July 19, 2023 • 35 mins
On April 18, 2016, the body of fitness instructor Missy Beavers is found at Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Texas.
Bevers' murder gained significant media attention after Midlothian police released surveillance footage from inside the church. Captured around the time period shortly before Bevers' murder, the surveillance footage shows an unknown person, dressed in what appears to be police tactical gear, walking around the church's hallways. Police believe the person in the video is Bevers' murderer.
In this episode of "Zone 7," Crime Scene Investigator Sheryl McCollum talks with guests Crystal and Renae from True Crime Broads. They explore the peculiarities of Missy Beavers's unsolved crime, the influence of social media on investigations, and the power of civilian involvement in solving cases.
With backgrounds as diverse as motherhood and a passion for true crime, Crystal and Renae bring unique perspectives to the discussion.
Show Notes:
- [0:00] Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum. Sheryl shares an inspiring story of her friend Betsy, who sets up a house for domestic violence victims in her county, underlining the significance of individual actions
- [2:13] Sheryl introduced the unsolved murder case of Missy Beavers in a small-town church called Creekside Church of Christ on April 18, 2016
- [3:42] Sheryl discusses the chilling surveillance footage from the church, heightening the mystery of the case
- [5:33] Crystal and Renae from True Crime Broads, are introduced to the listeners
- [7:22] The trio delve deeper into the peculiarities of the Missy Beavers case, broadening the scope of the conversation
- [10:05] A description of the eerie behavior of the perpetrator as seen on the church's surveillance footage, intensifies the intrigue
- [12:05] Question: What do you think about the church? Why do you think it was chosen as the location of the murder?
- [13:04] “I guess if some crazy person wanted to get her alone, [the church] would be a place to do it.”
- [15:05] Question: Did you both have any internal feelings about the church surveillance video?
- [18:38] Crystal and Renae reveal their initiative to keep the case alive through a billboard, demonstrating the power of public engagement
- [20:07] Question: Before the podcast was created, were either of you in law enforcement or did you have any previous training in investigations?
- [20:30] Crystal and Renae open up about their backgrounds, debunking the myth that one needs formal training to contribute to crime solving
- [24:00] Sheryl emphasizes the pivotal role of media in reaching a vast audience, aiding in solving crimes
- [26:14] The common reasons for murder and how they may relate to the Beavers case
- [28:17] The conversation hones in on the unusual sequence of events on the day of the murder, involving the killer's swift actions post the crime
- [31:57] To follow the Missy Beavers Case on True Crime Broads click HERE, or check out their IG page @truecrimebroads, and Facebook @truecrimebroads
- [32:16] If anyone who's local might have any information, please call Midlothian Police or call Crime Stoppers. The Midlothian number is 972 775 3333. There is an independent reward of 150, 000. If you call Crime Stoppers and remain anonymous, the reward is up to 1,000. That number is 972 937 7297.
- [34:47] “There is no branch of detective science, which is so important and so neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.” -A.D
- Thanks for listening to another episode! If you’re loving the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to Itunes and leave a rating and review! How to Leave an Apple Podcast Review: First, Open the podcast app on your iPhone, Mac, or iPad. Then, hit the “Search” tab at the bottom right-hand corner of the page and search for Zone 7. Select the podcast, scroll down to find the subheading “Ratings & Reviews”. and select “Write a Review.” Next, select the number of stars you’d like to leave. Please choose 5 stars! Using the text box which says “Title,” write a title for your review. Then in the text box, write the review itself. The review can be up to 300 words long, but doesn’t need to be much more than: “Love the show! Thanks!” or Once you’re done select “Send
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
So I have a friend Betsy. She's a professional, she's brilliant,
she is a go getter. Well about thirty years ago,
she was having lunch with some friends that were also
all very in their respective fields, top of their field,
all professionals, and one of them from the DA's office,
(00:29):
mentioned that they didn't have a house for domestic violence
victims to go in their county, so law enforcement had
to either go to a neighboring county or the victim
was just on her own, either to go back to
the violent home or somehow find a hotel room or
a friend or family to go to. Well, that didn't
(00:50):
sit well with Betsy. She was a real estate agent,
and she's like, look, those of us that are at
this table can do something about this. We can easily
find a home that economically we can afford, and get
some grants and get the DA and the sheriff and
the police and city council everybody involved, and we can
(01:13):
handle this. So she went to work looking for a
home and she found one. And that house has been
up and running and caring for victims for thirty years.
It's all because five friends went to lunch. Today, I've
got two friends that decided to get together every now
and then over lunch and talk about a case that
(01:36):
they just could not let go of. They couldn't get
it out of their mind, they couldn't get it out
of their heart, and they decided we got to do
something about it. I often tell people when I start
a case, I start at the end. And that's not
only logical for a crimacy investigator, but it's also imperative
for me because where it ended matters because the perpetrator
(02:02):
selected it. They selected the day, the time, and the
location and the victim period. Tonight, I'm talking about the
case of Missy Beavers in mid Lothian, Texas. This little
town in twenty twenty had just over thirty five thousand people.
That translates to a little over ten thousand households, which
(02:24):
translates in just a little over eight thousand families. So
your suspect pool is right there. The largest employer of
this town is the school district. Next, you've got Target
in Walmart. So this is a small town. Where this
crime occurred is the Creek Side Church of Christ. This
(02:47):
happened April eighteenth, twenty sixteen, during a thunderstorm before dawn.
Now Missy Beavers enters the church to set up for
an exercise class that she runs. The killer is already
inside the church. Are they waiting for her or did
she interrupt a burglary? The night before Sunday night, Missy
(03:13):
sends all her students an information over social media that hey,
there's a bad storm coming, but we're going to have
class anyway. Normally they have it out of the parking lot,
but she has told them because of this storm, we'll
be inside the church. Now, Missy gets there and gets
inside the church unloading her equipment about four eighteen am.
(03:37):
The first student to arrive was around five am and
they found her body. Now there's surveillance footage from inside
the church. The cameras on the outside of the church
were not working. But what that footage shows is this
subject is walking up and down the church hallways. They
have a hammer in their hand and occasionally they just
(03:59):
bust stout glass. Occasionally they try to open doors. It
looks like the doors to the different Sunday School classrooms.
And they're wearing a swat uniform that is clearly marked police.
They have a very unusual gait. I'm not sure if
that's because something is heavy in a pocket and is
(04:20):
hitting their leg or if they're injured, or if that's
just how they walk. Before her death, she did receive
and this is a quote creepy messages en quote from
an unknown male. It stops you dead in your tracks
right from you know, jump straight. And it's a woman
that's killed. That's not the preacher or the first lady
(04:42):
or the organist. I mean, she's there, but she's not
really there. She's part of the church, but she's not
really part of the church. That got my attention immediately.
A murder inside the church is rare, and the victim
being a woman is rare. And it doesn't appear that
it's for robbery. It's not like money was missing or
a Gutenberg Bible or something. Right, nothing of great value
(05:06):
was missing. So I want to welcome Renee and Crystal
from Crime Brawls to Zone seven. And I got to
tell you I've been on their show. I love the
way they operate, I like the way they see the world.
