had a police were dispatched, but they
(10:48):
didn't do They're not going to do an all outsearch
for a petty shoplifter. I mean, they're just not going
to do that, especially when they've got other things going on,
and nobody got away with any property exactly, and they
had her purse. They knew who she was. I don't
know the intent to prosecute. I really don't know where
it was going to go from there. What happened to
Ashley Caudle that evening that morning? Looking at the video,
(11:10):
we know that he went out into the parking lot,
and we know that he interacted with some people that
he knew that we're around that area. This is not
an area that was unfamiliar to him and unfamiliar to
the Tiffany. They both spent some periods of time around
this area before, as well as in the Powder Springs area,
So we know that he had some interactions with some
individuals into the morning hours who saw him there. We
(11:32):
have not found anyone that saw her there at that
area after she left the walmart. Well, that walmart is
just a mile or so away from here, and it's
not exactly out of the way location. It's a lot
of people of I guess from all walks of life,
would go there, but maybe just not at two o'clock
in the more. It's a pretty busy area around the walmart.
(11:52):
There's a lot of restaurants, a lot of extended stay motels,
and we do have in terms of drug arrest it's
an area where we make on a significant amount of
arrests for drug possession and drug use, particularly the extended
state motels. So it is a populated area, but there
are little pockets as well, just off the more populated
(12:13):
areas where you can find some quiet space. So there's
a lot of I was driving by there of the
other day and I just happened to notice because I
wanted to look, but I noticed that there's a lot
of businesses that likely have some type of exterior surveillance cameras, banks,
you've got a t m S in the area. Have
all those things been checked In an ideal situation, had
(12:34):
we known on September thirteenth or September fourteenth of two
thousand and thirteen that this was going to turn into
what it was, we would have hit all those locations
for any potential surveillance. But going back to one of
the issues we had discussed previously about retention and business
retention of surveillance, we've not been successful and being able
to get any usable surveillance video with the delay in
(12:57):
time from when this investigation change, which really wasn't until
around January of two thousand and fourteen. It's been my
experience that businesses just don't keep surveillance material unless they
need to for more than about a month. That's correct.
It's been my experience too. You know. I almost wish
in many instances we could go back to some of
our businesses and ask them to use, first of all,
(13:19):
more modern systems. Secondly, asked them to have a longer
retention policy. But it's just not feasible for some of
these businesses to be able to do that, and it
does complicate things. I think the general public watches TV
and they they imagine that because there's a camera on
every corner um that somehow magically we're able to tap
into a master database and be able to download that
(13:39):
footage at will. And it's just simply not the case
in the reality of law enforcement. Unless you happen to
have a business entity that's interested in retaining something for
some particular reason, such as it containing evidence of a shoplifting,
then it's more likely than not with time, the passage
of time, you're not gonna be able to get the surveillance.
And that's what we have here? Why was it that
nobody was able to paying her cell phone to triangulate
(14:02):
her location because she didn't have it with her. I
read something in another media report, and I forget which
one it was. I read that at some point in time, someone,
if I'm not mistake, it was in your family, felt
that she had reached out to them over social media
or was it by text? There actually was a Facebook
message sent to her half brother on his birthday, but
(14:27):
when he messaged back to say, you know, hey, what's up?
Where are you? There was never any response. Someone from
her Facebook account sent a message to her half brother
saying happy birthday. The key is we don't know for
sure who actually sent that because she did not have
her phone. Let me ask you this, would anybody who
(14:48):
had her phone been able to access her Facebook account? Yes?
I did access her Facebook account, and when I opened
it there were hundreds of unread messages, notifications, friend requests, hundreds,
so I knew that she had not accessed her Facebook.
The issue is then that someone that probably wasn't her,
(15:11):
and it wasn't you, accessed her Facebook account and send
a message after she was reported missing, but nothing before
she was reported missing. We've had a number of leads,
I'll go as far to say false leads that have
(15:31):
come up over the years, and we look into everything.
One of them, we attempted to look into that lead
pretty good and we just don't have any reason to
believe that that was a message from Tiffany to her
half brother. There's no evidence to support that, um and
not not to call anyone out, but there's been a
lack of cooperation on the part of maybe some of
(15:54):
her family members as well, who are more on the
fringes to help us and involve investigating looking some of
those leads as well, which is even more evidence that
they're they're probably false leads. You know, she left Walmart
when she ran out those doors, she had no idea,
no phone, no shoes. What do we know about the
last a twelve hours before she went missing? Just to summarize,
(16:17):
he talked about it being a fairly normal period of
time with himself and Tiffany prior to the Walmart incident.
