MURDERED: Anastasia WitbolsFeugen

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 4 (01:20):
Hi, crime Junkies, I'm your host Britt Prawat, and I'm Ash.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
We're switching things up today.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:27):
I have been working on some pretty big cases lately,
so Britt is no big deal. You came across this
from a podcast and like, make contact. We have to
cover it.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I'm so excited.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Yeah. The story I have for you today seemingly starts
as a late nineties fatal teen romance, but a shocking
confession and so many twists in turns later, you're going
to be wondering if police got this one right. Now,
over twenty years later, I'm bringing you a crime junkie
breakdown on what happened and digging into who could be

(01:57):
responsible for murder. This is story of Anastasia Whitbulsfugen. It's

(02:34):
almost four am on October twenty third, nineteen ninety seven,
when Deputy David Eperson with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department
is patrolling through Kansas City, Missouri, and cuts into Lincoln Cemetery.
He's looking for any sign of stolen vehicles. Apparently it's
a commonplace people leave them, and this cemetery is dark.
He's just got his headlights shining ahead, and as he

(02:57):
gets to a turnaround spot in the back of the lot,
he comes upon someone lying on the ground. He doesn't
know if they're drunk or hurt, but they're not moving,
so he gets out of his cruiser, only to realize
it's neither of those things. In front of him is
a woman with dark hair, lying on her back with
a huge gunshot wound to the middle of her face.

(03:20):
To Deputy Eperson, it looks like she was shot right
there where she stood, point blank and by someone else.
Because there's no gun present. He calls for backup, and
while he waits, he looks for anything that can help
ID this woman. But there's nothing around her, no purse
or anything, and the only thing they find in her
pockets is a key and a cuckoo clock keychain. That's

(03:42):
nothing that's going to immediately help iding her. By the
time the sun begins to rise, investigators have already looked
the woman over and had her body removed for an autopsy.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Is she like young old?

Speaker 4 (03:53):
She's definitely young, but without an ID there's really no
way of knowing, right and with the light. They now
have a more thorough search of the cemetery that gets underway,
looking not just for evidence but also for witnesses. They
don't seem to get anything from anyone at Lincoln Cemetery,
But when they expand out their search and canvas radius

(04:16):
to include the cemetery next door, one that's called Mount Washington,
the property manager there says something interesting that helps police
build out a potential timeline. He says that the night
before there was actually a young woman hanging out alone
in his cemetery. He saw her a little before five pm,
didn't interact with her.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Then.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
She wasn't up to anything or trespassing. It was fine
for her to be there. But then when he was
doing a quick patrol around seven pm before closing, he
saw her again, this time with two guys and a girl. Now,
at that point, the cemetery was closing, so he pulled
up behind them flashed his lights, letting them know, hey,
you need to get out of here. He never made
contact with them, but it seemed like they took the

(04:59):
hint and left. Now he didn't know the girl or
any of the people she was with, but he knows
that whoever it was, he saw that girl's dad had
been looking for her because around six am this morning, like.

Speaker 6 (05:12):
You're talking about like like literally just a couple of
hours ago.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yeah, a man comes up to the gates and asked
him if he'd seen his daughter. The man showed him
a picture and it was the same woman from the
night before. He didn't have anything to offer this dad
more than what he'd just told police, but that guy
had left his number, so he hands the dad's number
over to the officers. When they ring the guy, they

(05:35):
find out that he's Robert Whitbull's fuchen, who goes by
Bob and his daughter. Who he'd been looking for is
eighteen year old Anastasia Whitbull's Fuchen. They don't tell Bob
why they're calling or what they've found. They just over
the phone ask if he knows who his daughter's dentist is.

Speaker 6 (05:55):
I mean, like he's got to know what they're looking for.
Like you don't even need to be a crime junkie
to know what the implication is.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Well, if he didn't know, he's about to find out
because while they track down her dental records, another officer
drives over to Bob's house and tells him in person
that they're working on identifying a young woman, and they
ask if he could give a statement, And I don't
know if it's denial or their delivery because this whole
thing has unfolded so backwards or what. But he's like,

(06:21):
I don't know what you want me to give a
statement about. But the pieces eventually, he's not he's not connecting,
like all of the dots here, but the pieces eventually
fall into place. The dental records confirm it's Bob's daughter, Anaesthesia,
and her family helps put a further timeline together of
what she was doing the night before. Bob says his wife,

(06:44):
Anastasia's stepmom dropped her off at Mount Washington Cemetery to
meet up with her boyfriend justin Bruton a little before
four thirty pm.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Why are they meeting? It is?

Speaker 6 (06:53):
Why is she driving over to a cemetery? Like is
her boyfriend dead? Like I don't even know.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
So they were into the goth subculture, and the cemetery
fit that aesthetic. Anastasia would go there and write poetry
and it was just like this quiet place to.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Hang out for like the vibes, right, Okay.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
So Bob says, he got home around nine thirty PM
and realized that Anastasia was still out and that Justin
had tried to call the house before he got home
looking for Anastasia. Bob calls Justin, it goes to voicemail,
but by around ten pm, Justin called him back, and
Justin told Bob that getting his call made him immediately worried,
because yes, they had been together at one point that night,

(07:36):
but they'd gotten into a fight that led to Anastasia
getting out of the car and walking off alone, and
he hadn't heard or seen her since. Bob tells detectives
that that's when he went out and started searching for her,
but aside from talking to that property manager, he hadn't
found any sign of her. So obviously police want to

(07:57):
talk to Justin a to figure out if his story
is legit, right, and b if it is legit, find
out where she got out of the car and which
direction she started walking off in.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Right, that's like her last known movements.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
Right. But they run into problems right away.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
His story doesn't line up.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
No, they can't even get his story because Justin seems
to be mia. There's no answer when they call him.
No one at his apartment when they go knocking. He's
twenty and lives alone, so it's not like they were
expecting anyone but him to answer, Like he could just
be out. He's definitely out because his two door blue
green Honda seems to be missing from the apartment buildings

(08:36):
parking lot. So they're kind of love with this question,
like is it bad timing or is the boyfriend of
our victim in the wind?