I like the way they go after a case. And
I think today y'all are gonna hear from two people
(05:26):
that you're gonna want to hear more from. And you're
gonna maybe want to gravitate toward their podcast as well.
Crystal and Renee, Welcome to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Thank you so much for having us, Cheryl, We're so
thankful to be here.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Are you kidding? Listen? Not only is the case we're
going to talk about so important, but I think the
way y'all got together and the way y'all have decided
to do a podcast is something people need to hear
because civilians, as it were, can always do something. I mean,
(06:00):
Betsy finding the house and them deciding we're going to
put the money up and get some grants to help
domestic violence victims to what y'all did. So tell us
a little bit about how y'all got together before we
get into the case.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Well, Renee and I met in the Facebook groups for
the Missy Beavers case. We were in there chatting and
I had never followed a case like this before, when
there's Facebook groups corresponding to the case and people are
in there talking about things that are being released in
the media and what's your take on this? And hey,
did somebody see that search warrant that the media released
(06:35):
and everyone's in there just dissecting everything. I had never
experienced that before, and I was quite fascinated with the
case and with these Facebook groups, and Renee and I
noticed each other in several of the groups, and we
eventually started talking, and that was back not long after
the murder. I think it was January of twenty seventeen
when we started to really get close and we talked
(06:56):
on the phone, and she was she knew I'll let
her tell you more about that, And we just got
to where we couldn't hardly think about anything else. We
were just into this case, and we couldn't believe that
a woman our age, with kids the same age as mine,
You're just trying to earn extra money for your family
and something like this could happen to you seemingly out
(07:17):
of the blue, and we just really needed to make
some sense of it and try to figure out what
happened to Missy.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It is one of the most bizarre cases ever for me,
because nothing about it makes any sense, not the location,
not the perpetrator, not the clothing, not what anybody was
doing there, like, nothing seems to be connected. And this
is somewhere y'all live there, correct, This.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Is Rene and I live about five minutes from the church.
Tell them to Waksahachi, which is just bordering to Midlothian.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So you knew the victim, right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Me and Missy worked together back in twenty fourteen for
a company called Baldinum, and what it was was she
had the jeens and I would go check them out
from her and we saw each other on a weekly basis.
Tell me about her, Missy was she was very, very humble.
I remember having conversations with her about fitness and things
like that, and I was like, man, you're so strong.
(08:09):
You pick up these because the bags of jeans were
just huge and so heavy. She would pick them up
just so easy. And I would always say, you know,
oh my gosh, you're so strong, and she would just,
you know, kind of blush and oh no, you can
do it too, you know. If she was very private,
she was very caring and very kind, and I just
I will always remember that about her.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
A mom living in a small town, trying to make
extra money. Nothing wild, nothing crazy, nothing completely out of
the ordinary for anybody.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Now. She had three daughters at the time of the murder.
They were pretty little. The oldest one was about about
to get her driver's license, you know, youngest one was
still in elementary, so they were same age as my kids.
That's why it's easy for me to remember that. And
you know, she was a mom doing mom things, running
them to practice and running them to rehearsal and taking
(09:01):
care of them, cooking dinner, shopping, running errands, teaching her
gladiator classes real early in the morning, and then she
had another one later in the morning that she would teach.
Just really busy mom.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So when y'all decided, okay, we're going to take this
case on, and y'all looked at it, outline this case.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
For everybody, Missy showed up to teach her camp gladiator
class and she pulls up. It's still dark, like you said,
it's raining, and she's unloading her stuff and this is routine.
She was probably kind of on autopilot like we all are.
She was probably still a little groggy, good grief. It
(09:40):
was for something in the morning. So her class was
supposed to start at five, but she always got there early,
and she had some people that would get there at
four point thirty to work out early, so she was
in her routine. She was just unloading things and walked in,
flipped on some lights, and the next thing you know,
she's kind of by this creature wearing full tactical gear,
(10:05):
police gear.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And they're just kind of walking. So if you go
back and you look at this video, to me, the
walk is it's unusual. There's a different kind of a
noticeable gait that would get your attention, almost a limp,
almost kind of a drag of a foot. But it's casual.
(10:26):
They're not running, they're not in a hurry. They don't
even seem to be mad about anything. They just seem
to be checking some doors and they have a hammer
where they're busting out some windows, and it's weird, like
you don't know if you're just watching the video and
you don't know that a murder has occurred, it almost
(10:47):
seems like this is off. Yeah, this person is off.
The location is off. What they're doing inside there is off.
I don't get it, Like, what are you showing me?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, they just look like they're fiddling with some doorknobs
and peeking indoors.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Casually walking down the hall.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Yeah, anything not in any hurry now, and it doesn't
look like you know, most most of the time for me,
when you break into a church, you're going to go
right to the office where you think the money might
have been collected on Sunday and they can't deposit it
till Monday, or is there something.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Of value there historically? Right, none of that seems to
be the case. They're not looking and rummaging through drawers
in an office that would make sense. They're literally going
into Sunday school classrooms where there's not going to be
anything in there, but you know, some craft stuff and
(11:44):
you know, little bitty bibles and nothing. I mean, there's
nothing of value. So the question it comes, are they
waiting or missing? Are they laying in wait? Because I
will say this, if you're just watching the video, it
does appear to me they're laying in wait.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Right because they're wandering around.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
What do y'all think about the church? Why that location?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You know, that's where Missy taught her camp gladiator classes
and she posted those very publicly. She had her Facebook
wide open. She wanted people to see the posts because
you know, they get paid based on more people attending
so and having successful classes. Those were intentionally posted where
everybody could see them. So she would say, hey, we're
(12:32):
going to be at the Creek Side Church first classes
at five am. If it's raining, we're still training. Come
on down, you know, don't let the rain stop you.
We're glad, he says, you're gladiators, is what she said.
We're still going to go for it, and we'll be
under the awning if it's raining.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So if somebody was stalking her, she's telling them that
I'm here, this is my location.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And if they knew that she got there very early,
then bingo, there's their opportunity because you know she she
lived in her house with her three kids and her husband.
So I guess if some crazy person wanted to get
her alone, that would be a good be a good place,
that'd be a really good place to do it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
And where the perpetrator part, she wouldn't have even seen
that car the way she came in in part correct.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, the church sits at an angle, so when you
go down the highway, it's not, you know, the same direction.
It's actually a catty corner. So the part where they
entered the church was completely hidden even when she pulls
in the parking lot, because the way the driveway goes,
it just completely out of sight.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
For me. If you say, okay, was the church the target,
it doesn't appear that the church is the target.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
To me, totally agreeing.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, I remember what you said on our episode a
long long time ago. You said she could have the
perpetrator could have torn that place up real good, and
they chose not to.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, that's right, I mean because you and you say, okay,
if they broke it to the church, because they were
angry at the church and that was their target. The
stained glass was not knocked out, the Oregon wasn't set
on fire. I mean, there were things that they just
didn't do that you think they would have done. There
really wasn't a lot of damage in the building.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Right, even the one door that you see them on
the surveillance footage attempting, and I just used that loosely
to get into they weren't even really trying. They were
just tapping.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
And didn't they break some windows? Or am I mistaken
about that?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
They did? There was a few windows that were broken.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
But again, it wasn't the stained glass, It wasn't the
rosary window. This was a Monday correct.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yes, early early Monday morning.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
If you believe that they collected a lot of money
on Sunday but wasn't going to deposit it until Monday.