He gave us a bit of a timeline of different
places he had been a house, a friend's house, using
the friends pickup truck. Talked about the events in the Walmart,
a lot of which, like I said, we're captured on videos,
so some of it we could we could look at
(16:39):
pretty quickly and be able to compare to his statement UM.
And then his assertion about what happened afterwards was that
she ran out of the walmart and he just never
saw her again. That he claimed he attempted to find her,
claimed that he searched the area. He admitted to some
of the people that he had talked to UM, many
of whom we've now spoken with and UM. His his
(17:02):
assertion is that he tried his best to find her
to and wasn't able to do so. Did he say
what he did, like, did he say that I went
to the ihup or I went to this place or
that place? Was he specific or was he general? He
was UM, both general and specific. Generally, he said I
looked for UM. When pressed on the specifics, he admit
that he went to um uh an I Hoop, which
(17:23):
is at that location. He happened to know somebody there
who ran into him at at the location. UM, so
we were able to talk to her and confirm that UM.
His claim was that he called for a friend and
that he wrote around with a friend for a while
looking for her and UM, so there were a mix
of of some specifics and some generalities about what had occurred.
(17:44):
But ultimately what he said basically was that despite his
attempts to find her, UH, he wasn't able to get
in touch with her. What were you able to do
with regard to her phone records that may have added
anything to what you know? We've gone through phone records extensively,
and from a modern law enforcement perspective, that's almost always
(18:05):
a good starting place is looking at phone records, UH,
cell tower analysis, those types of things. And we did
that not only with her phone, UM, we did that
with a number of other target cell phones as well,
and UM there wasn't a whole lot of activity that
was beneficial to us. I think people have this misconception
that as long as you're carrying your phone, there's gonna
(18:26):
be activity on it. That sometimes the case and sometimes
not kind of depends on whether you have apps open,
whether there are things run in the background, whether you're
actively texting somebody or making phone calls. But when there's
limited activity, there's going to be limited information that you're
able to get back from the cell companies as well.
But part of my responsibility is the head of the
cold case unit, is to make sure that my guys,
(18:47):
my investigators are looking at all that cell phone evidence.
And over the years we have repeatedly looked at, analyzed,
and reanalyzed the cell phone evidence. Um so far it
has not yielded, uh anything that's a smoking gun, so
to speak. As to explaining the mystery of how she disappeared,
it's my understanding that she may have had some issues
(19:09):
with paying her her cell phone bill, so most of
her contact with the outer world was actually by by
Facebook messaging at least until September thirteenth of two thousand thirteen,
and then the Facebook messaging essentially stopped. Do you know
about how old Tiffany was when she started on the
path that led her to that walmart In, I really
(19:31):
couldn't say. I mean, she had issues honestly from middle
school um behavioral issues and hanging with the wrong people.
There were no instances of drinking, drugs anything like that
when she was younger. It wasn't really until she was
away from home and still kind of hanging around people
she shouldn't have been hanging around. And I think by
(19:53):
the time I realized that I really knew that she
was into drugs. She was really into drugs by that point,
so she she had done a pretty good job for
quite a while of hiding it pretty well. Um. The
one time that I suspected there was something going on, um,
you know, I had her daughter and I had told her,
(20:15):
you need to come and take her to the doctor.
It's time for her check up. I have to work.
You need to come and take her. She's your child,
Come take her to the doctor. Oh yeah, no problem,
no problem. So she comes down the night before, spends
the night, and I find out when I get home
the next day that she had slept the entire day
(20:36):
and almost completely missed the appointment. I found this out
from my young daughter, who basically had to watch her
little niece all day while Tiffany slept. And I knew.
I knew then that there was that wasn't right. How
old was her daughter when she disappeared, Um, she was six.
Did she still have any interaction with her daughter? Not really? Um,
(21:02):
because of the drug situation. You know, it was just
such a tough call. We didn't really know what to
do in that situation. You know, she's using drugs, she's unstable,
she's in and out. We don't know when she's gonna
be here when she's not, and this is a little
child who doesn't understand. So it was you know, that
(21:22):
was a tough call to keep her away, but we
did keep her away. But the goal was at some
point to have them, you know, interact until hopefully, at
some point Tiffany got clean and could parent her. That
was the ultimate goal. This will never be a case
that's gonna simply gather dust. We're always working on this one.