Speaker 6 (08:45):
Well it's and it's super sess because like clearly he's
calling her dad like he knows, he says he's worried.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
He knows Dad is worried, and all of a sudden,
we can't find you, like.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Right, Like he knows that, Like she's in theory, like
her whereabouts are unknown right right, So looks us but
they don't know what to make of it. And without him,
it's making it harder to find out who else they
were with that night, because even though Justin hadn't mentioned
other people to Bob, remember what that guy at Mount
Washington said.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Oh that she was with other people, right, she was
like with two guys and a girl.

Speaker 6 (09:15):
Right, So then if one of the guys was Justin,
then there has to be at least two more people, right.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
And before they even begin to try to figure out
how to solve this problem, the investigative heavens opened up
and these mystery friends just come to them.

Speaker 6 (09:30):
Honestly, it would be suspicious if they didn't, Like, I mean,
I imagine word is spreading fast about something like that.

Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
These two got when that Anastasia had been found, and
they came forward because I was with her last night,
like exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
So the other guy is eighteen year old Byron Case
and the girl is his fifteen year old girlfriend, Kelly Moffatt.
They say that earlier in the night, on October twenty second,
Byron and Kelly were hanging out with Justin when Justin
got a call from Anastasia. She was calling them from
a payphone at a dairy Queen Oh Hello nineties, which

(10:09):
was across the street from the Mount Washington Cemetery. What
they picked up from the conversation was that Anastasia was
upset with Justin because apparently the two of them were
supposed to meet at Mount Washington Cemetery to talk about
their relationship, but Justin didn't show.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
He just like ghosted her.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, So Anastasia asked them to pick her up, and
they tell police they got to the Dairy Queen at
like seven, and they all went back over to Mount
Washington within a couple of minutes, and this is when
they're seen by that property manager who got them to leave.
So they loaded up in Justin's car drove off, but
as they did, Anastasia and Justin, who was driving the car,

(10:47):
started fighting, and she got out of the car at
a stoplight about a block away and started walking into
what Kelly tells police is a sketchy part of town
and they just like leave her, Yeah, all of them.
Justin sped off off and took Kelly and Byron back
to his place, where they just hung out until Kelly
had to get home for her nine PM curfew. Byron

(11:07):
and Justin took Kelly to her house around like eight thirty.
They drop her off, and when they did, apparently Justin
went in Kelly's house real quick to make that first
call to Anastasia's house, and Byron tells detectives that Justin
was getting worried. He didn't like that Anastasia just bailed
from the car and he wanted to check to see
if she had called asking anyone else to pick her up,

(11:29):
since that's kind of what he assumed she'd do. He
didn't think that there was any way that she was
going to walk Like it was something like almost four
miles back to her dad's house. It would have taken
like an hour and a half. So he made a
quick phone call to see if Anastasia had called her house.
Anybody there had heard from her. Whoever answered said no,
she hadn't called, and that worried Justin.

Speaker 6 (11:49):
Yeah, I'm also like picturing her, like when you talk
about her hanging out a cemetery and like golf culture,
I'm picturing her and like I don't know what she
was wearing, but like full like chunky black boots, Like
you're not going for a four mile hike home in
the like you would have had to have gotten.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Right totally and it's nice like out there. Yeah, at
the time, Byron and Kelly didn't know anything was wrong.
After dropping Kelly off, Justin took Byron home. He got
dropped off around like ten that night at his mom's
place where he lives, and he just went to bed.
He had talked to Justin once more though, he said.
The next morning, Justin called him saying he couldn't sleep.

(12:25):
He said it was like nine am, and that was
far too early for Byron, so he told him he'd
call him back later.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Is the insinuation that he's been like awake this whole
time if he.

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Can't sleep, Yes, but Byron had no time for this.
His sleep was important to him. When he finally does
wake up, he tries calling Justin, and Justin doesn't answer
any of his calls. And it was after that when
he found out about anaesthesia being found, and that kind
of sent him into a little bit of a spiral.

(12:55):
He still couldn't get ahold of Justin. He started worrying
about him.

Speaker 6 (12:59):
So it's not like the cops have just like missed Justin.
Nobody can find no one can find them.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
So even though these kids are telling a story that
matches up with Justin, like this is all the more
reason they need to lay eyes on him. It's now
been a full day since they found anastesia, and like
you said, no one has heard a peep from him
since he made that nine am ish call to Byron.
The autopsy results had come back by now and showed

(13:25):
Anastesia died from a gunshot wound to the head and
the gun had been pressed to her nose when the
trigger was pulled. There was an exit wound, but no
bullet found, and they don't know what kind of gun
was used. They found a lead fragment in her scalp
and set it out for testing, but it wasn't helpful
at all in determining what type of gun could have

(13:46):
been used. She had no defensive wounds or drugs or
alcohol in her system, and there were no signs of
sexual assault. Unfortunately, they can't determine a time of death
for Anastasia. But once those initial autopsy was Al's back,
police release a statement saying that they just want to
talk to Justin about ye an a Station's murder, and.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
One of the last people who were with her friends came forward.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
He's not considered a suspect or anything, and they just
want to talk to him to line up this story
these timelines, so it's.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
No longer you're gone, the more Sussic huts exactly.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
So they put out a bolow for his car and
officers are posted up in the area, and one of
those officers is Deputy Eperson, who remember, is the officer
that found Anastasia. So he's posted up at the entrance
of a third cemetery close to both Mount Washington Cemetery
and Lincoln Cemetery. Are they likes it's like cemetery town here, Yes,

(14:42):
So he's posted up there and Bob rolls up and
asks to be taken to the place where his daughter
was killed, which is super random because like he doesn't
even know if they're working the case like these officers.
But the officers are like, we can't help you. Contact
the detective you for that information, and Bob leaps worried

(15:04):
about Bob's wellbeing, The deputies go check to see if
Bob actually went to Lincoln Cemetery, and sure enough, they
find him there. In fact, Bob is standing in the
exact spot where Anastasia's body was found. Bob notices the
deputies behind him and straight up says, am, I close.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Wait, is there no crime scene tape up?