This person wasn't going after money. So moving on from that,
when y'all would get together, now, I do know that
y'all would get together some and talk about it over
lunch and it was just the two of you. You
weren't recording, and you could just talk like you want to.
(15:05):
Did y'all have any initial feelings about what this was
what you were watching?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I feel like it was just a show, you know,
like they were on camera just make it trying to
make it look like it was a regulary, And I
guess they didn't put enough effort into it because it's
pretty obvious to me it wasn't. I think it was
just a.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Show, and I think that we thought we didn't know.
I remember our early conversations where we went with murder
for hire, and we also went with passionate. Obviously not
a crime of passion, because that would happen like in
the moment, this looks very premeditated. But I mean when
I say passionate, I meant maybe a woman scorned. So
(15:50):
I think that those were our two initial things that
we talked about. Is did somebody pay the craziest person
they knew to go kill Missy? Or is this someone
who thought they were really personally wronged by Missy confronting.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Her again, if you're just watching the video, this person
is clearly hidden their face, they're hiding their body, and
I agree with you, it looks like the staging has begun,
so they're forcing you to think, Oh, this person is
just some nut that's broken into the church in a costume. However,
they came murder ready and for me that changes everything
(16:28):
because you brought not one weapon but two.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, it was quite a while after the murder took
place that we found out, and it's pretty much been
confirmed online and through people we've talked to that MESSI
was shot. I think that the media tried to keep
that a secret, and we obviously went along with that
until it was just everywhere it's out. I mean, we've
heard national news programs say she was shot, so we
(16:52):
finally just went ahead and started talking about it too.
But yeah, she was apparently shot. Although the initial reports
from the media, mid Lothian Police told the media that
she was blegeened, that she had puncture wounds. That's the
way they said it. They didn't say bludgeened. I think
we inferred that. Yeah, they said that she died by
puncture wounds to the head and chest. So I don't
(17:14):
know if they were trying to not commit, you know,
and keep the keep it open that she was shot.
I really don't know. But unfortunately, if police was trying
to keep that a secret, it got out because it's
on murder data dot org and there was no other
forty five year old woman murdered in mid Lothian, Texas
on that day. It was everyone knew it was Missy
(17:36):
on that website and then like I said, it leaked
out of the into the news quite a bit as well.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, you know, it's always good to keep something close
to the vest in case the perpetrator says something that
only he would know or she would know. So for example,
if he said, well I slit their throats, that is
not public. So if you said that, it's you, so
that only helps, not all, is the confession going to
be more solid?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Maybe that's what law enforcement was doing, thinking this person
has gone to such extremes, getting the outfit, knowing where
to part doing it at the right time of day,
and she's the only one there and all that sort
of stuff. That with it being that premeditated and them
having the weapons that maybe they will want to set
the record straight, you know, like a Zodiac or Son
(18:26):
of Sam. They can't take it. They have to reach
out to law enforcement to correct some wrong they've seen
that you're not talking about it correctly. Tell you know,
just some of the cool stuff y'all have done, like
the billboard.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Okay, so the billboard began in October of twenty twenty.
We decided to put a billboard up to keep people
talking about it, get tips coming in, and so we
reached out to our listeners and they are amazing. They
all came together quickly. We had it up for two
and a half years and then it got switched over
(18:58):
it because it was not cheap, as you know, we
got crime stoppers. They said that they would take it
over and that's where it's being held today to move
to a different location which is another balboard. But it's
now in Middle Lothian, which is good.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah. We were amazed at how quickly our listeners pitched
in and sending money for that billboard. That was amazing.
The fundraising effort was no effort at all. They just
did it. People cared deeply about this case, of course.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And people are connected to y'all, and people are connected
in the true crime community. And I tell people that
all the time. Love wins. I say it constantly. You
didn't have to know her, you didn't have to know
her children, but just hearing the story and then having
the ability to watch part of the video, you would
be compelled to act. But again, I think it's important
(19:49):
for y'all to talk a little bit about y'all's background
before y'all got into the podcast. So we're either one
of y'all in law enforcement, we're either one of y'all
trained in investigations anything at all.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No nothing. As a matter of fact, we were moms
and we were just kind of itching to do something.
Our kids are getting bigger. I know, for me, I
was looking for something to do, and I've always loved
true crime, so it was good timing just to sort
of jump into something now that my kids weren't so
dependent on me as they used to be. A course.
But yeah, Renee and I are both true crime fans.
(20:23):
We've followed cases, but this I think this is probably
the case. I think I can speak for both of
us that drew us in on an extremely personal level,
and we just researched it and researched it constantly, and
that was why we started the podcast. We had so
much research between us, We had gotten public records, we
had done all this stuff, and finally we thought maybe
(20:46):
because we were having new people coming to the Facebook
groups and wanting to be caught up, and we thought,
you know, it might just be easier to get a podcast, yeah,
and just sort of put it all out there. We'll
do some episodes and we'll share these search ones, and
we'll share this, you know, the public records, and we'll
interview some people and you know, mid Lothian Police has
been very tight lipped on this case. As you know,
(21:06):
we don't know what that means, and that's okay. We
hope that it gets solved quickly.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
We don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Like I said the other day, we don't know if
they are on the brink of making an arrest or
if they're completely lost. I mean, that's how quiet they've been. So,
you know, I think people like the podcast just because
people are desperate to hear updates. And while we may
not have the updates you know, on how law enforcement's doing,
we can at least discuss sort of what has happened
(21:32):
over the past. It's been over seven years. That was
April of twenty sixteen, if you can believe it. A
lot's happened since then. Some information's kind of leaked out.
There's been stuff we've speculated on. I mean, it's just
been all over the place. There's been so many different
pois we've heard about, and we don't know what's going
on with law enforcement though, it's really baffling. Like you
(21:54):
said earlier, this thing is going on and on.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
For me, I did a lot of searching as a
kid to find my family because I was adopted, and
I guess it was very satisfying to be able to
search for something and find it. And I always was
interested in true crime because it's interesting. So when my
kids were younger, I started taking criminal justice classes and
(22:19):
always wanted to be an investigator. And then they started
talking about being a police officer, and I'm like, no,
I don't want to do that. I don't want to
be a police officer, just want to be an investigator.
So I kind of put it to the side. And then,
like Crystal said, our kids got older and less dependent
on us, not doing any more of the running around
to games, and all that fun stuff, and so just
(22:39):
found a little more time, I guess to have a
hobby that we enjoyed, and I just got interested in
this case knowing her, and it just we've tried to
kind of let it go years ago and just didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, let me ask you a question you may or
may not know. Do you know how many people are
own the police Facebook page.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
From Middle Lothian Police or individuals that are on their page?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
No, just how many people have liked their page or
followed their page?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Quite a few. There's never any posts about the Missy
Beaver's case on their page. We used to check it
periodically and now we just don't check it at all anymore.
They don't talk about the middle you know, about the
Missy beavers case. So but yeah, we'll have to look
how many I think Renee's looking it up for us
right now, that'd be great.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Twenty three thousand, What twenty.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Three thousand, I've got twenty thousand of those joined since
the Missy Beaverers case.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I can guarantee it. And that's where I was going.