(21:43):
Sometimes we have cases that are very uh, forensic driven. Um,
it's a DNA type case, it's a ballistics type case. Uh.
Sometimes you have cases that are are very different from
that that our statements driven. Where really the key to
the understanding the case and getting answered this is going
to be people and and and people talking with us.
(22:03):
And UM, I think the number one thing that we
continue to do is to interview and re interview people,
and we've been doing that for literally years right now,
and UM, part of the reason, quite frankly, that I'm
sitting down with you right now feels because UM, I
feel like there is more out there to this case
that the public knows. And some segments of the public
that are just not comfortable coming forward right now for
(22:26):
whatever reason. Maybe it's fear, maybe maybe it's some other motivation.
But I've always believed that the more publicity we can
get for the case, and the more we can put
our cold cases, the units availability to talk out there,
that more information is going to come in. And that's
exactly what's happened over the years. This is gonna boil
(22:46):
down to people finally feeling comfortable with sharing information with
us that maybe they've held close to their chest for
for literally years. And I truly believe, in my heart
of hearts, I know that there are people out there
that no more information about this case. They may even
be people that we've already talked to before UM, but
I suspect there's probably some people out there that we
(23:06):
haven't talked to yet. And UM We're always listening. Every
every time we get a name, every time we get
a tip UM, we go out and we talk to
that person. A lot of the tips UM come quite
frankly because of Lisa and her tenacity, and she's been
very tenacious about keeping this information out there and keeping
her ears open, whether it's through Facebook, the fine Tiffany
(23:28):
witness page. Whatever that means maybe of communicating with us.
If people are going to share information with us, we're
gonna follow up on it. How often do you get
tips or new information that needs to be followed up with?
It comes fairly regularly, and this case is coming fairly regularly.
It would be unusual, certainly for a month to go
(23:48):
by where we didn't get a new tip, but it's
not uncommon for us to get multiple tips within a
week or two week period of time. UM. A lot
of it's coming from social media, a lot of it's
coming from Facebook, A lot of it's going directly to
Lisa and uh, Lisa's then forwarding onto to myself and
my cold case unit led by John Dawes. I believe
that there are people out there that know more than
they've shared with us, and um, they may not even
(24:12):
know that what what they hold is significant. They're involved
in drug use, they're involved in illegal activity. A lot
of these folks and UM there that doesn't make them
very particularly willing to pick up the phone and say, hey, police,
come talk to me. I know that a lot of people,
I think question, why would you spend so much time
(24:32):
trying to find somebody who clearly, you know, had her issues.
She had drug issues, she had a criminal past. But
you know that's not how I view her. You know,
she's still my child, my baby, and um she's you know,
she's a human being, and she is worthy of of
being found. And she has a little girl who needs
(24:53):
some answers. She has a family who need answers um
as to as to what happened to her. Anybody wouldn't
want that, you know, I would just say to to
anybody who might hear this, please, you know, just come forward.
I don't care how you do it. Write a letter,
make an anonymous call if you're afraid. I get that,
(25:13):
but it is the right thing to do, and right now,
we just need somebody to do the right thing. Um.
Just as a personal matter, if you walked in my
office right now, you would have to pass by no
less than four or five pictures of Tiffany Witten that
are hanging on my door. I see her every day
then I walk into the office. I see her every
day when I turn off my light and head home.
(25:40):
The frustrating part about this case, though, is I really
believe it's going to be solved with statements. It's going
to be solved with somebody feeling comfortable to come forward,
maybe even someone we've already talked to feeling more comfortable
to share, um, the truth about what they know and um,
this is not a situation. Just look at it. At
it objectively. Where Tiffany was out camping and disappeared in
(26:02):
the woods. She rendered out of a crowded walmart into
a crowded area of the city of Marietta and then disappeared. Jessie,
if if anybody has any information or feels like they
want to contact you, guys, what do they need to do.
We've set up a tipline for a cold case unit
and that number is seven seven zero five to eight
three zero three to. We just encourage anyone with the
(26:24):
general public who knows information about this case of contact
our cold case units so we can follow up on that.