Speaker 4 (15:26):
Like? I don't think they were processing the scene anymore
at this point, so it seems like you could just
walk right up on it. And I don't know if
there was still blood or anything that marked it. But
he was close all right. I mean a person didn't
want to tell him, but he's right on the mark,
and while he's there, the weight of everything must have

(15:48):
kind of settled in, because Bob says he remembers something
from the night he went out looking for his daughter,
something he hadn't mentioned before. He says, around eleven thirty PM,
he heard a loud gunshot from what he thinks was
a large caliber rifle, and somehow, in that moment, he
just knew his daughter was dead.

Speaker 6 (16:11):
I mean, first of all, feels relevant, Yeah, but did
That's what I don't even understand, Like, so we know
she's shot, right, so like this could make sense, But
was she shot at eleven? Did anyone else hear this gunshot?
I mean I feel like someone would. We know it's
across from a dairy queen.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
So no one reported hearing any shots, not at eleven thirty,
not at any other time, which, to your point is
kind of wild to me. But here's what else is
wild speaking of, not like prime scene taping anything off.
Bob goes back to the scene another time, and he
comes to police after and he's like, uh, I was

(16:46):
out there and I found some skull fragments today don't worry.
I picked them up for you guys. They're over my desk.
If you want to grab them.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 6 (16:57):
He's just like, first of all, why are they there
and wires bob picking them up and putting them in
a bat I'm getting put them in back.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
I don't know what he did with them, but like he.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
Has them in his desk somewhere, right, So all of that,
but get this, after looking over the investigative files, it
doesn't seem like police do much with this, like at all.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Like like they don't like go test.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Them, they don't even go get them what.

Speaker 6 (17:24):
So it's nothing to not give them the first time.
But after he's like, hey, by the way, I have this.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
So this case popped on my radar after journalist Leah
Rothman did a super deep dive into it on the
third season of her podcast The Real Killer.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
I love that podcast there, I listened to the two
seasons before this. Yeah, highly recommend Yes.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
Thanks to her, we got access to a massive case
file with all of these details, and she comes to
the similar assessment about how the police's investigation could have
been more thorough and like you have to go listen
to anyway, even though everyone they talked to during their
canvas didn't hear anything, they do find a witness who

(18:05):
saw something. Police come across a mechanic who works nearby
this area where the cemeteries are, and he thinks he
saw Anastasia that night getting out of a car. He said,
the car drove off and Anastasia took off walking east,
which from where he was would have been in the
direction of both Antesthesia's house and Lincoln Cemetery where she

(18:27):
was found dead, Like she would have had to walk
past Lincoln Cemetery to get to her house. And what
time is he seeing her? This is around eight thirty pm?

Speaker 3 (18:35):
So like, what's so cool? Like it seems like everything
that Justin is telling or told Bob was like.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
True, Yeah, which is great, but they still want to
confirm it with Justin himself. I mean, at this point,
Justin's timeline is hearsay essentially, and they're still looking for him.
The next day, on October twenty fifth, when they get
word from an agency in Kansas about thirty miles away
that Justin's been found dead. What cause of death gunshot

(19:02):
wound to the head.

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Speaker 4 (19:37):
This other agency in Kansas had found Justin's car abandoned
near an old warehouse. They ran the plates and learned
that the owner of the vehicle was wanted for questioning
in a homicide investigation in Kansas City, Missouri. So they
do a sweep of the area and as they were
conducting their search, they found Justin on the ground lying
next to the building.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
So outside of his car.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yes, unlike in Annisty case, police did find a shotgun
next to Justin and they know that it was the
weapon used. Authorities quickly ruled his death of suicide and
then informed the Jackson County Sheriff's Department of his death. Now,
Justin's exact time of death is unknown, but he appears
to have been dead for at least eighteen hours before

(20:18):
he was found on Saturday, October twenty fifth, meaning he
would have died around seven pm on the twenty fourth,
And like, this is a timeline day, like yeah, in
my hand, to keep this all in context, the timeline
is super important, Yeah, because I'm like, I'm trying to
figure out, like was he it has even dead this
whole time he's been missing. So police believe that Anastasia
was shot the night of the twenty second and found

(20:41):
the morning of the twenty third, And then they believe
that Justin died the evening of the twenty fourth and
was found on the twenty fifth. So there's a go.

Speaker 6 (20:51):
Right, there's like a two day yet where's he been
for two days while everyone's been looking for him?

Speaker 4 (20:55):
Detectives have no idea, but I think they're wondering what
did Justin do after ten pm when he dropped Byron Off? Right, Like,
say Bob's account of hearing a gun shot around eleven
thirty near the cemetery is actually true?

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Is there a way that Justin was with Anastesia and
shot her?

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Like did he go back looking for her? Right? Do
we like? Did they ever? I don't remember what you said?
Did they get a time of death?

Speaker 4 (21:21):
For Anastasia, the EMMY could never determine a time of death,
so basically, the last time someone saw Anastasia was around
eight thirty pm.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
The mechanic guy, yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
And Byron last saw Justin at ten, and then Anastasia's
body is found at four, So there's like an eight
hour window that detectives are working with, and six of
those Justin is unaccounted for. And they theorized, just like
you were, that maybe Justin met back up with Anastesia alone,
killed her, then took off and took his own life

(21:54):
out of guilt.

Speaker 6 (21:55):
Yeah, and that would explain at least to me why
there's like no gun found at an Aestesia's crime scene.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
It could with them and then he used it, right.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
It could, But authorities from the other agency had found
a receipt in Justin's trunk. The receipt is for the
shotgun and it's dated Thursday, October twenty third, and when
investigators go to the gun store looking for a surveillance footage,
they see Justin buying it at ten twenty five in

(22:25):
the morning.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
So she's already dead by then.

Speaker 6 (22:28):
Yeah, so he would have what like he would have
got rid of the gun he used on Anastasia then
went out and bought a different one to take his
own life.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
That's what investigators need to find out.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Like that doesn't even like make a lot of sense.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
Right, So next they searched Justin's condo for any information
on why he possibly would have wanted Anastesia dead. They
collect his computer and other personal notes to go through,
and they find a card from Anastasia and in it,
she apologized to Justin for how she acts did and
hope that they could still be friends. And this is

(23:03):
dated September nineteenth, so a little over a month before
this all happens.

