September 6, 2024 • 43 mins
On April 27, 2006, nine-year-old MacKenzie Branham was caught in a house fire at the home of her mother and her mother's boyfriend. At first glance, it appeared the fire was the result of an accidental spark, possibly electrical or something of that nature, but it would quickly change to something dark and heinous. The fire was set with an accelerant which appeared to lead a path directly to MacKenzie's room. By the time firefighters were able to control the fire it was too late. MacKenzie was found in her bed next to the window. She could not escape the smoke and flames and fell victim to the act of a sick human being. Why would anyone want to set fire to a house with a beautiful nine-year-old sleeping in her bed? Why did the adults make it out and she did not? Arson is a unique crime. Those that commit arson only do it for specific reasons and one of those is crime concealment. What was someone trying to hide? For 18 years MacKenzie's father, Donald has been pushing the envelope to find answers to the murder of his daughter. He has lived her loss every day for all of this time. He has long gone past just trying to find out, he has gone to the point where revenge is not out of the question. Why would anyone want to take his beautiful daughter like this? What was going on that she was possibly ready to expose? Why did innocence get lost in the flames?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Cold Case MHS, Monsters and Demons. We're Real Education, Meet Your Life. I'm
(00:07):
your host, Randy Hubbard. And I'm your co-host, Lydia Lisco. And we thank you for listening.
(00:32):
I'm posal in the dark, we will find that spark, there you've left their mark.
We've dumped in memory, let's find the enemy, we won't leave it behind, behind every shadow, story to be told.
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Who lies our special, but some hearts have grown cold, in the depths of the darkness, stuff the good of old remains, behind every cold case, there's people fighting day to day.
(01:26):
Welcome back to Cold Case MHS, and we really appreciate you being here. We have a lot of stories to talk about this year, and we're going to start off with the case of McKinsey Brannum.
And I'm going to let the students introduce themselves. They were the ones that were involved in interviewing people and getting information about our case.
I'm Maddie.
I'm Webb.
And I'm Aiden.
(01:47):
So McKinsey's story is really a horrendous story, and it's almost as if it should be on a 2020 episode after you sit and listen to the information that we gather over time.
And this is something that we are trying to do in this class is get these stories back out. Many of these stories have fallen into the darkness somewhere in the file cabinet somewhere.
(02:09):
And we're just trying to get the stories out and hoping that maybe somebody will tell us something about it or bring up information.
We're also using this to allow students to learn some things that they would not normally learn in a regular classroom.
So if you guys could just talk a little bit about McKinsey's case, how you picked it out, why you picked that one, and tell us a little bit about her situation.
(02:34):
McKinsey was eight years old at the time. She was living in Jeffersonville, Ohio between one and three in the morning.
While at her mother's house, a fire was started and she lost her life due to the arson.
Originally, the case wasn't determined as an arson. It was accidental.
However, as she was being driven to the hospital, the fire marshal in the case determined it to be an arson.
(02:59):
And it was immediately considered as a murder. She was later discovered that she had also been sexually assaulted within hours before her head.
The date was April 27, 2006. It was early spring at the time, around 38 degrees.
There was no wind and no rain as far as we know.
She was in the house with her mother Sharon and her mother's boyfriend Billy.
(03:22):
Neither of those names are real. We're just using those to protect their identities in this case.
She was staying there with them at the time when the fire happened.
So, first thing, why did you pick this case? What drew you to it?
We kind of just looked at a lot of different cases. We originally chose a different case.
And we had seen McKinsey's before, before we chose our other case.
(03:47):
And we kind of just went back and I kind of looked at it and I just read more about it.
And Aiden had looked at a different arson case and seemed of some interest.
And then I kind of just found that one.
And I guess everything kind of just clicked the more as we were just reading and reading and finding more information and looking at different Facebooks and news articles and so.
(04:11):
So, unfortunately, when the victims are young children, they really haven't lived a whole lot of life.
So it can be very difficult to find out victimology, so more about the victim.
Do you think you struggled finding out more about McKinsey than some other cases where she may have had older victims?
Yeah, that was a really large challenge because she didn't really have enough time to leave a footprint on the world.
(04:32):
She only knew her father, her close relatives. Besides that, it was very difficult to find information.
What we knew in the beginning was mostly from articles covering the case.
So, as a person, as McKinsey lived her life, we did not know that much.
However, we were fortunate enough to contact her father and speak to him, which was very helpful in discovering more about her.
(04:56):
But yes, there was almost no information about her as a person.
There was one quote we discovered from her teacher at the time, which we also ended up contacting.
Besides that, there was nothing.
So, to go along with that, when you started to look through those articles and things like that, we talked about trying to find anybody and everybody that's related to it to talk to us.
(05:22):
What did you find difficult about that at the very beginning?
So, her father and the police department have had issues in the past and conflicts, which we think may have prevented us from having better relations with them.
We were not able to get in contact with the Fayette County Police Department.
And that was a difficulty because, especially in a lot of the other cases in this class, for example, they were able to speak to the departments and that gave them more information of solid foundation.
(05:51):
We didn't have that.
We had, you know, opinions to go off of, facts from news articles and sources that are not as credible as the direct investigation.
Almost any email that we sent out to any people with information, they all came back with denies and just saying, no, we can give out this information.
(06:13):
And that just made it harder in order to find out more about McKenzie.
Yeah, we did get in contact with the Fire Marshal and he was respectful.
We appreciate him for responding, but he wasn't able to come on the case due to it being an open case.
Well, there was kind of a strange story about him in general working on the case.
(06:34):
What was that story about him?
He, so he was outside of the department.
He came in to investigate on the case.
He and Donald McKenzie's father actually had a pretty good relationship.
He basically told her father that something fishy was going on.
Like, not everything was adding up.
(06:55):
It was literally a murder, but there was evidence disappearing.
There was stuff that was not being considered.
And according to Donald, the Fire Marshal's opinion was that her case is basically solved.
Yeah, it's like basically solved.
But like, because of the, like the area which it's in and it can't really go to another police department because Ohio doesn't like allow like another police department to be invited in unless the police department got the case.
(07:24):
Yeah, asked for their help.
So like it was like basically solved and they knew who it was, but like they weren't going to do anything about it.
So was it due to a lack of evidence?
They didn't convict anybody or for some other reasons?
Yeah, it was as far as we know, it looks like a lack of evidence.
A lot of what the authorities do know is alleged and, you know, the witness of other people, which isn't exactly credible in this case because it's a very small town.