And my next question was, do you know how many
download y'all had or fan y'all had just give me
a number if you know it.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
We have about two hundred and sixty thousand downloads at
this point.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So my point, and I try to make this all
the time with new investigators rookie csis the media, which
is what y'all are, can reach more people than the
police could ever dream. So when you're talking about twenty
three thousand people that may see a post, if they
were to say, hey, y'all, does anybody recognize this car?
(24:09):
Does anybody recognize whatever they may come up with that
they want general information, y'all can reach over two hundred
thousand people. And if y'all say, hey, we want to
ask this friend and that friend and these other friends,
y'all could reach half a million people in a day,
whereas the local police couldn't dream of that number. Media,
(24:32):
whether it's a podcast or somebody for the New York
Times or dateline, is the best tool for law enforcement
if they know how to use it so they can
keep things close to the vest. That's great. But here's
the bottom line. For me, I would not know about
this case at all if it weren't for y'all, and
(24:52):
I ain't the only one, so y'all, to me, are
single handedly keeping this case alive, and that to me
is so critical because somebody out their notes, they have.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
To Why do you think that law enforcement local law enforcement,
but Lothian Police has chosen to step away from the media.
They haven't updated the media in how long? Four years?
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Three years?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Well?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Years, yeah, nothing, just not a peep on this case.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
There could be a lot of reasons. One they may
have a real idea of who it is and can't
prove it yet. The other reason could be, if we
don't have anything new to report, we are gonna get railed.
We're gonna be called incompetent, We're gonna be called lazy.
They're gonna say we're corrupt, We're hiding somebody because they're
(25:48):
our confidential informant. They don't want that, because they don't
want anything to muddy what they are trying to do.
They I guarantee you are fully of what y'all are doing.
They are fully aware of what Crime Stoppers has received.
Obviously they might have even gotten their own individual notifications
(26:09):
from the billboard that y'all aren't even aware that y'all
have generated information. Because here's the thing, law enforcement knows
what I know, and that's generally people are killed for
three reasons. That's it, money, sex and revenge. That's it. Well,
if she wasn't sexually assaulted and nothing was taken, that
(26:31):
leaves revenge. Well, that means your suspect pool is less
than five people. This was not a woman that had
a lot of enemies. She didn't screw people over. So
now you're looking at the obvious things, and this would
be any investigation you want to know about affairs, real
or perceived. Just because somebody flirts with somebody doesn't mean
(26:53):
they're having an affair. She's obviously in great shape. Somebody
mad about that. Did she owe somebody or did this
person think she owed them? And then there's a fourth one.
The fourth reason people are killed is because the killer
is crazy. Not only is that person difficult to locate
and identify, they typically have no connection to the victim
(27:16):
at all. So now you've got somebody that's going to
order receive and dress up in a Swat uniform drive
what conceivably is their own vehicle to a church in
the dark, in the rain. They risk being stopped and
somebody seeing there in this Swat uniform. They risk having
(27:36):
a wreck hydroplaning, they risked being seen by Missy before
the interaction. They risk all that. Are they crazy? I
mean who brings a hammer and a gun.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And uses both and uses both.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And both aren't necessary. So now we have a little overkilled,
We have a little possible even post mortem, who walks
around for thirty minutes just checking door knobs, knocking a
few windows out, and just saundering around.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
It wasn't long after Missy walked in, unfortunately that she
was killed. So they were able to hop into murder
mode pretty fast. So not only did you come murder ready,
you committed the murder immediately, and then you just leave.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
And barely missed all the people that arrived to be
in her class.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, Cheryl is something we found out later, probably I
don't know, a couple of years into the case was
that Missy had two women who routinely came in at
four point thirty. They wanted to get their workout done early,
and the director of Camp Gladiator was telling me that
Missy would just kind of spot them and say, hey, yeah,
just make sure you keep your leg up, you know,
and stuff. While she was setting up for the regular
(28:49):
class at five but she would let those two women
come in at four point thirty. Ironically, that morning, one
of them saw that it was raining, and she said,
forget it and rolled back over.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I went to bed.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
The other lady that was supposed to be there at
four thirty got a flat tire, and by the time
her son came and rescued her and switched the tire,
she didn't get there till five. So you have to
wonder the perpetrator must not have known that there was
normally two women there at four thirty, because that would
have been cutting it even closer than we already knew
thought they were, you know, So that's just incredible. I
(29:22):
don't know how that would have changed things. I don't
know if the purp would have killed all three of them,
or if those two somebody out of the group would
have seen the purp and maybe they could have gotten
to safety. I don't know how it would have changed things,
but I have to believe maybe the purp wasn't quite
sophisticated enough to know that detail.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Well, I tell you, you've got a small town, You've
got people that are you know, tied to their patterns,
and they typically again take their kids to the same place,
pick them up the same way, socialize the same way,
go to the same grocery store, go to the same workout,
go to the same church. Anytime somebody breaks a pattern,
(30:01):
it should be highlighted. Anytime somebody didn't show up for
work that morning, or showed up and was acting different,
all of these things should have been recorded by somebody.
And I firmly believe that there are people in that
town that have a gut feeling, have a suspicion, notice something,
(30:22):
and are waiting for law enforcement to come talk to them. Now,
I'm going to urge people, if you saw something, even
if you don't think it's relevant or you don't know
how it fits, tell them. Even if you think they're gonna, oh,
they're just gonna ignore me and think I'm a crazy woman.
If I tell them that I think I saw that
car at one o'clock in the morning or at noon
(30:44):
that afternoon, tell them that may be the thing that
just breaks this thing wide open. We are talking to
two people that did not know each other, that got together,
that formed a friendship, that formed an alliance, went to
work on this case, has generated tips and information, has
(31:05):
put up billboards, has advocated for this woman and her children,
and they have done so beautifully. Civilians solve crime all
the time. I tell y'all Zodiac DC Sniper, civilians were
involved in those cases getting to where they are today.
Renee and Crystal. I'm a huge fan. I appreciate y'all
(31:28):
spending some time with me, and I'm going to let
y'all have any last word that y'all want to say
about Missy or the case, or what people can do
and how people can find you.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
We're just so thankful to be on your show, Cheryl.
We're huge Zone seven fans ourselves, and we're just thrilled
that you invited a sign and we're hoping that your listeners,
hopefully it's a new group of people that we haven't
been able to reach before. If you'll just follow Missy's
case True Crime Brid's of course, we're on all the
social media we're on. We try to put out any
(31:59):
updates that we hear. We're on Instagram true Crime Brods.
Our Facebook page is called true Crime Brods. We have
a discussion group if you want to come into it, called.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Missy Beaver's True Crime Discussion.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I always forget the name. Thank you and then we
also would urge anyone who's local who might have any
information please call Mid Lothian Police or call crime Stoppers.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
The Middle Lothian numbers nine seven two seven seven fives
three three three three. There is an independent reward of
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars if you call crime
stoppers and remain anonymous. The reward is up to one thousand,
could possibly be more depending on the information. That number
is nine seven two nine three seven seven two nine
(32:43):
seven pays.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Something else interesting that came out of all this is
now Renee is on the board of the Ellas County
Crime Stoppers. It's actually technically called Crime Stoppers of Ellas County.