That number again, seven seven zero five to eight three
zero three to. All I'm asking is for somebody to
to just do the right thing. Be that person who
gives a family closure and can answer a little girl's
question about his MO mommy dad, because that's what she asked,
(26:47):
is MO mommy dead? How do you answer that? To
a child when you don't know, I mean, we haven't had.
She's been to a funeral for her grandmother. She knows
her grandmother's dad, she knows her grand mother's in heaven,
both of them, so she knows that she doesn't know
where mommy is. And that's unfair. That is unfair. It's
(27:20):
absolutely heartbreaking. Talking to Tiffany's mother as a parent, I
simply cannot wrap my head around the grief that she
must have experienced and that she's still experiencing today. Now
Lisa Daniels is the legal guardian of Tiffany's own daughter.
I cannot even imagine what this must be like for
Lisa not to have the answers for her granddaughter when
(27:43):
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for your special offer. We've seen other missing persons cases
that might be simply gathering dust on a shelf. So
(29:11):
let's ask the question, is this case gathering dust? Has
enough been done to keep it alive? And fresh? Assistant
District Attorney Jesse Evans put his trust in John Dawes
at the Cold Case Unit to take this case over.
We sat down and spoke to John to get a
feel for what exactly is being done right now, as
well as to ask him what we might be able
(29:33):
to do to help our hope in all these unsolved
cases is that we can spur discussion and remind people
to come forward if they know anything at all. And
I promise you somebody somewhere does know something. And just
so the records clear. To answer my own question, I'm
satisfied that this is one case that is not simply
gathering dust. It is actually being worked, and it's being
(29:56):
worked actively. When did you start on Tiffany's case? About
a year and a half ago. Uh. We met with
Marietta Um the chief Assistant District Attorney. Jesse Evans has
kind of been alongside the case since UM January of
two thousand and fourteen. UH, and he's a liaison between
(30:19):
us and the police agencies here in Cobb County. So
UM between a year and a half and two years ago,
they kind of consulted with us and asked us to
take a look at everything. They provided us with a
complete copy of the file and we started digging into it.
Anytime there's a missing person, UM, foul play suspected, it
(30:40):
brings on a whole new atmosphere to the case. If
you're working a murder case, you have a body, you
have a scene, you have physical evidence to work with,
and you have light at the end of the tunnel
from the day it occurs on a missing person. UM.
In a case like this, it's it's problematic because there
(31:01):
are so many people who UM want to shed light. UM.
There are so many people who want to provide information
to look like they're cooperating, Yet they they tend to
send the investigators off in different directions. UM. So liars
pretty much pretty much to be blunt, UM, are you
(31:23):
dealing with a lot of those in this case? We
deal with a lot of those in every case. UM.
Certainly there have been UM some um information that gets
at least to a second third, fourth party, and you
lose a little bit of the truth in every phase
of that type of system. But yes, there have been
(31:43):
some liars in this case. So that actually brings up
a good point if you lose a little bit in
like every phase I know this case has changed hands
three times or two times, it was it was it
Johnny Mueller first and then make Freer and then you yes,
So does that make things harder? Well, it would accept
(32:06):
that I have a close working relationship with Detective Molar
and Detective Freer. Um, so communicating with them as has
been pretty instrumental in the case. Um. You know a
lot of people think, okay, we get we get a
copy of the police reports, and everything is good, we
know everything. But um, you lose a lot if you
can't communicate with the lead detective in the case. UM.
(32:29):
Police reports, if they paid attention the academy are supposed
to be facts, not opinion, not thoughts, not considerations that
they have when they go home and sit down at
night and can't get it out of their minds. So
we want to pull from those lead detectives as frequently
as we can, for as much information as we can,
just to get their insight and their feelings about things.
(32:51):
Although they're by definition a cold case has set for
twelve months with with no movement, no UH, no active leads.
And this is different because there are so many people
who who are hands on and wanting to move it,
but it's as far as actual leads go, it's been
cold UH for over a year. So so how do
(33:11):
you approach a case like this, what's the first thing
that you did? The first thing we did is we
sorted through and it took weeks, but we sorted through
the boxes of UH binders and reports and files that
we were provided UM, and I assigned one of my
guys just to look at phone records, nothing else. I
assigned one person to to do some research into the
(33:34):
the one piece of evidence we have, the video from
Walmart UM, and then I had another person just kind
of forming it back into alongside me, forming it back
into an actual case file that's just a chronologically organized
report to make it easier to read UM. That took
weeks just to get it to their UM, and then
(33:56):
then we began sorting through it UM, reading through it,
trying to identify everyone who's involved. We live in a
very transient society. The same is true with with the
young people involved in this case. They're hard to locate sometimes.