(07:51):
Everybody knows everybody there ties into the police department from outside of it.
So there's a lot of convolution and a lot of like intermingling between the witnesses, especially on the night of the fire.
So in regards to the Fire Marshal, even that he was talking to, they actually asked him to step aside.
They didn't let him involved in the case anymore.
(08:14):
So after that, he wasn't able to give out information or find out anything else because they asked him to walk away from it, basically.
Some of the stuff you guys eventually found on Facebook, I think it was.
What was really unusual about that?
Like, I don't know.
Like it was like weird because it was on like the like the dad's Facebook, which as far as we know, like, obviously he doesn't seem to be having any involvement.
(08:41):
Like he had like an alibi for everything that happened, but he got like the coroner's photos and like the coroner's reports, I think from some woman, like some woman that worked like in the court office, I believe, or like worked around that area.
So he was able to get those photos and like we saw like pretty gruesome images of like the things that have happened to her and like the things that happened to her body and like the images of like after she was like exhumed and stuff,
(09:09):
which was definitely unexpected and not like what you were expecting when we went on his Facebook page.
So he had those photos posted on his public Facebook?
Yeah.
Yeah.
For like anybody to see they just want to Facebook and just scroll down pretty far.
I think it was, if I was him, it'd probably be to draw attention to her case.
(09:30):
Yeah.
But I'm surprised Facebook kept them up because they're pretty.
It's a very bold.
Who broke.
Yeah.
It was.
I think I talked to him like you guys did and I did for several hours after that.
You wonder why at first, you know, you would want those pictures out.
But why do you think he wanted them out there?
(09:52):
I think because nobody seemed to be like talking about her paying attention to it.
I think that like he had been working on it for such a long time and like been because it's been like 20, 20 years now.
So it's like, and I think that he put those photos up like what?
It wasn't until like, it was like three or four years ago and it already been like a pretty decent like amount of time.
(10:16):
I think that like he just got tired of like sitting and like waiting.
And so he kind of like started to like be like, he did that whole like parade thing for Mackenzie of like, oh, this is Mackenzie's case.
Like we need to talk about it.
Like it's an actual issue that's happening in our town and nobody's like recognizing it.
I think that like he put those photos up to like as like a like a drastic amount of drastic measure, but like a measure to be like this happened to me.
(10:41):
This happened to my daughter and it's still unsolved and it seems obvious.
I just feel like it was kind of a way to show like this is what happened to my daughter and nobody's really like talking about this.
This is what they did.
Right.
It was kind of like the shock factor.
Like the shock factor back into it. I don't think he, well, actually he doesn't want to put those kind of photos out there.
(11:03):
I mean, that's obviously he pushes it and go back in time and change the whole thing.
When you talk to him, how did you feel about his story and about what he was going through?
What did it do to you?
It made me angry to start.
He was very emotional, not on the outside, but you could tell he cared a lot about the case and his daughter.
(11:25):
And I was kind of feeding off of that emotion for a while, but it also just makes me sad and disappointed that for Mackenzie that this has gone on so long without it being solved,
especially when there are so many facts that could still be acted on.
When we were talking with Donald after what we've already like seen from the case, it was already like a pretty sad case.
(11:46):
But he discovered an adding more and more information that we had no idea.
And it was just, it was devastating and it was just hard to listen to.
Well, I think that was the biggest part to that.
When we do these kind of things at first, you know, you kind of go into it as if this is a project.
(12:07):
And then you start talking to people, especially people like him, and the emotion starts to take up.
But, you know, being a father myself, you know, I couldn't imagine what he had gone through and what he had done.
And you can tell from him that he is still living it every day.
And that's the one thing I think that a lot of us don't understand.
(12:30):
We lose loved ones all the time, but not in that way.
And I think for him to not have answers, to not have somebody to at least be held accountable for was something that's just, eating at him all these years to just have to be like, shut down.
Right. Right.
And that's something that he lives with every single day.
What I talked to him afterwards, I was kind of amazed because he's not the most educated individual.
(12:59):
He's what he's street smart, is light smart and things like that.
His wisdom of just, you know, his faiths, his relationship with people, how to talk to people and things like that was something that kind of overwhelmed me a little bit when I shouldn't talk to him.
(13:20):
I feel like, well, he has gone through so much and yet he's teaching me some things that we all probably need to do.
So, let's talk a little bit more about the case.
So the fire started the bedroom that she was in is upstairs and it's towards the back of the house. Correct?
So where did the fire start? How did it start?
(13:43):
And what were the unusual things that happened once the fire department got there?
So the fire started around like the foyer of the home and it like spread up to McKinney's like right upstairs bedroom.
The thing that was weird is that like the mother had noted to like the police department after she had been like talked to and she noted about like the broken like kerosene heater that was in the home.
(14:08):
And it was like Austin like spewing kerosene out, but it wasn't like necessarily near the foyer, but like when like investigators looked back at the foyer, there was obvious like splash patterns of like gasoline that had been used as the accelerant for the fire,
which you know had determined it as an arson.
Another thing that was weird was that the boyfriend had purchased gasoline previously.
(14:31):
Like when it was like a pretty like large amount of gasoline, right? Like maybe four or five cans of like gasoline.
But the like later the cans went like missing and so they were never found, but the gasoline was like found in the house, but they never really like further investigated that.
Yeah, according to Donald, the gasoline for the boyfriend was meant to be used to cut the lawn, but there was still fresh grass shavings on top of the lawn.
(15:01):
So clearly it didn't need to be cut again. I mean, it was still fresh from whenever he cut it last.
Was McKinsey's room the only area of the house was damaged?
That was damaged with a mother and boyfriend with their rooms fine or was there more that was damaged by the fire?
So looking at the images of the house after the facts, more than the room was damaged.
It was about half of the house was burnt. It didn't collapse. Some of the roof collapsed, but the foundation was still stable, but it was definitely damaged.
(15:31):
It's interesting though, because you can see the other half of the house is pretty much untouched.
McKinsey's room was it was in the quarter. It wasn't exactly over the foyer.
Yeah, I was like up into the like the right of the foyer, I guess.
But her the fire somehow still got to her room, which leads us to believe that the gasoline may have been trailed to her room, which shows that it could have been intentional to murder McKinsey specifically.
(15:58):
Well, one of the things you went to is that the kerosene eater would spew kerosene.
And well, growing up, we had kerosene eaters that I don't ever remember kerosene spewing out of it, because one that's just a sheet of firehead.
Yeah.
I'm not sure why you would have the kerosene eaters going to do that, because that could be a problem.