And yeah, so she's working closely with them, which is fantastic,
And we're just appreciate if people would follow Missy's case
and spread the word. It's possible that her perpetrator is
(33:06):
no longer in the area. Do you hear anybody talking
crazy about something they did in Texas, please report it
because this case is unsolved and it's been a long
seven years.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And you know, I got to tell when we were
crime Con together, y'all were leaving crime Con and going
to the crime scene, and I remember you turned around.
You were like, hey, come get the car with us.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
That would have been awesome.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I was ready to ditch my family, ditch my sisters,
Tell Walt, I will catch up with y'all. Somehow I
wanted to go so bad because there is nothing that
takes the place of seeing it and walking it. And yeah,
there's a highway out there, but is it. I mean,
it's not like eighty five cutting through Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
No, it's definitely not Dallas.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Actually, you've been there on that highway. It is not
even a tiny portion.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Of that right, And that's why it's important to walk it,
to see it, to see where the church is, how
close is the next business or building or home. It
would be imperative for me. How that person came in,
and the direction of travel when they left. I want
to know all of it. I want to drive that route.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, Cheryl, when you finally do you see this church,
you're gonna be like we were. We were shocked at
how small it is. Those cameras up in the corner
make that place look huge, but it was small.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
We walked the.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Whole church in just a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, we were shocked. We were like, oh my goodness,
this is nothing like what we expected.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
We got to make that happen, and again I appreciate y'all.
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote. There is no branch of
detective science which is so important and so neglected as
the art of tracing footsteps Arthur Dole. In the case
of Missy Beavers, they need to trace every step she
(35:02):
took and where her life intersected with that killer may
lay some answers. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone Heaven.
(35:25):
M
So I have a friend Betsy. She's a professional, she's brilliant,
she is a go getter. Well about thirty years ago,
she was having lunch with some friends that were also
all very in their respective fields, top of their field,
all professionals, and one of them from the DA's office,
(00:29):
mentioned that they didn't have a house for domestic violence
victims to go in their county, so law enforcement had
to either go to a neighboring county or the victim
was just on her own, either to go back to
the violent home or somehow find a hotel room or
a friend or family to go to. Well, that didn't
(00:50):
sit well with Betsy. She was a real estate agent,
and she's like, look, those of us that are at
this table can do something about this. We can easily
find a home that economically we can afford, and get
some grants and get the DA and the sheriff and
the police and city council everybody involved, and we can
(01:13):
handle this. So she went to work looking for a
home and she found one. And that house has been
up and running and caring for victims for thirty years.
It's all because five friends went to lunch. Today, I've
got two friends that decided to get together every now
and then over lunch and talk about a case that
(01:36):
they just could not let go of. They couldn't get
it out of their mind, they couldn't get it out
of their heart, and they decided we got to do
something about it. I often tell people when I start
a case, I start at the end. And that's not
only logical for a crimacy investigator, but it's also imperative
for me because where it ended matters because the perpetrator
(02:02):
selected it. They selected the day, the time, and the
location and the victim period. Tonight, I'm talking about the
case of Missy Beavers in mid Lothian, Texas. This little
town in twenty twenty had just over thirty five thousand people.
That translates to a little over ten thousand households, which
(02:24):
translates in just a little over eight thousand families. So
your suspect pool is right there. The largest employer of
this town is the school district. Next, you've got Target
in Walmart. So this is a small town. Where this
crime occurred is the Creek Side Church of Christ. This
(02:47):
happened April eighteenth, twenty sixteen, during a thunderstorm before dawn.
Now Missy Beavers enters the church to set up for
an exercise class that she runs. The killer is already
inside the church. Are they waiting for her or did
she interrupt a burglary? The night before Sunday night, Missy
(03:13):
sends all her students an information over social media that hey,
there's a bad storm coming, but we're going to have
class anyway. Normally they have it out of the parking lot,
but she has told them because of this storm, we'll
be inside the church. Now, Missy gets there and gets
inside the church unloading her equipment about four eighteen am.
(03:37):
The first student to arrive was around five am and
they found her body. Now there's surveillance footage from inside
the church. The cameras on the outside of the church
were not working. But what that footage shows is this
subject is walking up and down the church hallways. They
have a hammer in their hand and occasionally they just
(03:59):
bust stout glass. Occasionally they try to open doors. It
looks like the doors to the different Sunday School classrooms.
And they're wearing a swat uniform that is clearly marked police.
They have a very unusual gait. I'm not sure if
that's because something is heavy in a pocket and is
(04:20):
hitting their leg or if they're injured, or if that's
just how they walk. Before her death, she did receive
and this is a quote creepy messages en quote from
an unknown male. It stops you dead in your tracks
right from you know, jump straight. And it's a woman
that's killed. That's not the preacher or the first lady
(04:42):
or the organist. I mean, she's there, but she's not
really there. She's part of the church, but she's not
really part of the church. That got my attention immediately.
A murder inside the church is rare, and the victim
being a woman is rare. And it doesn't appear that
it's for robbery. It's not like money was missing or
a Gutenberg Bible or something. Right, nothing of great value
(05:06):
was missing. So I want to welcome Renee and Crystal
from Crime Brawls to Zone seven. And I got to
tell you I've been on their show. I love the
way they operate, I like the way they see the world.
I like the way they go after a case. And
I think today y'all are gonna hear from two people
(05:26):
that you're gonna want to hear more from. And you're
gonna maybe want to gravitate toward their podcast as well.
Crystal and Renee, Welcome to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Thank you so much for having us, Cheryl, We're so
thankful to be here.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Are you kidding? Listen? Not only is the case we're
going to talk about so important, but I think the
way y'all got together and the way y'all have decided
to do a podcast is something people need to hear
because civilians, as it were, can always do something. I mean,
(06:00):
Betsy finding the house and them deciding we're going to
put the money up and get some grants to help
domestic violence victims to what y'all did. So tell us
a little bit about how y'all got together before we
get into the case.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Well, Renee and I met in the Facebook groups for
the Missy Beavers case. We were in there chatting and
I had never followed a case like this before, when
there's Facebook groups corresponding to the case and people are
in there talking about things that are being released in
the media and what's your take on this? And hey,
did somebody see that search warrant that the media released
(06:35):
and everyone's in there just dissecting everything. I had never
experienced that before, and I was quite fascinated with the
case and with these Facebook groups, and Renee and I
noticed each other in several of the groups, and we
eventually started talking, and that was back not long after
the murder. I think it was January of twenty seventeen
when we started to really get close and we talked
(06:56):
on the phone, and she was she knew I'll let
her tell you more about that, And we just got
to where we couldn't hardly think about anything else. We
were just into this case, and we couldn't believe that
a woman our age, with kids the same age as mine,
You're just trying to earn extra money for your family
and something like this could happen to you seemingly out
(07:17):
of the blue, and we just really needed to make
some sense of it and try to figure out what
happened to Missy.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It is one of the most bizarre cases ever for me,
because nothing about it makes any sense, not the location,
not the perpetrator, not the clothing, not what anybody was
doing there, like, nothing seems to be connected. And this
is somewhere y'all live there, correct, This.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Is Rene and I live about five minutes from the church.