So we started trying to make sure that we had
all the facts about where they were at, what they
were doing, where they worked, and all that kind of stuff,
what their associations are outside of this case, UM, to
(34:21):
see where we could get Tiffany is uh mom and
uh no doubt loves her little girl. Uh. The little
girl was with Grandma Lisa uh and in good care.
But when when an adult uh can't be found, hasn't
been heard from or seen by their friends, UM, doesn't
(34:46):
have a work that they would normally be going to
day in and day out, you know, and and all
of a sudden they're just kind of gone. Um. If
they don't come back to check on their children, if
they don't send messages at least to check on their children,
that concerns me as an an investigator about their well being. UM.
When they have a bank account and there's no attempt
to access the funds by the person who can't be found,
(35:10):
then that's assigned to me that that uh, that foul
play has occurred. So UM, I think that was noted
pretty early in the case. Is that is or a
window that you might think that whatever happened or is
through a time period that that happened to narrow it down?
(35:30):
Is it that night? The next day. I'm gonna safely
say that within uh, within a few hours of the
time that Tiffany left Walmart, everything occurred. I can tell
you that there are two people in my unit that
are working this case every day and UH and and
(35:51):
I'm involved in that as well, UH and I have
a lot of other obligations on all the other cases
that we're working, but but I have two people who
are who are in and out of this case every
day trying to work on it, trying to come up
with ideas, trying to locate people, trying to to set
up UM situations where we can um do some some
(36:13):
justice for the case and and bring some real answers. UH.
It's a I'm a parent, UM, and I empathize with
Lisa in this case. I want nothing better uh for
her than some very real truth to come out. UM.
Healaling doesn't start until you begin to get truth. So
(36:36):
I want, I wanted to find truth for UM Lisa
Daniels and and get her the information that she that
she so desperately wants and needs. How often do you
communicate with Lisa? With Lisa, it's about once a week,
sometimes twice a week, that we text back and forth
a little bit or talk on the phone and UH
(36:56):
and she's UH. I made her a promise and that
is that by the time we get done, she'll know
more than she knew when we picked it up. So
Lisa is UM strong. She's a strong willed person. UM.
She UH is a great parent in that she um
(37:18):
knocks on the door and if you don't answerly enough,
she just kind of opens the door and comes on in.
If you try to close the door on her, she
puts her foot in it and pushes you out of
the way and get your attention. So UM, I can't
I can't ask for anything more from her than to
uh than to keep pushing for what she she justly deserves.
(37:41):
And that's some truth. There are people who could call
me today and provide me with the right information. I
have no doubt. We have no factual documentation that anyone
saw them together after the Walmart incident, but I believe
that someone does exist. Tell me who this guy is,
where he's at today. Ashley is Uh was at the
(38:05):
time Tiffany's boyfriend and Uh. Ashley is Uh in the
Department of corrections as we speak on unassociated charges. Um,
he's been interviewed multiple times. He's never uh just shut
down and said no, I won't talk to you. Um.
He's provided information uh two Detective Moler and uh and
(38:29):
he did the interview with Esquire magazine. UM. He's not
a person who has just completely um shut himself off
from the investigation. UM. A lot of people have issues
with Ashley because, uh, he didn't file the report that
(38:49):
she was missing that night. He didn't contact anyone and say,
you know that she ran and I don't know where
she went. Um. And he even days in he didn't
contact anyone. He did make contacts with other people. He
made inquiries with other people, but it never went to
the police about her, about her you know, not being seen.
(39:13):
So uh he he's a person of interest, just as
many other people are in the case. Who um, who
have come about it's any anytime you have a boyfriend
girlfriend relationship, UM, husband wife relationship, you you obviously look
at that person first, uh and see if you draw
(39:33):
any conclusions that they would have more involvement. Yeah for them,
what I've learned, their relationship wasn't normal, happy, healthy relationship.