(16:19):
So that story of me just sounds kind of strange.
And also the burn pattern and the splash pattern about the hurricane. What did it show?
The flash pattern, the foyer, it shows that it was intentionally set up.
They think the accelerator went up to McKinsey's room.
(16:40):
So during this time when the fire was active, what were the mother and her boyfriend doing? Why weren't they running the house with McKinsey?
So that's where I get into a lot of different stories.
The leading story is that they were in their bedroom in the back of the house. It was actually a dining room, but they were using it as a bedroom. They were sleeping.
(17:03):
The boyfriend woke up to the fire and banged on the ceiling with a broom to McKinsey's room, which was above.
And he says he heard her calling back to him, which we'll touch on in a bit, I'm sure.
So they both escaped.
Now, the way they escaped is what's weird, because the mother Sharon gives multiple stories.
(17:29):
One story is she went out the back of the house, the side door in the garage, the front door with the foyer, where the foyer is, and most of those were proven to be incorrect.
I believe it's the side door was essentially barricaded. You couldn't get through it.
(17:50):
The foyer, if she didn't get out the foyer, it had to have been before the fire, because that's where the fire was set. So it doesn't make sense that she could have gotten out the front door with the fire, the heart of the fire being there.
And then, as for the back door, why did they check? So the boyfriend said something about going out the back door and she just agreed with her.
I think after their fourth time.
(18:12):
Yeah. And the boyfriend also said that they broke out a second story window with her, the mother and the boyfriend both broke out of that window in the second story.
So there are a lot of different stories as to how they actually got out, which is confusing and honestly should be investigated further.
Were there any neighbors that heard anything? Anyone that called the police or was it the family that was involved?
(18:37):
Yeah. So no one at the house called the police. It was actually a neighbor who called 911.
A car driving past ended up calling the cops as well.
The mother Sharon never called the police. She did go door to door. However, she at the house on the corner across from like diagonal from the house.
(19:00):
She didn't get neighbors to wake up and she asked for a pair of shoes. I'm guessing her feet probably hurt from running around barefoot.
So she asked for a pair of shoes and she got angry when the shoes were her size.
Okay.
Not mentioning that there was a fire, that her daughter was still in the fire and she didn't ever mention that her daughter was in the fire.
(19:21):
She never mentioned she was still in the house.
20 minutes after the firefighters arrived, she still hadn't said anything. A neighbor actually had to say, Mackenzie is still up there.
Her own mother didn't tell the authorities that her daughter was died.
And this just kind of shows how Sharon and Billy didn't even think to call the cops even with their own house running down.
(19:47):
And then there was a volunteer fire department just down the street. Basically within view, you can see it from the house, which has a big 911 emergency phone on the outside of it.
And it was brand new. Sharon's boyfriend was a volunteer firefighter, so it's likely he knew it was there.
(20:08):
He was a volunteer firefighter and there is this huge, indeed, an uncalled police.
Okay, and go down. What was the other thing that was unusual about him when they got there?
He said that he attempted to use a ladder that was in the shed to climb up to Mackenzie's window, but that the flames were too much for him to be able to get in or attempt to save her at all.
(20:33):
And we later discovered that the shed wasn't even opened, right? And then the ladder wasn't even of the height to even reach the window.
Like at all?
So that kind of whole thing just went out of the window. It was like, yeah. It couldn't have been used at all.
Allegedly, it was also, they took it into the evidence room and it disappeared from the room later on. We don't know much about that, but it's strange that it went missing.
(21:03):
So what was he doing on the front yard when the firefighters got there, though?
Yeah, he was playing with their dog, just fetch, I guess, playing the yard.
So it seems that this may not have been the best situation for Mackenzie at her mother's house. Why was she there in the first place?
(21:24):
Her mother had asked a couple weeks or months beforehand to have Mackenzie over.
So Mackenzie has two younger brothers. They all three lived with their father, Donald. However, she asked her to stay at her house for a little while, as well as one of the mother's other children with a different father.
I guess supposedly she wanted girls with girls, boys with boys. I don't know if that's the real reason she wanted her over. That's just what we were told.
(21:53):
But that's why she was at the house. She didn't normally live there with her mother. She was only staying for a short period of time.
So you said that she wanted a daughter from another marriage? Where was that person that night?
We don't know. We don't know much about that side of things. We know that that child was older. I think she was either a teenager or a young adult at the time, but we don't know anything more than that.
(22:22):
So previously you mentioned that Mackenzie was later found that she was sexually assaulted. Has there been any previous history of sexual abuse, physical abuse, anything like that towards Mackenzie?
Yes. We found multiple reports from Donald. Donald ended up giving a big binder of just multiple documents over the years that he just collected.
(22:48):
It's massive. He has told us stories about how it was either the grandpa or one of the uncles. He had asked the kids to...
(23:12):
It's tough to say, but we're going to go for a conversation.
Do inappropriate actions with each other?
Yes.
And that was one of the uncles.
As well as there were other things that happened. Her mother's boyfriend supposedly had cruel, unusual punishments.
(23:39):
One of the kids, Harrison, was checked into the Fayette County Memorial Hospital for a nine-inch scar along his back or along his side.
The story was that they ended up sicking a dog on him. He was running away and he ended up getting that cut from jumping onto a truck.
(24:04):
He also had five puncture wounds from the dog bite.
And Child Protective Services was never called?
They were, but they didn't really do anything. They were brought into a hospital one time where I think there was a rash brought into the hospital for a rash.
And a police officer showed up because they had found multiple bruises and stuff. A police officer showed up and he basically dismissed it and said that his daughter worked for Child Protective Services.
(24:39):
And he was like, oh, this isn't child abuse. This is just whatever. There was never anything really done with it. There were several reports made, but it kind of just always felt like the cracks went missing and nothing was really done for them.
So there's obviously these multiple signs of abuse over many years, was it?
(25:01):
Yeah.
Why do you think the next step somebody took to murdering Mackenzie?
So like we said, there was evidence of sexual assault that happened before the fire. There was DNA evidence collected from multiple places on her body.
So that would be a good motive to potentially cover that up, which didn't work, but that would be a potential motive.
(25:25):
Another theory is that she had been being trafficked and it might have been happening for some time and she was either going to tell somebody, tell her father or something like that. And so the fire was set to stop that.
But the fire was clearly set to cover up evidence and to cover up whatever the individual had done.
(25:46):
So they did her autopsy. Did you happen to notice if they found any carbon dioxide or soot or anything in her lungs?