Tell them to Waksahachi, which is just bordering to Midlothian.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So you knew the victim, right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Me and Missy worked together back in twenty fourteen for
a company called Baldinum, and what it was was she
had the jeens and I would go check them out
from her and we saw each other on a weekly basis.
Tell me about her, Missy was she was very, very humble.
I remember having conversations with her about fitness and things
like that, and I was like, man, you're so strong.
(08:09):
You pick up these because the bags of jeans were
just huge and so heavy. She would pick them up
just so easy. And I would always say, you know,
oh my gosh, you're so strong, and she would just,
you know, kind of blush and oh no, you can
do it too, you know. If she was very private,
she was very caring and very kind, and I just
I will always remember that about her.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
A mom living in a small town, trying to make
extra money. Nothing wild, nothing crazy, nothing completely out of
the ordinary for anybody.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Now. She had three daughters at the time of the murder.
They were pretty little. The oldest one was about about
to get her driver's license, you know, youngest one was
still in elementary, so they were same age as my kids.
That's why it's easy for me to remember that. And
you know, she was a mom doing mom things, running
them to practice and running them to rehearsal and taking
(09:01):
care of them, cooking dinner, shopping, running errands, teaching her
gladiator classes real early in the morning, and then she
had another one later in the morning that she would teach.
Just really busy mom.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So when y'all decided, okay, we're going to take this
case on, and y'all looked at it, outline this case.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
For everybody, Missy showed up to teach her camp gladiator
class and she pulls up. It's still dark, like you said,
it's raining, and she's unloading her stuff and this is routine.
She was probably kind of on autopilot like we all are.
She was probably still a little groggy, good grief. It
(09:40):
was for something in the morning. So her class was
supposed to start at five, but she always got there early,
and she had some people that would get there at
four point thirty to work out early, so she was
in her routine. She was just unloading things and walked in,
flipped on some lights, and the next thing you know,
she's kind of by this creature wearing full tactical gear,
(10:05):
police gear.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And they're just kind of walking. So if you go
back and you look at this video, to me, the
walk is it's unusual. There's a different kind of a
noticeable gait that would get your attention, almost a limp,
almost kind of a drag of a foot. But it's casual.
(10:26):
They're not running, they're not in a hurry. They don't
even seem to be mad about anything. They just seem
to be checking some doors and they have a hammer
where they're busting out some windows, and it's weird, like
you don't know if you're just watching the video and
you don't know that a murder has occurred, it almost
(10:47):
seems like this is off. Yeah, this person is off.
The location is off. What they're doing inside there is off.
I don't get it, Like, what are you showing me?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, they just look like they're fiddling with some doorknobs
and peeking indoors.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Casually walking down the hall.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Yeah, anything not in any hurry now, and it doesn't
look like you know, most most of the time for me,
when you break into a church, you're going to go
right to the office where you think the money might
have been collected on Sunday and they can't deposit it
till Monday, or is there something.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Of value there historically? Right, none of that seems to
be the case. They're not looking and rummaging through drawers
in an office that would make sense. They're literally going
into Sunday school classrooms where there's not going to be
anything in there, but you know, some craft stuff and
(11:44):
you know, little bitty bibles and nothing. I mean, there's
nothing of value. So the question it comes, are they
waiting or missing? Are they laying in wait? Because I
will say this, if you're just watching the video, it
does appear to me they're laying in wait.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Right because they're wandering around.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
What do y'all think about the church? Why that location?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You know, that's where Missy taught her camp gladiator classes
and she posted those very publicly. She had her Facebook
wide open. She wanted people to see the posts because
you know, they get paid based on more people attending
so and having successful classes. Those were intentionally posted where
everybody could see them. So she would say, hey, we're
(12:32):
going to be at the Creek Side Church first classes
at five am. If it's raining, we're still training. Come
on down, you know, don't let the rain stop you.
We're glad, he says, you're gladiators, is what she said.
We're still going to go for it, and we'll be
under the awning if it's raining.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So if somebody was stalking her, she's telling them that
I'm here, this is my location.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And if they knew that she got there very early,
then bingo, there's their opportunity because you know she she
lived in her house with her three kids and her husband.
So I guess if some crazy person wanted to get
her alone, that would be a good be a good place,
that'd be a really good place to do it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
And where the perpetrator part, she wouldn't have even seen
that car the way she came in in part correct.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, the church sits at an angle, so when you
go down the highway, it's not, you know, the same direction.
It's actually a catty corner. So the part where they
entered the church was completely hidden even when she pulls
in the parking lot, because the way the driveway goes,
it just completely out of sight.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
For me. If you say, okay, was the church the target,
it doesn't appear that the church is the target.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
To me, totally agreeing.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, I remember what you said on our episode a
long long time ago. You said she could have the
perpetrator could have torn that place up real good, and
they chose not to.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, that's right, I mean because you and you say, okay,
if they broke it to the church, because they were
angry at the church and that was their target. The
stained glass was not knocked out, the Oregon wasn't set
on fire. I mean, there were things that they just
didn't do that you think they would have done. There
really wasn't a lot of damage in the building.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Right, even the one door that you see them on
the surveillance footage attempting, and I just used that loosely
to get into they weren't even really trying. They were
just tapping.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
And didn't they break some windows? Or am I mistaken
about that?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
They did? There was a few windows that were broken.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
But again, it wasn't the stained glass, It wasn't the
rosary window. This was a Monday correct.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yes, early early Monday morning.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
If you believe that they collected a lot of money
on Sunday but wasn't going to deposit it until Monday.
This person wasn't going after money. So moving on from that,
when y'all would get together, now, I do know that
y'all would get together some and talk about it over
lunch and it was just the two of you. You
weren't recording, and you could just talk like you want to.
(15:05):
Did y'all have any initial feelings about what this was
what you were watching?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I feel like it was just a show, you know,
like they were on camera just make it trying to
make it look like it was a regulary, And I
guess they didn't put enough effort into it because it's
pretty obvious to me it wasn't. I think it was
just a.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Show, and I think that we thought we didn't know.
I remember our early conversations where we went with murder
for hire, and we also went with passionate. Obviously not
a crime of passion, because that would happen like in
the moment, this looks very premeditated. But I mean when
I say passionate, I meant maybe a woman scorned. So
(15:50):
I think that those were our two initial things that
we talked about. Is did somebody pay the craziest person
they knew to go kill Missy? Or is this someone
who thought they were really personally wronged by Missy confronting.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Her again, if you're just watching the video, this person
is clearly hidden their face, they're hiding their body, and
I agree with you, it looks like the staging has begun,
so they're forcing you to think, Oh, this person is
just some nut that's broken into the church in a costume. However,
they came murder ready and for me that changes everything
(16:28):
because you brought not one weapon but two.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, it was quite a while after the murder took
place that we found out, and it's pretty much been
confirmed online and through people we've talked to that MESSI
was shot. I think that the media tried to keep
that a secret, and we obviously went along with that
until it was just everywhere it's out. I mean, we've
heard national news programs say she was shot, so we
(16:52):
finally just went ahead and started talking about it too.