So I don't know. UM. I mean I think there
was violence in their relationships. So in the background research
(39:54):
done with by Detective Mueller and they married a police
department there there was some information that came forward about
some domestic disputes that had gone on in the past
between them. UM, so that that'd be that's been looked
at as well. Obviously. Can you tell me about the
barrel filled with concrete that was thrown off of Bethany
(40:16):
Bridge in Ackworth by Ashley and some of his associates. Uh,
there was a tip that came through, UM that sounds
familiar to that, and just there have been other tips
that have come through that that she was put here.
She was put there, this is how she was dumped. UM,
(40:36):
And it happens in these types of cases. But there's
no There was a search conducted UM with D and
R's assistance and married to police and and UM nothing
was recovered at that search. There are ways to do
things and ways not to do things. And I'm never
surprised anymore by by what people do in the measures
(40:58):
they take to get away with something. But UM, that
information was was brought to us through UH, through the
married police department, through a tip, and it was researched,
it was checked out, and nothing resulted from do you
think there's any physical evidence? One of the reasons the
case has gone where it has, uh and as at
the stage that it's at today three and a half
(41:20):
years later, is because there was no crime scene full
of physical evidence in the case. I think there is
physical evidence. I don't think it's been recovered yet, and
I think that that once we've found that physical evidence,
then it's going to answer everything we need to know.
When we're sitting in here as a group, UM, these
(41:40):
people who work alongside me on these cases, we share
information because the the whole idea behind the cold Case
Unit forming was that that it would be wonderful to
have people dedicated to looking at these old cases, UM
with a different set of eyes. So we utilized that
strategy and we bounced things off of each other. We
(42:02):
make notes, UM, and there there are times when we're
all in here together and uh, one of us has
a thought. We get up, jumped to the white board
and go to town right and a bunch of stuff
so everybody can see it. And I'm I'm one of
those people that if I hear something, I can think
of through and remember it for a few minutes. If
I hear it and see it, it lasts with me
(42:24):
a little bit longer. So so that's how we do
some of our formulated group studies of cases in here.
So it's her missing flyer, Tiffany Witten, and then just
underneath it it says Ashley Coddle, and to left of
that it's his questions for Coddle. The reason that we
(42:44):
have the two pictured up there, Tiffany and Ashley, is
because that's who was at the walmart, right of course
when when this, when this incident occurred and Tiffany ran
from security, and um, Ashley Coddle was there. He was
with in the store for an hour leading up to this,
and then after she ran he stood there for a
moment and then he walked away. Um. So in our
(43:08):
minds those two are together and he's the last one
with her. The notes on the dry race boards in
the cold Case unit mainly focus on Tiffany. Her case
takes up a board and a half. It's essentially broken
down into three sections, a timeline, a to do list,
and questions for Coddle. We see names on the to
(43:29):
do list under a section marked interview slash reinterview. Names
like Stephen Weinstein, the friend that supposedly picked up Ashley
Coddle on that night, Sheila Fuller, the former roommate of Tiffany,
Jason Zuccarini, one of Tiffany's ex boyfriends, Cinnamon another friend.
There are questions like who was living in Benedict's house
on September besides Caddle, and lots of notes that involved
(43:54):
looking into phone records. According to Dawes, the majority of
these people have been talked to at some point. It's
just a matter of going through and doing it again.
More than likely someone wasn't telling the truth. Hopefully that
truth will come sooner rather than later, because Lisa says
that she is currently trusting law enforcement and the process.
She won't hold back forever. You know a list of
(44:17):
people that if you could just write down a list
of names that the police would just grill for answers.
Do you know who those people are? Names like friends, circles?
Do you know those people? You know? A couple? Do
you tell me who they were? Okay, hmm, I just
(44:39):
don't want to do anything that would jeopardize their investigations,
So I know that, Yeah, privately. Yeah. M hmm, Okay, well,
I really hope that they are able to trip somebody
up or find what they're looking for. I think it
will happen eventually. At you know, my big just worries, Yeah,
(45:00):
I do know who a couple of these people are.
My biggest worries that they o d and die before
we getting information out of them that that honestly is is.
I worry about that every day. I mean I I
went on Facebook and I said, look, I'm gonna start
naming names. Somebody needs to do the right thing here.