Speaker 6 (23:08):
When you chrucks, I was still being friends. So like,
are they at the time that this happens. Are they
together or are they broken up?

Speaker 4 (23:13):
It'd be great to talk to Anastasia or Justin to
know for sure. I mean they were going to meet
up to talk about their relationship. It sounds like they
were broken up in this note. But regardless, investigators are
feeling more and more confident about this murder suicide theory
with like each piece of evidence they find, like a
letter they found on Justin's hard drive that's seemingly written

(23:36):
and edited by Anastasia just two days before her murderer.
And here's part of it. You remember when you said
that you could beat me over.

Speaker 7 (23:44):
The head to the bat and spray paint on my
face that you did it, and still tomorrow I would
call up and ask for forgiveness because I believed that
I caused it. While you're wrong, I may forgive you
for a lot of things, including hurting me, but believe me,
I have nothing holding me here. I never cared what
anyone thought of me until I loved you. Then I

(24:05):
only cared what you thought of me. Byron can go
himself for all I care. You don't deserve my love.
You don't care about my love at all. I am strong,
stronger than you will ever know. You and Byron deserve
each other because that seems to be the one you want,
someone who shares your brain and you're thinking and so me.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
So that's the condensed version. The original note is long.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
I feel like this is new? What is this? Byron
and Justin stuff?

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Yeah, they've already started hearing rumors that Justin and Byron
may have either been messing around or that Byron was
enamored with Justin. Like there's clearly more to this group
than it seems on the surface.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah. Facebook status is complicated.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
Yeah. So detectives speak to more of Anestatia's friends and
loved ones, and they're a assessments of Byron very Some
say he was super upset by his friend's deaths. Others
say he didn't seem that affected at all, and lots
of people have no idea what they're talking about when
they mention of love triangle or any kind of romantic

(25:15):
connection between Byron and Justin, which Byron completely denies.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
By the way, so I was gonna say, yeah, we
have Byron. Let's just ask Byron.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah, he says absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
So somewhere along the way, detectives come up with this
theory that maybe Justin and Anastasia's deaths were part of
a quote goth suicide pact that maybe tell me it's
the nineties, right, but that maybe Kelly and Byron just
backed out of, like this pact was for the four
of them. But everyone they talked to was like, no,
definitely not.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
I probably I could have told you no, and not
just because we're like halfway through the episode.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Even though Byron and Kelly are still some of the
last people to see Anastasia alive. There's nothing tying them
to her murder, so police aren't able to do anything
except keep coming back to the same people, asking the
same questions. And they do this a year out. Even
try to bring Byron back in for questioning. But now
he's lawyered up and it seems investigators have hit a wall.

(26:12):
But that wall starts to crumble when Kelly walks into
the police station and says she is ready to tell
the truth about what really happened to Anastasia.

Speaker 5 (26:22):
every app is right for every teen Parents should have
Majority age, requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services,

(26:44):
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parental Approval. This political ad was brought to you by Instagram.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Now seventeen years old, Kelly tells detectives she's been lying
for years. She's ready to tell the truth as long
as she gets transactional immunity.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
The hell was transactional immunity? Like I thought?

Speaker 4 (27:06):
There was just immunity, so yes, but it's a little different.
Transactional immunity offers her a broader protection from specific offenses
related to her testimony. It's like a full pardon for
whatever she says. And at this point, detectives have nothing,
and since they've always been pretty sure that the key

(27:28):
to this case is locked up somewhere in what Kelly
and Byron know, like.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
The only two people left. Yeah, right, Like.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
They're like, you know what, sure, We're willing to play
ball with this transactional immunity thing. And so Kelly tells
detectives how the night Anastasia was murdered really went down.
Kelly starts by telling detectives that the whole thing Anastasia's
murder was planned by Justin and Byron and that she

(27:55):
Kelly had no idea what was going to happen that day.
Kelly got in the car expecting them to just hang
out or whatever, but Justin and Anastasia were fighting again.
They had a pretty rocky relationship and Justin was complaining
about her. He looked at Kelly in the backseat and said,
who's my biggest problem? Kelly, not knowing where he was

(28:16):
going with that was like, I don't know, and he
told her Anastasia she's got to go. Kelly didn't really
know what they meant, but as they drove around, they
got to scheming, and ultimately the guys made Kelly call
Anastasia before picking her up.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Wait, I thought Anastasia called Justin from Dairy Queen.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
That was the original story. But now Kelly's telling them
that she made the call and it's been a couple
of years. She could be misremembering, But I like, that
doesn't even make sense to me, because like, how would
she know that Anastasia was going to be at the
Dairy Queen?

Speaker 3 (28:51):
I don't know. Well, I mean if you just did
anyone like pull the phone.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Records, that would have been great, wouldn't it.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
No kidding me?

Speaker 4 (28:59):
Detectives never pulled any.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Call logues, not even early on when they like not.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
For Kelly, not for Anastasia, not for DQ.

Speaker 6 (29:07):
Like even like the like Justin calls like did he
meet up with her later? Great question? I bet his
collogues would have something.