She, her cause of death was officially determined to be smoke inhalation. Her lungs were full of, it was something like 68% carbon dioxide or something like that.
(26:08):
Okay, so the fire actually did cause her death.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
So when we looked at that binder, which is like you said is passive, the change. One thing you kept talking about was sexual assault.
But actually in the autopsy, did they show evidence of actual penetration, sexual assault, or did they find anything? Is that more of a rumor type thing?
(26:35):
The documents we saw, just to preface this, we did not get the documents from the county in Sowido.
We can't verify how valid they are, but they said that there was nothing abnormal about any of those areas on her body.
So it's unlikely that she was penetrated in any way. But the signs, the DNA evidence was still collected.
(27:00):
So clearly, you know, something had been happening.
So we've talked about all of this after the mat, but was there anything going on the day before Mackenzie's murder or anything going on in the weeks previously?
Because is there a changed behavior that could signify that something like this was going to happen?
She did have school pictures taken the day before. And in those pictures, she is not really smiling.
(27:27):
In her school picture, I guess the photographer had to work hard to get her to smile fully for the picture. So that could have been a sign of a change in personality or behavior.
Was she a very bright, bubbly kid?
Yeah, according to her teacher and her father, she was a very bright, outgoing soul.
So that would be a little strange that she wouldn't start on another smile like that.
(27:51):
Oh, good.
I think Mackenzie, like, as a person, according to her teacher and her dad, she was the type of person that she looked out for other people.
She looked out for the other students. She helped get them lunches. She helped get them money to help them.
She was never the type of person that, in that setting, around her dad and around her teacher, she was always more of a protector and wanted to protect other people.
(28:19):
And I think that it caused, it didn't cause for what happened, but it kept her dad out of what was happening to her because she wanted to protect him.
And I think that because of that, a lot of things were hidden about what was happening around her mother, what was happening with the mother's boyfriend.
And then it got to the point where she was probably close to telling him about what was happening to her and everything that happened that night happened.
(28:51):
And in the school photo, there was also multiple different, like, if you look into the photo, like, there's multiple different kind of like bruises on her arms and like, she looks kind of very, like, skinnier, a little bit more maltritioned.
Those could have obviously been signs of, like, abuse. We're not 100% sure, but it kind of does appear that way.
(29:14):
So you guys have discussed all of these potential theories, all of this evidence and lack of evidence.
Are there any final steps that can be taken to put a lid on Mackenzie's case, to finally close it and get justice for her father? Or is it just going to be forever unsolved?
So genetic genealogy has progressed a lot since then, so that could be really useful to find out who the individual was.
(29:38):
Some of the suspects, or at least one of them has since passed.
If we could get DNA samples from their son, that could be useful because they can compare that to the DNA evidence they already have and potentially find a match.
There's also what the detective was talking about, the new lie detector machines.
I forget, I forget what they're called, but those would be good to go back and question some people again with because they're very, the polygraphs originally are very unreliable.
(30:09):
And some of the individuals in the case likely could have easily lied their way through that with no problem.
That was the voice.
How do they say it?
Voice stress analysis.
Voice stress analysis, I think it was called, yeah.
So I just have two more things.
So is there anything else about the case that you think is important to mention?
(30:30):
And then secondly, what are, you spent a long time, you spent a whole year researching, finding out about Mackenzie.
What are the things that you're going to hold with you for the rest of your life about her case?
I would have to say that so after the night of the fire, Sharon and Billy and like the family who were like living in the house that had just burned down the previous site, they had stayed at this hotel.
(31:01):
And we heard like reports from like the hotel staff that they were at the pool and having like a great time that they were partying and not really like acting like their daughter had just died the night before.
And sorry, the vacation that they went on like relatively very soon after using money that was basically like donated from the community to them to help pay for the funeral.
(31:30):
They used some of that money to then go on a vacation to Florida.
Like what? It was like probably less than a month after her funeral.
Within days?
Within days, yeah, of the funeral, which there's all these things that they keep doing.
It's like it makes it seem so.
I am.
They posted a picture online of them on a motorcycle just smiling and like having like a great time.
(31:54):
It's it's confusing because they try to paint themselves as not being involved in the case.
But if they really weren't involved, then why are they acting so completely, you know, nonchalant about it?
It's like they don't care, especially her mother.
It's surprising how much she acts like she just does not care.
And there might be more going on in that relationship as well than what we know.
(32:18):
But on the surface, it just seems like unrealistic that they'd be acting.
Yeah, that's the one thing about when we work with these things, too, is we tend to get information from one side of the story,
especially the one that's emotionally attached to it and still trying to find those answers.
(32:41):
Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk to the mom or the boyfriend.
We don't know their stories.
We also don't know how people react to certain situations.
So not that we're accusing them of doing anything wrong.
It just there were some things that seemed kind of strange that they probably should answer to at least to give an idea of why those things were happening.
(33:02):
Now, again, we weren't able to confirm everything that supposedly happened.
A lot of these are rumors.
So we're not accusing them, but it would be nice to hear from them and say, hey, this is really what happened.
Yeah, especially if they're not involved, you know, that's their opportunity to show the world that they're not involved and maybe make their own contribution.
(33:23):
So we were also talking to a local detective, Chad Jones, who basically said this case was solved.
So his theory is that her mother and her boyfriend in a relationship and her mother is under like what he calls the Cinderella effect or the Cinderella syndrome, where basically he thinks the boyfriend was consistently, you know, taking advantage of Mackenzie.
(33:53):
And this it became competitive in the household with Mackenzie and her mother, because her mother also obviously wants that attention from her boyfriend.
So he thinks it may have turned into a competition and, you know, motherly instincts might have just gone out the window.
(34:14):
So in that case, it's possible that she was more directly involved. It's also possible she's been manipulated.
She might still be being manipulated.
And if this is true, all it takes is for her to speak up.
But again, this is just a theory.
We have no evidence of this.
Right.
So when you guys first took the class or signed up for the class, what did you expect and what did you get out of it that surprised you or changed your idea about who was the class as well?
(34:49):
I knew it was probably going to be like a difficult class.
Like I knew that like it was going to put me in some like situations like I wasn't initially comfortable with like, I wouldn't say I'm like always the greatest with some sort of situation.
So I knew I was probably going to be challenging myself with talking to like police departments or police detectives or parents and victims or certain things like that.
(35:13):
I didn't think I was going to get like I knew I'd have some sort of like emotional connection.
I just didn't think that I was going to get as like emotionally driven and emotionally connected.