But yeah, she was apparently shot. Although the initial reports
from the media, mid Lothian Police told the media that
she was blegeened, that she had puncture wounds. That's the
way they said it. They didn't say bludgeened. I think
we inferred that. Yeah, they said that she died by
puncture wounds to the head and chest. So I don't
(17:14):
know if they were trying to not commit, you know,
and keep the keep it open that she was shot.
I really don't know. But unfortunately, if police was trying
to keep that a secret, it got out because it's
on murder data dot org and there was no other
forty five year old woman murdered in mid Lothian, Texas
on that day. It was everyone knew it was Missy
(17:36):
on that website and then like I said, it leaked
out of the into the news quite a bit as well.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, you know, it's always good to keep something close
to the vest in case the perpetrator says something that
only he would know or she would know. So for example,
if he said, well I slit their throats, that is
not public. So if you said that, it's you, so
that only helps, not all, is the confession going to
be more solid?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Maybe that's what law enforcement was doing, thinking this person
has gone to such extremes, getting the outfit, knowing where
to part doing it at the right time of day,
and she's the only one there and all that sort
of stuff. That with it being that premeditated and them
having the weapons that maybe they will want to set
the record straight, you know, like a Zodiac or Son
(18:26):
of Sam. They can't take it. They have to reach
out to law enforcement to correct some wrong they've seen
that you're not talking about it correctly. Tell you know,
just some of the cool stuff y'all have done, like
the billboard.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Okay, so the billboard began in October of twenty twenty.
We decided to put a billboard up to keep people
talking about it, get tips coming in, and so we
reached out to our listeners and they are amazing. They
all came together quickly. We had it up for two
and a half years and then it got switched over
(18:58):
it because it was not cheap, as you know, we
got crime stoppers. They said that they would take it
over and that's where it's being held today to move
to a different location which is another balboard. But it's
now in Middle Lothian, which is good.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah. We were amazed at how quickly our listeners pitched
in and sending money for that billboard. That was amazing.
The fundraising effort was no effort at all. They just
did it. People cared deeply about this case, of course.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And people are connected to y'all, and people are connected
in the true crime community. And I tell people that
all the time. Love wins. I say it constantly. You
didn't have to know her, you didn't have to know
her children, but just hearing the story and then having
the ability to watch part of the video, you would
be compelled to act. But again, I think it's important
(19:49):
for y'all to talk a little bit about y'all's background
before y'all got into the podcast. So we're either one
of y'all in law enforcement, we're either one of y'all
trained in investigations anything at all.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No nothing. As a matter of fact, we were moms
and we were just kind of itching to do something.
Our kids are getting bigger. I know, for me, I
was looking for something to do, and I've always loved
true crime, so it was good timing just to sort
of jump into something now that my kids weren't so
dependent on me as they used to be. A course.
But yeah, Renee and I are both true crime fans.
(20:23):
We've followed cases, but this I think this is probably
the case. I think I can speak for both of
us that drew us in on an extremely personal level,
and we just researched it and researched it constantly, and
that was why we started the podcast. We had so
much research between us, We had gotten public records, we
had done all this stuff, and finally we thought maybe
(20:46):
because we were having new people coming to the Facebook
groups and wanting to be caught up, and we thought,
you know, it might just be easier to get a podcast, yeah,
and just sort of put it all out there. We'll
do some episodes and we'll share these search ones, and
we'll share this, you know, the public records, and we'll
interview some people and you know, mid Lothian Police has
been very tight lipped on this case. As you know,
(21:06):
we don't know what that means, and that's okay. We
hope that it gets solved quickly.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
We don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Like I said the other day, we don't know if
they are on the brink of making an arrest or
if they're completely lost. I mean, that's how quiet they've been. So,
you know, I think people like the podcast just because
people are desperate to hear updates. And while we may
not have the updates you know, on how law enforcement's doing,
we can at least discuss sort of what has happened
(21:32):
over the past. It's been over seven years. That was
April of twenty sixteen, if you can believe it. A
lot's happened since then. Some information's kind of leaked out.
There's been stuff we've speculated on. I mean, it's just
been all over the place. There's been so many different
pois we've heard about, and we don't know what's going
on with law enforcement though, it's really baffling. Like you
(21:54):
said earlier, this thing is going on and on.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
For me, I did a lot of searching as a
kid to find my family because I was adopted, and
I guess it was very satisfying to be able to
search for something and find it. And I always was
interested in true crime because it's interesting. So when my
kids were younger, I started taking criminal justice classes and
(22:19):
always wanted to be an investigator. And then they started
talking about being a police officer, and I'm like, no,
I don't want to do that. I don't want to
be a police officer, just want to be an investigator.
So I kind of put it to the side. And then,
like Crystal said, our kids got older and less dependent
on us, not doing any more of the running around
to games, and all that fun stuff, and so just
(22:39):
found a little more time, I guess to have a
hobby that we enjoyed, and I just got interested in
this case knowing her, and it just we've tried to
kind of let it go years ago and just didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, let me ask you a question you may or
may not know. Do you know how many people are
own the police Facebook page.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
From Middle Lothian Police or individuals that are on their page?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
No, just how many people have liked their page or
followed their page?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Quite a few. There's never any posts about the Missy
Beaver's case on their page. We used to check it
periodically and now we just don't check it at all anymore.
They don't talk about the middle you know, about the
Missy beavers case. So but yeah, we'll have to look
how many I think Renee's looking it up for us
right now, that'd be great.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Twenty three thousand, What twenty.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Three thousand, I've got twenty thousand of those joined since
the Missy Beaverers case.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I can guarantee it. And that's where I was going.
And my next question was, do you know how many
download y'all had or fan y'all had just give me
a number if you know it.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
We have about two hundred and sixty thousand downloads at
this point.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So my point, and I try to make this all
the time with new investigators rookie csis the media, which
is what y'all are, can reach more people than the
police could ever dream. So when you're talking about twenty
three thousand people that may see a post, if they
were to say, hey, y'all, does anybody recognize this car?
(24:09):
Does anybody recognize whatever they may come up with that
they want general information, y'all can reach over two hundred
thousand people. And if y'all say, hey, we want to
ask this friend and that friend and these other friends,
y'all could reach half a million people in a day,
whereas the local police couldn't dream of that number. Media,
(24:32):
whether it's a podcast or somebody for the New York
Times or dateline, is the best tool for law enforcement
if they know how to use it so they can
keep things close to the vest. That's great. But here's
the bottom line. For me, I would not know about
this case at all if it weren't for y'all, and
(24:52):
I ain't the only one, so y'all, to me, are
single handedly keeping this case alive, and that to me
is so critical because somebody out their notes, they have.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
To Why do you think that law enforcement local law enforcement,
but Lothian Police has chosen to step away from the media.
They haven't updated the media in how long? Four years?
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Three years?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Well?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Years, yeah, nothing, just not a peep on this case.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
There could be a lot of reasons. One they may
have a real idea of who it is and can't
prove it yet. The other reason could be, if we
don't have anything new to report, we are gonna get railed.
We're gonna be called incompetent, We're gonna be called lazy.
They're gonna say we're corrupt, We're hiding somebody because they're
(25:48):
our confidential informant. They don't want that, because they don't
want anything to muddy what they are trying to do.
They I guarantee you are fully of what y'all are doing.