Speaker 4 (29:14):
No call ogues. So Kelly continues her confession by saying
that on their way over, Justin and Byron began talking
about what it would be like to kill Anastasia, so
the three of them pick her up. Around seven, they
went to Mount Washington, then ended up next door in
Lincoln Cemetery, and it wasn't long before Justin and Anastasia

(29:35):
began arguing about their relationship and got out of the car,
and Kelly and Byron were in the back until things
started escalating between Justin and Anastasia, and Kelly says that's
when Byron got out, opened the trunk, pulled out a shotgun,
walked up to Anastasia, aimed the gun at her, and
pulled the trigger. Byron yes. Then Byron threw the gun

(29:59):
back in the trunk and got into the car, and
Justin completely lost it, but still managed to drive them
out of the cemetery. All the while he was yelling
at Byron asking him if he'd heard him say never mind,
and Byron's like, no, I was focused on what I
was doing, And they drove over to some train tracks
and threw the gut out. Once they fled the scene

(30:20):
and dumped the weapon, they went back to Justin's place,
came up with a story to make sure they were
all on the same page, and Kelly says she was
shocked by what had happened, and she remembers telling Byron,
you know this makes you a murderer, right, And his
response was so matter of fact. He said, no, I
did it because Justin asked me to. And a murderer

(30:43):
is someone who doesn't feel bad about what they did.
I feel bad, but what's done.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Is done, still makes you a murderer.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
Yeah, And this information helps things click into place for police.
Byron's odd behavior his jealousy of Anastasia make sense to
them that he would kill Anastasia for Justin because he
had romantic feelings for Justin himself. But detectives need to
know why now, like why is Kelly coming forward now

(31:13):
after almost three years have passed since that awful night
in the cemetery, and specifically episode five of The Real
Killer really gets into that. It kind of boils down
to Kelly's trauma from witnessing Byron kill. Anesthesia sent her
down a dark path of substance use that she was
now trying to turn her life around from, and she

(31:34):
didn't really feel like she could do that while still
holding onto this. Also, you say this all the time,
ties that bind weren't so tight anymore.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
We usually takes longer, but a couple of years it'll
change things.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
She tells them that Byron had recently moved to Saint
Louis and tried cutting all contact with Kelly, and that
had triggered her. She felt wronged by the fact that
Byron seemed to be doing fine while she was spiraling
deeper into addiction. She'd been kicked out of her parents'
home and was experiencing homelessness before getting admitted to rehab,

(32:05):
and she decided to finally tell the truth to police
after she admitted what happened to her rehab counselor so
the story was huge for police, but they were going
to need more than a story. If they hoped to
solve this case and take it to court, it would
basically be Byron's word against Kelly's. So, hoping to find
some substantial evidence, detectives take Kelly for a ride to

(32:27):
see if she can show them where they threw the
gun that night, and she does show them to a
few areas where it could be, But three years out,
I don't think anyone's surprised when they don't find anything.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Wait, where does she even say they got the gun
to begin with?

Speaker 4 (32:42):
She doesn't. Detectives push her on her past statements, and
she previously told them that Justin had a shotgun or
something like that, but Byron told her that.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
He had sold it.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
Today though she's saying Byron made her lie about that,
so it kind of make Justin look guilty.

Speaker 6 (33:00):
He was already gone, okay, so she's saying that he
shot her.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
They all get back in the car.

Speaker 6 (33:06):
Like I keep thinking, like there was probably blood on
the gun or like someone's ced Byron's clothes, if he
was the one that was there, Justin's close, if he
was standing next.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
To her, And then they all get in the car, right,
But there's no.

Speaker 6 (33:15):
Way they came out without some kind of like something
on them. Like I feel like, did they ever even
check Justin's car?

Speaker 4 (33:22):
So looking back through the reports, the police that found
Justin in his car looked at his car and noted
that it was clean and tidy. They looked in his
trunk too, and nothing in their notes said there was
blood anywhere.

Speaker 6 (33:34):
Yeah, but like I mean, we're like, we have a
window of time, like you could have cleaned the car
before he died.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
You're right, And the car was towed to a secure
lot for the Jackson County Sheriff's Department to retrieve it.
But I couldn't find anything in the police reports saying
that they retrieved and processed this car.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Well, h that too, like if it like you would
have to like look in detail.

Speaker 6 (33:55):
I'm not saying they're like soaked in blood and if
you don't, just like if all you're doing is just
scoping this car, like nothing to see here.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yeah, but the I mean, that's pretty much all we
have confirmed. We don't have to confirm that the agency
in charge of Anastasia's case even retrieved the car, let
alone processed it. And basically they still have zero physical
evidence because this was a poor investigation from the start,
no kidding. A lack of evidence isn't stopping investigators though,

(34:23):
because they've set their sights on a confession from Byron,
detectives test.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
That's the only thing they're gonna be able to get
like that, there's.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
Literally there's nothing else. So detectives tap Kelly's phone lines
hoping she can get Byron on the phone, and eventually,
on June fifth, two thousand and one, Byron picks up
and we're gonna play a snippet of their conversation that
we got from Leah, and fair warning, it's not great quality.
And on top of that, Byron sounds kind of muffled.

Speaker 8 (34:49):
But here it is.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Why, especially why didn't you have to comer what was
the whole big deal? Could you explain that to me?
I don't get it, seriously, Justin said, for no reason.
She said, for no reason, there's still self up and
for some reason they're talking to me because you won't
talk so and it makes me look horrible because everybody

(35:16):
already knows that I'm a crack hair, that I'm a
coke then I'm an alcoholic, and I help remember, and
if I try to talk to them, nothing's gonna add up.
So I mean, if you could seriously explain to me
as to why you actually felt the need to kill her,
then that would really help me feel better about the
whole thing.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
I mean, there is seriously any reason that all this.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
Talk about this?

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Why of course we should?

Speaker 4 (35:50):
So police think that that's a tacit admission, which is
when someone indirectly admits something without saying it, and police
are like, by saying we shouldn't talk about this, he's
admitting that he did kill her.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
That there's something to talk about, or the thing to
talk about is the thing she's saying.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
But let's be honest, the audio quality alone leaves a
lot to interpretation, like does he actually say we should
talk about this? It's almost impossible, Like I can see
your face, like you're like, I didn't consider that. Once
you think about it, it's impossible to put that out
of your mind. But police have made up their minds
that he says shouldn't.

Speaker 6 (36:27):
But I also do feel like someone who like, if
this truly is coming out of nowhere, right, like their
original story is they she gets out of the car,
they all have like a normal night. I feel like
if that's what happened, I'd be like, what are you
talking about? Not like we should or shouldn't talk about this,
I'd be like, where is this coming from?

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Right?