Like to the case, I guess, like I didn't realize. I don't know.
For me, I went into it expecting it to be difficult because, you know, you warned us a lot in forensics, especially that it's not.
(35:38):
There's a lot of downtime and it's a lot of just putting your head down and getting the work done.
So I didn't go into it expecting that.
I didn't expect to be doing a case on an eight year old.
And that was especially this kind of case where she was, you know, really weird.
In a lot of the other cases, there are a lot of factors that go into the lifestyle of the victim.
(36:00):
However, in this case, she was just a young girl. I mean, yeah.
And she was definitely like more of like an innocent bystander to everything that was like happening around her.
Like it's not like she had any control of what was necessarily happening in her life, which I think made it harder because it's like it's not that like any of the people like like in the other classes in their case.
(36:23):
It's not like these people also asked for what happened to them.
It's just that there was nothing like in her lifestyle.
Like she had barely like done anything in her life.
Like she was eight. So it's like, I don't know, it's kind of like harder in that situation.
But she couldn't escape her surroundings.
Her victimology had nothing to do with furnaces.
It had to do with everybody else's.
(36:44):
I would have to say that like going into this class, I knew that it would be like a lot of like work and like research.
And stuff, but I didn't realize how much it would be or like how much we would actually have to do.
Like how much digging we would have to do on Facebook.
I would never spend any time on Facebook.
(37:05):
And I had like 30 minutes just looking at my daily activity and just looking at like Mackenzie's help Mackenzie's case Facebook group justice for Mackenzie.
And then and then also Donald's Facebook and just like going through like the contacts and stuff.
(37:26):
It's just like something I would never like picture me doing.
But I did it through this class and it was just a really cool experience.
And I just want to say I'm sure Mackenzie's father and her family appreciate all the work you guys have done.
It's his little girl and you guys are getting her story back out there.
If anyone has any information regarding Mackenzie's case, who should they contact?
(37:48):
Where should they go?
So the Fayette County Police Department is still the investigating authority.
So by all means, they should be contacted first.
However, you know, you can also contact us.
You can contact the cold case program and we'll get the information where it needs to go.
Well, I'm sure they have a crime stopper's number also.
(38:10):
So anybody has any information.
So what are your final thoughts about Mackenzie's case about the class, about how it's affected you for the future?
For me, I've already taken some of what I've learned in this class and applied it outside of the class.
You know, you start to notice things and you start to think about things differently after seeing these cases and investigating them.
(38:39):
You know, it's you want to believe everyone is good.
But the truth is there are always little things that they might not even be aware of that you just start to notice and pick up on things that seem strange or out of the ordinary.
And I already had a situation recently where things could have been worse, but they were.
(39:02):
Thank goodness.
So it's just things like that.
And I'm a lot more cautious now.
I think like just like my thoughts, like I think it's like I'm going to take like this class and like everything about Mackenzie's case.
And I'm probably going to think about it for a very long time.
Like I don't think it's like going to like leave my headspace.
(39:23):
Like it'll always kind of like be there.
And I think that like I hope like eventually I'll be able to like, like I'm not going to like focus my time on it as much anymore.
But I think that like eventually I'd hope to like hear some information or get information about like something that happened in Mackenzie's case.
Like I hope good things through the future in Mackenzie's case and that like something is done with like like the genetic genealogy.
(39:50):
And I think that it's going to be like something I'm going to think about for a very like long time in my life.
Honestly, just to kind of add on to Maddie.
This is honestly just a class that like going into the future, I can just always like look back and just say like, I was a part of cold case.
Like like that is not something that like a lot of people can say.
(40:14):
And just thinking about like Mackenzie's case, I can like talk about it with people and say like, this is the case that I did.
These are like the steps that I followed.
These are like the people that I worked with.
This is like I actually worked on a case.
And that's honestly not something that many people can say.
Just thinking about Mackenzie and like and like hearing, hopefully hearing more information about it in the future.
(40:42):
I really hope that like it brings light to this case more because it's kind of been shadowed over the years.
Well, you just talked about something that I thought was important is that talking with other people about it.
That's kind of the goal.
You know, I wanted this to stick with you.
I wanted this to be something that you will think about one for your own kids someday when you have your own.
(41:03):
But to the more you talk about it, the more information gets out there.
And who knows who hears that.
Maybe see something or know something or been from that area.
You know, and then we can possibly get some answer to that.
Well, I appreciate all the work that you did.
Someday we're going to spend a little more time talking about the details in this case.
(41:26):
Because like I said, I think 2020 should pick this up because after talking to Donald, there's things that just don't seem like they went the right way.
They're supposed to.
And we hope that someday Donald can get a little bit of relief.
He'll never get closure because he lost his daughter and he'll never get her back.
(41:48):
She's frozen at eight years old.
We don't really know what she would have been.
And I hope that you guys learned that you help somebody.
Just giving Donald the attention that he's looking for, trying to get the story out.
And maybe one day, one day they'll get the answer to the guilty case.
(42:09):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Cold Case MHS.
This podcast was edited by the students of Cold Case MHS and produced by Mr. Hubbard and myself.
The music was performed and written by Alexa Dahl and the artwork was created by the students of MHS Design Studio Internship.
Please consider sharing this podcast to bring more light to these victims.
Tune in next time to Cold Case MHS, Monsters and Demons.
(42:58):
Big downs in memory.
Let's find the enemy.
We won't leave it behind.
Behind every shadow.
A story to be told.
Whom lies I was special?
But some hearts have grown cold.
(43:22):
And the depths of the darkness, stuff the guru for remains.
Behind every cold case.
There's people fighting day to day.
Welcome to Cold Case MHS, Monsters and Demons. We're Real Education, Meet Your Life. I'm
(00:07):
your host, Randy Hubbard. And I'm your co-host, Lydia Lisco. And we thank you for listening.
(00:32):
I'm posal in the dark, we will find that spark, there you've left their mark.
We've dumped in memory, let's find the enemy, we won't leave it behind, behind every shadow, story to be told.
(00:57):
Who lies our special, but some hearts have grown cold, in the depths of the darkness, stuff the good of old remains, behind every cold case, there's people fighting day to day.
(01:26):
Welcome back to Cold Case MHS, and we really appreciate you being here. We have a lot of stories to talk about this year, and we're going to start off with the case of McKinsey Brannum.
And I'm going to let the students introduce themselves. They were the ones that were involved in interviewing people and getting information about our case.
I'm Maddie.
I'm Webb.
And I'm Aiden.