They are fully aware of what Crime Stoppers has received.
Obviously they might have even gotten their own individual notifications
(26:09):
from the billboard that y'all aren't even aware that y'all
have generated information. Because here's the thing, law enforcement knows
what I know, and that's generally people are killed for
three reasons. That's it, money, sex and revenge. That's it. Well,
if she wasn't sexually assaulted and nothing was taken, that
(26:31):
leaves revenge. Well, that means your suspect pool is less
than five people. This was not a woman that had
a lot of enemies. She didn't screw people over. So
now you're looking at the obvious things, and this would
be any investigation you want to know about affairs, real
or perceived. Just because somebody flirts with somebody doesn't mean
(26:53):
they're having an affair. She's obviously in great shape. Somebody
mad about that. Did she owe somebody or did this
person think she owed them? And then there's a fourth one.
The fourth reason people are killed is because the killer
is crazy. Not only is that person difficult to locate
and identify, they typically have no connection to the victim
(27:16):
at all. So now you've got somebody that's going to
order receive and dress up in a Swat uniform drive
what conceivably is their own vehicle to a church in
the dark, in the rain. They risk being stopped and
somebody seeing there in this Swat uniform. They risk having
(27:36):
a wreck hydroplaning, they risked being seen by Missy before
the interaction. They risk all that. Are they crazy? I
mean who brings a hammer and a gun.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And uses both and uses both.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And both aren't necessary. So now we have a little overkilled,
We have a little possible even post mortem, who walks
around for thirty minutes just checking door knobs, knocking a
few windows out, and just saundering around.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
It wasn't long after Missy walked in, unfortunately that she
was killed. So they were able to hop into murder
mode pretty fast. So not only did you come murder ready,
you committed the murder immediately, and then you just leave.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
And barely missed all the people that arrived to be
in her class.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, Cheryl is something we found out later, probably I
don't know, a couple of years into the case was
that Missy had two women who routinely came in at
four point thirty. They wanted to get their workout done early,
and the director of Camp Gladiator was telling me that
Missy would just kind of spot them and say, hey, yeah,
just make sure you keep your leg up, you know,
and stuff. While she was setting up for the regular
(28:49):
class at five but she would let those two women
come in at four point thirty. Ironically, that morning, one
of them saw that it was raining, and she said,
forget it and rolled back over.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I went to bed.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
The other lady that was supposed to be there at
four thirty got a flat tire, and by the time
her son came and rescued her and switched the tire,
she didn't get there till five. So you have to
wonder the perpetrator must not have known that there was
normally two women there at four thirty, because that would
have been cutting it even closer than we already knew
thought they were, you know, So that's just incredible. I
(29:22):
don't know how that would have changed things. I don't
know if the purp would have killed all three of them,
or if those two somebody out of the group would
have seen the purp and maybe they could have gotten
to safety. I don't know how it would have changed things,
but I have to believe maybe the purp wasn't quite
sophisticated enough to know that detail.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Well, I tell you, you've got a small town, You've
got people that are you know, tied to their patterns,
and they typically again take their kids to the same place,
pick them up the same way, socialize the same way,
go to the same grocery store, go to the same workout,
go to the same church. Anytime somebody breaks a pattern,
(30:01):
it should be highlighted. Anytime somebody didn't show up for
work that morning, or showed up and was acting different,
all of these things should have been recorded by somebody.
And I firmly believe that there are people in that
town that have a gut feeling, have a suspicion, notice something,
(30:22):
and are waiting for law enforcement to come talk to them. Now,
I'm going to urge people, if you saw something, even
if you don't think it's relevant or you don't know
how it fits, tell them. Even if you think they're gonna, oh,
they're just gonna ignore me and think I'm a crazy woman.
If I tell them that I think I saw that
car at one o'clock in the morning or at noon
(30:44):
that afternoon, tell them that may be the thing that
just breaks this thing wide open. We are talking to
two people that did not know each other, that got together,
that formed a friendship, that formed an alliance, went to
work on this case, has generated tips and information, has
(31:05):
put up billboards, has advocated for this woman and her children,
and they have done so beautifully. Civilians solve crime all
the time. I tell y'all Zodiac DC Sniper, civilians were
involved in those cases getting to where they are today.
Renee and Crystal. I'm a huge fan. I appreciate y'all
(31:28):
spending some time with me, and I'm going to let
y'all have any last word that y'all want to say
about Missy or the case, or what people can do
and how people can find you.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
We're just so thankful to be on your show, Cheryl.
We're huge Zone seven fans ourselves, and we're just thrilled
that you invited a sign and we're hoping that your listeners,
hopefully it's a new group of people that we haven't
been able to reach before. If you'll just follow Missy's
case True Crime Brid's of course, we're on all the
social media we're on. We try to put out any
(31:59):
updates that we hear. We're on Instagram true Crime Brods.
Our Facebook page is called true Crime Brods. We have
a discussion group if you want to come into it, called.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Missy Beaver's True Crime Discussion.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I always forget the name. Thank you and then we
also would urge anyone who's local who might have any
information please call Mid Lothian Police or call crime Stoppers.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
The Middle Lothian numbers nine seven two seven seven fives
three three three three. There is an independent reward of
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars if you call crime
stoppers and remain anonymous. The reward is up to one thousand,
could possibly be more depending on the information. That number
is nine seven two nine three seven seven two nine
(32:43):
seven pays.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Something else interesting that came out of all this is
now Renee is on the board of the Ellas County
Crime Stoppers. It's actually technically called Crime Stoppers of Ellas County.
And yeah, so she's working closely with them, which is fantastic,
And we're just appreciate if people would follow Missy's case
and spread the word. It's possible that her perpetrator is
(33:06):
no longer in the area. Do you hear anybody talking
crazy about something they did in Texas, please report it
because this case is unsolved and it's been a long
seven years.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And you know, I got to tell when we were
crime Con together, y'all were leaving crime Con and going
to the crime scene, and I remember you turned around.
You were like, hey, come get the car with us.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
That would have been awesome.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I was ready to ditch my family, ditch my sisters,
Tell Walt, I will catch up with y'all. Somehow I
wanted to go so bad because there is nothing that
takes the place of seeing it and walking it. And yeah,
there's a highway out there, but is it. I mean,
it's not like eighty five cutting through Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
No, it's definitely not Dallas.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Actually, you've been there on that highway. It is not
even a tiny portion.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Of that right, And that's why it's important to walk it,
to see it, to see where the church is, how
close is the next business or building or home. It
would be imperative for me. How that person came in,
and the direction of travel when they left. I want
to know all of it. I want to drive that route.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, Cheryl, when you finally do you see this church,
you're gonna be like we were. We were shocked at
how small it is. Those cameras up in the corner
make that place look huge, but it was small.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
We walked the.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Whole church in just a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, we were shocked. We were like, oh my goodness,
this is nothing like what we expected.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
We got to make that happen, and again I appreciate y'all.
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote. There is no branch of
detective science which is so important and so neglected as
the art of tracing footsteps Arthur Dole. In the case
of Missy Beavers, they need to trace every step she
(35:02):
took and where her life intersected with that killer may
lay some answers. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone Heaven.
(35:25):
M
Host
Sheryl McCollum
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
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
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!