Speaker 4 (36:45):
And I mean, even if his response is like, oddly,
we shouldn't talk about this, maybe he's not talking specifically
about the murder, right, Maybe it's just like we shouldn't
talk about this incredibly traumatic thing that happened in our lives. Yeah,
But either way, police think that and Kelly's confession are enough,
and six days later, Byron's arrested in his home and

(37:06):
charged with first degree murder and armed criminal action.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Dude, this is what I'm talking about.

Speaker 6 (37:11):
We see cases where like there's this what like huge
circumstantial case and they're like, oh please, are like not enough?

Speaker 3 (37:17):
Prosecutors like not enough.

Speaker 6 (37:18):
Like I get someone's telling you what happened and they
were there, but this doesn't feel like enough.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
If I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Yeah, there's nothing else. And even the public defender he
gets to represent him, knows the prosecution is reaching a
little bit. Yeah, because in pre trial, the prosecutors asked
to be allowed to discuss Byron's goth lifestyle and his
obsession with death.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
It's like West Memphis three Please.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
They definitely want to use the tap phone call as
their approof of admission, and they have a clear objection
to the defense's request to present Kelly's medical records, Like
the defense wants to show that Kelly is essentially an
unreliable witness with a substance use disorder, and they're like, no, no, no,
we don't need any details about her or how we
got here, just what she's willing to say about the

(38:04):
Knight and who did it? So all that gets put
before judge, and the judge decides that Kelly's medical records
stay sealed. That's not going to get brought up in court.
The recorded conversation is in and some of the goth
lifestyle info is out, which means some of it's also in.
Byron's trial begins April twenty ninth, two thousand and two.

(38:26):
Kelly testifies, giving the same story she told police that
Byron is responsible for killing Anastasia. Byron takes the stand
in his own defense, maintaining I know, and he maintains
the same story he originally told police. His defense calls
Evelyn Case, Byron's mother, and she testifies that Byron got
home at ten pm that night, and in the days

(38:48):
after Anastasia's murder, Evelyn never felt that Kelly was acting
afraid of Byron and things seemed normal between the two.
She says Kelly called her after Byron got arrested and
told her that but she felt responsible too, and that
she should be in jail with him. The jury deliberates
for over three hours before coming back with a verdict.

(39:08):
They find Byron Case guilty of murder in the first
degree and armed criminal action, and the judge sendss Byron
to two concurrent life terms and that's where this story
could end, but Byron still claims his innocence. In twenty ten,
the Midwest Innocence Project looks into Byron's case. Ultimately they

(39:31):
pass on taking it on, and we tried reaching out
to them to ask why why, but they never got
back to us. And it's actually a personal injury attorney
named Brian Russell who stumbles upon the Free Byron case
website in twenty nineteen and he immediately goes down the
rabbit hole. He reads all the case files and court

(39:51):
transcripts and decides to call Byron up and see if
he wants a lawyer. They have one meeting and Brian
decides to take on the case to help clear Byron's name.
Lea interviewed Brian Russell for The Real Killer and he
told her he wasn't even convinced Byron Re's innocent when
he first offered to take on this case. He just
knew that he didn't get a fair trial. But the

(40:13):
more they talked and Brian got to know him, he says,
the more he became convinced of Byron's innocence, and like
I can't vouch for that. Our team reached out to Byron,
but he said his attorneys didn't want him to talk
to us. Regardless, Brian and his team feel confident about
their case, which is built not just on the things

(40:34):
that they think went wrong and the lack of physical
evidence against Byron. They know that their burden of proof
is much higher now that he's already been found guilty.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
You don't have that like and not that I you know,
in some cases you never get the like presumption of innocence. Yeah,
definitely not now.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
Yeah, but they don't have to prove if not Brian
than who. But having an alternative suspect sure wouldn't hurt. Yeah,
and they put forward not one, not two, but three alternatives.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
every app is right for every teen Parents should have
Majority Age, requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services,

(41:28):
including social media. Learn more at instagram dot com slash
parental Approval. This political ad was brought to you by Instagram.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
First Up is justin turns out Kelly herself wasn't even
always consistent with her story about Byron being the killer. Apparently,
the night before Kelly went into rehab, she told her
dad that Byron did it, but while she was in rehab,
she told her counselor Justin did it. But she later

(41:58):
said she only claim that in rehab because by that
point Justin was already gone. Police were thinking he did
it then, and she thought he was just as guilty
as Byron. And by the way prosecutors brought up her
inconsistency like this, yeah, this was not brand new information
like after Byron's conviction.

Speaker 6 (42:18):
And listen, like honestly, like there's things that don't piece together,
but Justin makes more sense to meet than Byron.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
Well, and it could have been an accident too. Bob
told police he heard secondhand that Byron had given Justin
a loaded gun, and Justin, not knowing it was loaded,
aimed it at Anastasia and accidentally shot.

Speaker 6 (42:40):
Her, which is possibly why Justin felt guilty if he
really did take his own life. I also keep coming
back to, like, in my mind, Justin didn't own the
gun that killed Anastasia. Otherwise, like why go buy a
new one? Still even even going and buying one, Like
if you all dumped it together, you could just gone
back and get that. I don't know whatever, But the
thing I know understand is like if it really was justin,

(43:02):
like why she's going back and forth like she would
just say justin, Like there's no point in ever pointing
the finger at Byron, so like he and he's like
he's almost easier to point the finger out because he's
not here right.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Byron's team said that Kelly had some sort of like
grudge against him, like I don't know her feelings right
when it's happened, but before she came forward, apparently like
he'd just cut off all contact.

Speaker 6 (43:28):
I just have like a zillion questions, and like I
I keep coming back to his suicide, if that's what
it really was, like his death has to be involved,
right or like he has to know.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
He had to have known something more about what happened.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
It sure feels that way because there's never been any
other explanation for his death, Like there was no suicide note.
As far as I know, he didn't say anything to
anyone before.

Speaker 6 (43:54):
If they're even like suggesting that it was justin, why
didn't Byron just say that. Ever, like Byron's always, like
you said on the stand, he stuck to his original
story about like going home and hanging out and nothing like.
Same way where I think it'd be easier for Kelly
to point the thing er at him, like Justin as
Byrons get out of jail free car.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
And Byron's the one who's been on trial. I don't know.
They could have just walked into the police station after
Justin died and said, look, he killed her, then he
killed himself. That doesn't make it, doesn't, But they don't
They walk in from like day one and say she
walked away and we never saw her again.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
And you like, we also have the mechanic who saw
her right.