I'm gonna I'm just gonna start naming names. And then
you know, it's kind of like, uh, law enforcement doesn't
(45:23):
really people like you to do that. I'm not gonna
hold back forever. I will not hold back forever, but
I feel like in this case, when it comes to
naming people, I do feel like I have to give
John the opportunity. You know, I know that there are
a lot of moving parts involved, you know, different different
departments and people involved. So it's not just a matter
(45:45):
of him saying, Okay, I'm gonna go get this guy
and I'm gonna grill this guy. Because they gotta have
something to hold over them. They've gotta have something that says,
you know what, you are facing a lot of time
in prison, and yeah, and we can help you, but
you got to come clean and just lean on him
(46:06):
until they do otherwise. Then then you have to make
it happen. You have to be able to make good
on the and the on the threat that you're facing
a lot of time in prison. So that takes time.
That takes time to build, you know, to have all
those moving parts working in unison and say, okay, we've
got this guy dead to rights. There is no way
(46:26):
that we're gonna lose this case in court if we
if we go to court, you know, if he doesn't
come clean and we don't help him with a plea
deal or whatever, then he is facing twenty years or
he's facing fifteen years. He and he'll be in prison
for fifteen years. And but they've got to be able
to make that stick. And I think these these guys
(46:49):
and girls in Cobb County that are running in this crowd,
they know they know we'll be out in three months.
I'll be out in a year. I can do that
standing on my head, three hots and a car for
a year I'm good with that. I don't have to work.
I'll have to you know, the only thing they're missing
is their drugs. Right, We've gained a lot more knowledge
(47:16):
and insight into just why this case is now so convoluted.
There's some very suspicious aspects to this case, particularly the
whereabouts of Tiffany's cell phone that's a big one. And
what about that suspicious activity on her Facebook account? Are
these factors just throwing investigators off the trail or are
(47:37):
they tied into the final answer to this mystery. In
my opinion, Ashley Caudal knows more about these two questions
than probably anyone else. I don't think it's any secret
that actually Caudal remains the primary person of interest in
this case, but there's probably other people that know something
about this case and could point investigators in the right direction.
(48:01):
As far as cold cases are concerned, I think that
law enforcement is being as proactive as they possibly can be.
I mean, it's not every day that you've got the
district attorney's office directly involved in investigating a cold case.
Typically district attorneys take over cases when the police make
an arrest and finish an investigation. But that doesn't change
(48:22):
the fact that, in terms of the lead investigator, this
case has changed hands a number of times. Nevertheless, I
think it's in the right place now. I think that
the Cobb County Cold Case Unit is in the best
position to solve this case. There's one crucial takeaway from
all of this. It's something I've known for a while,
but learning about the Tiffany Witten case simply underscores this
(48:45):
one simple fact. If someone is missing, report them right away,
don't wait. That initial forty eight hour time period is
absolutely critical. Investigators can do so much if they just
know that someone is thing and they know that they
need to be looking after forty hours is passed. It
makes it so much harder for investigators to piece together
(49:08):
what someone may be doing with their life. And finally, please,
if anybody knows anything about the disappearance or what may
have happened to Tiffany Witten, please contact John Dalls at
the Cobb County District Attorney's Office or even your local
law enforcement agency. Somebody somewhere knows something. All it takes
(49:28):
is that one call. So if you know anything, please
contact John DAWs at the Cobb County District attorney's office
or contact local law enforcement. Tiffany deserves to be found
and her family deserves closure. Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot
(49:58):
TV in Atlanta. Story and production by Payne Lindsay, Mason
Lindsay and Meredith Steadman and myself Philip Holloway executive producers
Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. And if you have it yet,
please check out our sister podcast, Up and Vanished that
follows the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High School
teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead. Up and Vantaged is
(50:21):
available now on Apple Podcasts. Sworn is mixed and mastered
by Resonate Recordings. If you're in the market for podcast production,
go to Resonate Recordings dot com to get your first
episode produced for free. If you haven't already, please head
over to iTunes now to subscribe, rate, and review Sworn
and make sure you check us out online at Sworn
(50:42):
podcast dot com and follow us on social media at
Sworn podcast on Twitter and Instagram. And you can follow
me your host, Philip Holloway at phil Holloway e s
Q on Twitter. Thanks for listening. This is Philip Halloway.
And I'll see you next time. On sworn, I see
(51:02):
I see Blod in the water, Rundy in rusty. I
see I see blood in the water, charming, charming, See
good in the water,