(01:47):
So McKinsey's story is really a horrendous story, and it's almost as if it should be on a 2020 episode after you sit and listen to the information that we gather over time.
And this is something that we are trying to do in this class is get these stories back out. Many of these stories have fallen into the darkness somewhere in the file cabinet somewhere.
(02:09):
And we're just trying to get the stories out and hoping that maybe somebody will tell us something about it or bring up information.
We're also using this to allow students to learn some things that they would not normally learn in a regular classroom.
So if you guys could just talk a little bit about McKinsey's case, how you picked it out, why you picked that one, and tell us a little bit about her situation.
(02:34):
McKinsey was eight years old at the time. She was living in Jeffersonville, Ohio between one and three in the morning.
While at her mother's house, a fire was started and she lost her life due to the arson.
Originally, the case wasn't determined as an arson. It was accidental.
However, as she was being driven to the hospital, the fire marshal in the case determined it to be an arson.
(02:59):
And it was immediately considered as a murder. She was later discovered that she had also been sexually assaulted within hours before her head.
The date was April 27, 2006. It was early spring at the time, around 38 degrees.
There was no wind and no rain as far as we know.
She was in the house with her mother Sharon and her mother's boyfriend Billy.
(03:22):
Neither of those names are real. We're just using those to protect their identities in this case.
She was staying there with them at the time when the fire happened.
So, first thing, why did you pick this case? What drew you to it?
We kind of just looked at a lot of different cases. We originally chose a different case.
And we had seen McKinsey's before, before we chose our other case.
(03:47):
And we kind of just went back and I kind of looked at it and I just read more about it.
And Aiden had looked at a different arson case and seemed of some interest.
And then I kind of just found that one.
And I guess everything kind of just clicked the more as we were just reading and reading and finding more information and looking at different Facebooks and news articles and so.
(04:11):
So, unfortunately, when the victims are young children, they really haven't lived a whole lot of life.
So it can be very difficult to find out victimology, so more about the victim.
Do you think you struggled finding out more about McKinsey than some other cases where she may have had older victims?
Yeah, that was a really large challenge because she didn't really have enough time to leave a footprint on the world.
(04:32):
She only knew her father, her close relatives. Besides that, it was very difficult to find information.
What we knew in the beginning was mostly from articles covering the case.
So, as a person, as McKinsey lived her life, we did not know that much.
However, we were fortunate enough to contact her father and speak to him, which was very helpful in discovering more about her.
(04:56):
But yes, there was almost no information about her as a person.
There was one quote we discovered from her teacher at the time, which we also ended up contacting.
Besides that, there was nothing.
So, to go along with that, when you started to look through those articles and things like that, we talked about trying to find anybody and everybody that's related to it to talk to us.
(05:22):
What did you find difficult about that at the very beginning?
So, her father and the police department have had issues in the past and conflicts, which we think may have prevented us from having better relations with them.
We were not able to get in contact with the Fayette County Police Department.
And that was a difficulty because, especially in a lot of the other cases in this class, for example, they were able to speak to the departments and that gave them more information of solid foundation.
(05:51):
We didn't have that.
We had, you know, opinions to go off of, facts from news articles and sources that are not as credible as the direct investigation.
Almost any email that we sent out to any people with information, they all came back with denies and just saying, no, we can give out this information.
(06:13):
And that just made it harder in order to find out more about McKenzie.
Yeah, we did get in contact with the Fire Marshal and he was respectful.
We appreciate him for responding, but he wasn't able to come on the case due to it being an open case.
Well, there was kind of a strange story about him in general working on the case.
(06:34):
What was that story about him?
He, so he was outside of the department.
He came in to investigate on the case.
He and Donald McKenzie's father actually had a pretty good relationship.
He basically told her father that something fishy was going on.
Like, not everything was adding up.
(06:55):
It was literally a murder, but there was evidence disappearing.
There was stuff that was not being considered.
And according to Donald, the Fire Marshal's opinion was that her case is basically solved.
Yeah, it's like basically solved.
But like, because of the, like the area which it's in and it can't really go to another police department because Ohio doesn't like allow like another police department to be invited in unless the police department got the case.
(07:24):
Yeah, asked for their help.
So like it was like basically solved and they knew who it was, but like they weren't going to do anything about it.
So was it due to a lack of evidence?
They didn't convict anybody or for some other reasons?
Yeah, it was as far as we know, it looks like a lack of evidence.
A lot of what the authorities do know is alleged and, you know, the witness of other people, which isn't exactly credible in this case because it's a very small town.
(07:51):
Everybody knows everybody there ties into the police department from outside of it.
So there's a lot of convolution and a lot of like intermingling between the witnesses, especially on the night of the fire.
So in regards to the Fire Marshal, even that he was talking to, they actually asked him to step aside.
They didn't let him involved in the case anymore.
(08:14):
So after that, he wasn't able to give out information or find out anything else because they asked him to walk away from it, basically.
Some of the stuff you guys eventually found on Facebook, I think it was.
What was really unusual about that?
Like, I don't know.
Like it was like weird because it was on like the like the dad's Facebook, which as far as we know, like, obviously he doesn't seem to be having any involvement.
(08:41):
Like he had like an alibi for everything that happened, but he got like the coroner's photos and like the coroner's reports, I think from some woman, like some woman that worked like in the court office, I believe, or like worked around that area.
So he was able to get those photos and like we saw like pretty gruesome images of like the things that have happened to her and like the things that happened to her body and like the images of like after she was like exhumed and stuff,
(09:09):
which was definitely unexpected and not like what you were expecting when we went on his Facebook page.
So he had those photos posted on his public Facebook?
Yeah.
Yeah.
For like anybody to see they just want to Facebook and just scroll down pretty far.
I think it was, if I was him, it'd probably be to draw attention to her case.
(09:30):
Yeah.
But I'm surprised Facebook kept them up because they're pretty.
It's a very bold.
Who broke.
Yeah.
It was.
I think I talked to him like you guys did and I did for several hours after that.
You wonder why at first, you know, you would want those pictures out.
But why do you think he wanted them out there?
(09:52):
I think because nobody seemed to be like talking about her paying attention to it.
I think that like he had been working on it for such a long time and like been because it's been like 20, 20 years now.
So it's like, and I think that he put those photos up like what?
It wasn't until like, it was like three or four years ago and it already been like a pretty decent like amount of time.
(10:16):
I think that like he just got tired of like sitting and like waiting.
And so he kind of like started to like be like, he did that whole like parade thing for Mackenzie of like, oh, this is Mackenzie's case.