Speaker 4 (44:33):
Right, So we saw the mechanics saw her get out
of the car and start walking. So okay, let's just
say Justin did it Okay, Like we talked about earlier,
what the police were initially thinking, a murder suicide seems plausible,
and clearly other people thought he did this. Well, let
me tell you this is totally unrelated to this case,

(44:53):
So bear with me. I promise it comes back to
our story. It's a short story. In two thousand and eight,
a woman named April will Belkins filed an appeal against
her conviction for first degree murder for shooting and killing
her ex fiancee, Terry Carlton on April twenty eighth, nineteen
ninety eight. April claimed she killed Terry because she was
experiencing intimate partner violence, and in her appeal, she said

(45:16):
one of the reasons she was so afraid of Terry
was that he told her he had a nephew, Justin,
that had recently killed his ex girlfriend aka Anastasia, and
Terry told her quote that got what she deserved and
said that she was next. And maybe this was a

(45:38):
baseless threat Terry was throwing around to scare April.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah, man, because it's also like it's just what everyone
believed at the time.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
Or maybe Justin should have been investigated more than he was.

Speaker 6 (45:47):
Yeah, like investigating his death and processing his car.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
You mean, yeah, just those little things, but for lack
of effort, because the evidence wouldn't have been there even
if they went looking for it. They just have nothing
solid to back that up. There is this little it's
not even a full theory, I'll called a half theory
that pops up to when they're speculating it's one that
Anesthesia's dad, Bob, and her godfather seemed to think is

(46:12):
plausible that someone completely unknown, maybe someone in their friend group,
maybe a total stranger, shot Anastasia then shot Justin later
to keep him quiet. That maybe Justin's death could have
been made to look like a suicide.

Speaker 6 (46:29):
But to me, I mean, yes, I have so many
questions about his death that don't make sense to me.
But to me, that only makes sense if we're back
to Byron and Kelly.

Speaker 4 (46:38):
Well, take Kelly out of the equation for a second.
Byron still says nothing happened. I think they're saying that
what if it happened after they all stopped hanging out again?
Not a lot in meat to the theory to grab.

Speaker 6 (46:51):
Onto and like, I mean, like, do we know anything
about her other friends or like Ashley, we.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
Could spire about this for days, but Justin is just
the first alternative theory I brought up Anastasia's godfather. Let
me introduce you to Patrick Rock. He's another person Byron's
team identified as someone worth looking into. He runs Anastasia's
memorial website, stasia dot org, and he's close family friends

(47:18):
with Bob Apparently, Anastasia was known to be comfortable enough
to call him if she needed him, and allegedly she
knew his number by heart. The theory from Byron's team
is that if Anastasia had gotten out of the car
after her fight with Justin, then she would have needed
a ride home and she could have called Patrick. We

(47:39):
know that the dqpaphone is nearby, like I told you earlier.

Speaker 6 (47:43):
Yeah, could have, would have, should have. We don't have
the records to show that she actually did, though, correct,
And that doesn't even really feel like a solid theory
to me, Like, oh, she was close enough that she
memorized his number like it's the nineties, Like I still
remember your home phone number, like.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
You told me like the other day.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah, I'm sure she.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
Had a lot of numbers memorized, not just his, Like
she probably had Justin's memorized from the pay phone she
probably had Byron, she probably had Kelly's like.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
Right for me and seems like for you too. There's
nothing there. Yeah, Anesthetia could have called anyone when slash
if she got out of that car. And despite what
Byron's innocence team is trying to say, Patrick has never
been named a suspect. Our team reached out to him
for a comment and he declined to talk to us. Honestly,
Patrick's most suspicious to me because of his friendship with Bob.

(48:32):
So after Justin and Patrick, another alternative theory leads us
back to Bob.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
He's dad, Bob.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
Yes, he's been a grieving dad, a persistent advocate for
justice for his daughter. He's been relentless and making sure
detectives were investigating her case and taking everything seriously. But
there's a few things that I left out. Bob was
also out here doing some strange's to nice of a word,

(49:01):
he was straight up being suspicious. As I mentioned before,
in the days after Anastasia was found, Bob walked up
to some deputies and asked them to take him where
he was killed. Yes, And when they said to call
the detective unit for that, Bob started going off about
how his daughter was frisky and she would have put
up a fight if she was attacked, and the officers

(49:23):
are like, okay, and then Bob leaves.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
This is when he goes to like where she was
shot at the Great Yard.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
Okay. Then after detectives went to check on Bob, and
Bob realized they were there. He went off on them again.
He was like, what are you guys doing following me?
I'm not the bad guy. You guys should be out
looking for the bad guy. And this is when he
tells him that hears the gunshot right, yes, and he
knew his daughter was dead. He claps his hands together
and said, boom, there goes the neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
What does that mean?

Speaker 4 (49:52):
I don't know. But there's those interactions plus him finding
supposed skull fragments, remember downright creepy, right weird.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
Sus, which is like, it makes me wonder were they
even skull fragments now, like where it was he acting
weird and like police like were like, I'm not collecting this,
like weird piece of plastic that you had.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
Like or they had anything at all? If they never
even went to go get anything.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
Right, And there's some things about Bob's past I haven't
told you about yet either. Betsy Owen's Anastasia's mother talked
to the police after Bob's home was searched.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
I was wondering, like she hasn't come up in the story.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
So she and Bob had been divorced for about ten
years and she told detectives that Bob's behaved inappropriately with
a young child in his neighborhood. Oh, it's noted in
the police report that she says there were claims that
he exposed himself to children and was being accused of
molesting another.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Child, But I feel like that changes things.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
No police reports were made at the time of these
alleged incidents, so nothing's done, and they definitely should have
done something about it, because today Bob serving a seven
year sentence in Missouri for a statutory asodomy of a minor.
What According to the Missouri Sex Avender Registry, his victim
was a fifteen year old girl. There's no indication that

(51:14):
Bob abused his daughter's. Detectives asked Bessy as much, but
she did tell them that if he was inappropriate with Anastasia,
that could explain why Anastasia moved in with Justin for
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Wait, when did she move in with Justin? I thought
she lived with her her parents.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
So I don't know when she lived with Justin. But
Anastasia was for sure back living with Bob before she died.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
And they had broken up, so maybe she had moved
in with them and then when they broke up moved
back home.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
Yeah, maybe and looking back, they do a search of
Bob's house or at least Anastasia's room there because I
know they collected like hard drives and stuff. But guess
what they found on her bed a stun.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Gun a weapon?