Like we need to talk about it.
Like it's an actual issue that's happening in our town and nobody's like recognizing it.
I think that like he put those photos up to like as like a like a drastic amount of drastic measure, but like a measure to be like this happened to me.
(10:41):
This happened to my daughter and it's still unsolved and it seems obvious.
I just feel like it was kind of a way to show like this is what happened to my daughter and nobody's really like talking about this.
This is what they did.
Right.
It was kind of like the shock factor.
Like the shock factor back into it. I don't think he, well, actually he doesn't want to put those kind of photos out there.
(11:03):
I mean, that's obviously he pushes it and go back in time and change the whole thing.
When you talk to him, how did you feel about his story and about what he was going through?
What did it do to you?
It made me angry to start.
He was very emotional, not on the outside, but you could tell he cared a lot about the case and his daughter.
(11:25):
And I was kind of feeding off of that emotion for a while, but it also just makes me sad and disappointed that for Mackenzie that this has gone on so long without it being solved,
especially when there are so many facts that could still be acted on.
When we were talking with Donald after what we've already like seen from the case, it was already like a pretty sad case.
(11:46):
But he discovered an adding more and more information that we had no idea.
And it was just, it was devastating and it was just hard to listen to.
Well, I think that was the biggest part to that.
When we do these kind of things at first, you know, you kind of go into it as if this is a project.
(12:07):
And then you start talking to people, especially people like him, and the emotion starts to take up.
But, you know, being a father myself, you know, I couldn't imagine what he had gone through and what he had done.
And you can tell from him that he is still living it every day.
And that's the one thing I think that a lot of us don't understand.
(12:30):
We lose loved ones all the time, but not in that way.
And I think for him to not have answers, to not have somebody to at least be held accountable for was something that's just, eating at him all these years to just have to be like, shut down.
Right. Right.
And that's something that he lives with every single day.
What I talked to him afterwards, I was kind of amazed because he's not the most educated individual.
(12:59):
He's what he's street smart, is light smart and things like that.
His wisdom of just, you know, his faiths, his relationship with people, how to talk to people and things like that was something that kind of overwhelmed me a little bit when I shouldn't talk to him.
(13:20):
I feel like, well, he has gone through so much and yet he's teaching me some things that we all probably need to do.
So, let's talk a little bit more about the case.
So the fire started the bedroom that she was in is upstairs and it's towards the back of the house. Correct?
So where did the fire start? How did it start?
(13:43):
And what were the unusual things that happened once the fire department got there?
So the fire started around like the foyer of the home and it like spread up to McKinney's like right upstairs bedroom.
The thing that was weird is that like the mother had noted to like the police department after she had been like talked to and she noted about like the broken like kerosene heater that was in the home.
(14:08):
And it was like Austin like spewing kerosene out, but it wasn't like necessarily near the foyer, but like when like investigators looked back at the foyer, there was obvious like splash patterns of like gasoline that had been used as the accelerant for the fire,
which you know had determined it as an arson.
Another thing that was weird was that the boyfriend had purchased gasoline previously.
(14:31):
Like when it was like a pretty like large amount of gasoline, right? Like maybe four or five cans of like gasoline.
But the like later the cans went like missing and so they were never found, but the gasoline was like found in the house, but they never really like further investigated that.
Yeah, according to Donald, the gasoline for the boyfriend was meant to be used to cut the lawn, but there was still fresh grass shavings on top of the lawn.
(15:01):
So clearly it didn't need to be cut again. I mean, it was still fresh from whenever he cut it last.
Was McKinsey's room the only area of the house was damaged?
That was damaged with a mother and boyfriend with their rooms fine or was there more that was damaged by the fire?
So looking at the images of the house after the facts, more than the room was damaged.
It was about half of the house was burnt. It didn't collapse. Some of the roof collapsed, but the foundation was still stable, but it was definitely damaged.
(15:31):
It's interesting though, because you can see the other half of the house is pretty much untouched.
McKinsey's room was it was in the quarter. It wasn't exactly over the foyer.
Yeah, I was like up into the like the right of the foyer, I guess.
But her the fire somehow still got to her room, which leads us to believe that the gasoline may have been trailed to her room, which shows that it could have been intentional to murder McKinsey specifically.
(15:58):
Well, one of the things you went to is that the kerosene eater would spew kerosene.
And well, growing up, we had kerosene eaters that I don't ever remember kerosene spewing out of it, because one that's just a sheet of firehead.
Yeah.
I'm not sure why you would have the kerosene eaters going to do that, because that could be a problem.
(16:19):
So that story of me just sounds kind of strange.
And also the burn pattern and the splash pattern about the hurricane. What did it show?
The flash pattern, the foyer, it shows that it was intentionally set up.
They think the accelerator went up to McKinsey's room.
(16:40):
So during this time when the fire was active, what were the mother and her boyfriend doing? Why weren't they running the house with McKinsey?
So that's where I get into a lot of different stories.
The leading story is that they were in their bedroom in the back of the house. It was actually a dining room, but they were using it as a bedroom. They were sleeping.
(17:03):
The boyfriend woke up to the fire and banged on the ceiling with a broom to McKinsey's room, which was above.
And he says he heard her calling back to him, which we'll touch on in a bit, I'm sure.
So they both escaped.
Now, the way they escaped is what's weird, because the mother Sharon gives multiple stories.
(17:29):
One story is she went out the back of the house, the side door in the garage, the front door with the foyer, where the foyer is, and most of those were proven to be incorrect.
I believe it's the side door was essentially barricaded. You couldn't get through it.
(17:50):
The foyer, if she didn't get out the foyer, it had to have been before the fire, because that's where the fire was set. So it doesn't make sense that she could have gotten out the front door with the fire, the heart of the fire being there.
And then, as for the back door, why did they check? So the boyfriend said something about going out the back door and she just agreed with her.
I think after their fourth time.
(18:12):
Yeah. And the boyfriend also said that they broke out a second story window with her, the mother and the boyfriend both broke out of that window in the second story.
So there are a lot of different stories as to how they actually got out, which is confusing and honestly should be investigated further.
Were there any neighbors that heard anything? Anyone that called the police or was it the family that was involved?
(18:37):
Yeah. So no one at the house called the police. It was actually a neighbor who called 911.
A car driving past ended up calling the cops as well.
The mother Sharon never called the police. She did go door to door. However, she at the house on the corner across from like diagonal from the house.