Speaker 4 (51:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Like what what she protecting herself?

Speaker 4 (51:59):
Again, We're like, well, who from exactly? It doesn't seem
like she was afraid of a stranger, because like why
not take that with you when you.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Leave the house to hang out in a cemetery at night?

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (52:12):
Yeah, so then like like.

Speaker 6 (52:15):
It's at your home, so are you keeping it to
protect yourself from someone in your home?

Speaker 3 (52:20):
So you said they connected the heart? Do they find
anything else in her room?

Speaker 6 (52:23):
Like or more specifically, like I'm wondering, we've got that
note from Justin's hard drive, Like did she write anything
on hers? Did she keep a diary about like maybe
stuff that was happening in the home.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
Nothing was ever mentioned about interesting items off her digital stuff,
And it doesn't seem like she.

Speaker 6 (52:39):
Journaled bull I'm sorry, but like you started this whole
thing being like that she likes to go into the
cemetery and like she wrote there and she like like,
those are the vibes and she was a writer whatever
whatever she's writing these like long letters to Justine. I
keep thinking about, like nineteen nineties. I would bet the
farm that she had a journal. What it's not there

(53:01):
or they just didn't collect it or what?

Speaker 4 (53:03):
I wish I had answers on a lot of things,
but that too. So throughout the investigation, Bob just kept
doing weird. We got this huge police report packet from
Leah with over two thousand pages, and there are so
many emails from Bob too to police and police reports

(53:25):
about Bob. In one of those reports, they wrote that
Bob was rambling almost every time he talked to them.
I mean literally, the police reports about Bob are endless.
In another report, almost six months after Anastasia's murder, Bob
point blank asked the lead detective if he was a suspect,
and the detective said no, one's been ruled out yet.

(53:47):
And a couple months later, Bob came back and was like, well,
if you need more people to look at, I've got
a list. And as this is absolutely absurd, but Bob
gave detectives a list of thirty one cars to look at.
It too, with license plates and driver descriptions and everything
from where so, he says, the night he was searching

(54:08):
for Anastasia, he parked at the south gate to Mount
Washington Cemetery and watched all thirty one of these cars
go by in the span of like ten to fifteen minutes.
And he's pretty sure that all those drivers either know
what happened to Anastasia or were directly involved in her death.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Wait, he's doing this the night he's out looking for her.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Yeah, when he doesn't know anything's wrong.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Yet, That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 (54:31):
That makes no sense, right, Like you're which and have
you already heard the boom? But if you heard the boom,
you think she's dead, Why aren't you like going to
look for her. Why are you just like taking down
license plate numbers?

Speaker 2 (54:43):
It?

Speaker 6 (54:43):
Like no, I like I don't even know what to say,
because like that's so wild.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
Yeah, and like it kind of feels like maybe they
were he was like making a list so they wouldn't
look at him.

Speaker 6 (54:52):
Yeah, like here here's a list of all these And
also it's not even like it's it feels so weird
to me because it's not like.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
A list of names it's cars.

Speaker 6 (55:00):
It's cars and license plates where it's like it's like
I'm giving you a name, I'm giving you.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
A chore, and they all either know what happened. How
do you not have something to do with it? Is
what he says, because you were and what like what
I he knows that from cars?

Speaker 6 (55:13):
Because he was there? And like how many cases have
you seen where like profilers talk about or like detectives
talk about like someone placing themselves, serting themselves in the
investigation and that well inserting themselves like later on, but
like when they talk to police, they're like, they put
themselves at the scene when it happens.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
I have a reason to be there. That's not the
crime itself.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
It's weird.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
Yeah. So now knowing his criminal history and all of
the suspicious things happening around him back in the nineties,
it honestly just makes you question everything, Like, yeah, it
was a bad investigation from the start, we know that, yes,
but now I don't know if we'll ever get to
the truth. All that to say, Despite him being one

(55:54):
of the three possible alternatives Byron's lawyers, suggest Bob has
never been named a suspect Anastasia's case. Our team reached
out to him as well, but he declined to comment.
Regardless of what Byron's innocence team is trying to convey
in the eyes of the justice system and Anastasia's family
and loved ones, including Bob and Patrick, the person responsible

(56:15):
for Anastasia Whipples Fuchan's death is behind bars, but the
investigation and claims of a tacit admission leave a lot
to be desired. The Jackson County Sheriff's Department is no
longer investigating Anastasia's death. Her case is closed, and from
what we know, Byron has exhausted all of his appeals.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Wait, so that's it for him?

Speaker 4 (56:36):
Yeah, And something that strikes me is how easy it
is for Anastasia's story to get lost amid all the
theories and rumors and odd behavior, Like we can't forget
this is her story. She's at the heart of why
we're telling it. And at the end of the day,
Anastasia was a young woman filled with so many emotions,

(56:56):
and she got caught up in an emotionally volationship, which
is so easy to do as a teen. She had
her whole life ahead of her, and she was passionate
about sharing those feelings through her writing and poetry, but
sadly all of her future stories were cut short. And
I know we talked a bit about suicide in today's episode,

(57:17):
so it's important for you or anyone you know who
is thinking about suicide to be aware that emotional support
can be reached by calling or texting the Suicide and
Crisis Lifeline at nine eight eight. You can find all

(57:41):
the source material for this episode at our website, Crimejunkie
podcast dot com.

Speaker 6 (57:45):
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 8 (57:49):
And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck
would approve

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