(19:00):
She didn't get neighbors to wake up and she asked for a pair of shoes. I'm guessing her feet probably hurt from running around barefoot.
So she asked for a pair of shoes and she got angry when the shoes were her size.
Okay.
Not mentioning that there was a fire, that her daughter was still in the fire and she didn't ever mention that her daughter was in the fire.
(19:21):
She never mentioned she was still in the house.
20 minutes after the firefighters arrived, she still hadn't said anything. A neighbor actually had to say, Mackenzie is still up there.
Her own mother didn't tell the authorities that her daughter was died.
And this just kind of shows how Sharon and Billy didn't even think to call the cops even with their own house running down.
(19:47):
And then there was a volunteer fire department just down the street. Basically within view, you can see it from the house, which has a big 911 emergency phone on the outside of it.
And it was brand new. Sharon's boyfriend was a volunteer firefighter, so it's likely he knew it was there.
(20:08):
He was a volunteer firefighter and there is this huge, indeed, an uncalled police.
Okay, and go down. What was the other thing that was unusual about him when they got there?
He said that he attempted to use a ladder that was in the shed to climb up to Mackenzie's window, but that the flames were too much for him to be able to get in or attempt to save her at all.
(20:33):
And we later discovered that the shed wasn't even opened, right? And then the ladder wasn't even of the height to even reach the window.
Like at all?
So that kind of whole thing just went out of the window. It was like, yeah. It couldn't have been used at all.
Allegedly, it was also, they took it into the evidence room and it disappeared from the room later on. We don't know much about that, but it's strange that it went missing.
(21:03):
So what was he doing on the front yard when the firefighters got there, though?
Yeah, he was playing with their dog, just fetch, I guess, playing the yard.
So it seems that this may not have been the best situation for Mackenzie at her mother's house. Why was she there in the first place?
(21:24):
Her mother had asked a couple weeks or months beforehand to have Mackenzie over.
So Mackenzie has two younger brothers. They all three lived with their father, Donald. However, she asked her to stay at her house for a little while, as well as one of the mother's other children with a different father.
I guess supposedly she wanted girls with girls, boys with boys. I don't know if that's the real reason she wanted her over. That's just what we were told.
(21:53):
But that's why she was at the house. She didn't normally live there with her mother. She was only staying for a short period of time.
So you said that she wanted a daughter from another marriage? Where was that person that night?
We don't know. We don't know much about that side of things. We know that that child was older. I think she was either a teenager or a young adult at the time, but we don't know anything more than that.
(22:22):
So previously you mentioned that Mackenzie was later found that she was sexually assaulted. Has there been any previous history of sexual abuse, physical abuse, anything like that towards Mackenzie?
Yes. We found multiple reports from Donald. Donald ended up giving a big binder of just multiple documents over the years that he just collected.
(22:48):
It's massive. He has told us stories about how it was either the grandpa or one of the uncles. He had asked the kids to...
(23:12):
It's tough to say, but we're going to go for a conversation.
Do inappropriate actions with each other?
Yes.
And that was one of the uncles.
As well as there were other things that happened. Her mother's boyfriend supposedly had cruel, unusual punishments.
(23:39):
One of the kids, Harrison, was checked into the Fayette County Memorial Hospital for a nine-inch scar along his back or along his side.
The story was that they ended up sicking a dog on him. He was running away and he ended up getting that cut from jumping onto a truck.
(24:04):
He also had five puncture wounds from the dog bite.
And Child Protective Services was never called?
They were, but they didn't really do anything. They were brought into a hospital one time where I think there was a rash brought into the hospital for a rash.
And a police officer showed up because they had found multiple bruises and stuff. A police officer showed up and he basically dismissed it and said that his daughter worked for Child Protective Services.
(24:39):
And he was like, oh, this isn't child abuse. This is just whatever. There was never anything really done with it. There were several reports made, but it kind of just always felt like the cracks went missing and nothing was really done for them.
So there's obviously these multiple signs of abuse over many years, was it?
(25:01):
Yeah.
Why do you think the next step somebody took to murdering Mackenzie?
So like we said, there was evidence of sexual assault that happened before the fire. There was DNA evidence collected from multiple places on her body.
So that would be a good motive to potentially cover that up, which didn't work, but that would be a potential motive.
(25:25):
Another theory is that she had been being trafficked and it might have been happening for some time and she was either going to tell somebody, tell her father or something like that. And so the fire was set to stop that.
But the fire was clearly set to cover up evidence and to cover up whatever the individual had done.
(25:46):
So they did her autopsy. Did you happen to notice if they found any carbon dioxide or soot or anything in her lungs?
She, her cause of death was officially determined to be smoke inhalation. Her lungs were full of, it was something like 68% carbon dioxide or something like that.
(26:08):
Okay, so the fire actually did cause her death.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
So when we looked at that binder, which is like you said is passive, the change. One thing you kept talking about was sexual assault.
But actually in the autopsy, did they show evidence of actual penetration, sexual assault, or did they find anything? Is that more of a rumor type thing?
(26:35):
The documents we saw, just to preface this, we did not get the documents from the county in Sowido.
We can't verify how valid they are, but they said that there was nothing abnormal about any of those areas on her body.
So it's unlikely that she was penetrated in any way. But the signs, the DNA evidence was still collected.
(27:00):
So clearly, you know, something had been happening.
So we've talked about all of this after the mat, but was there anything going on the day before Mackenzie's murder or anything going on in the weeks previously?
Because is there a changed behavior that could signify that something like this was going to happen?
She did have school pictures taken the day before. And in those pictures, she is not really smiling.
(27:27):
In her school picture, I guess the photographer had to work hard to get her to smile fully for the picture. So that could have been a sign of a change in personality or behavior.
Was she a very bright, bubbly kid?
Yeah, according to her teacher and her father, she was a very bright, outgoing soul.
So that would be a little strange that she wouldn't start on another smile like that.
(27:51):
Oh, good.
I think Mackenzie, like, as a person, according to her teacher and her dad, she was the type of person that she looked out for other people.
She looked out for the other students. She helped get them lunches. She helped get them money to help them.
She was never the type of person that, in that setting, around her dad and around her teacher, she was always more of a protector and wanted to protect other people.
(28:19):
And I think that it caused, it didn't cause for what happened, but it kept her dad out of what was happening to her because she wanted to protect him.
And I think that because of that, a lot of things were hidden about what was happening around her mother, what was happening with the mother's boyfriend.
And then it got to the point where she was probably close to telling him about what was happening to her and everything that happened that night happened.
(28:51):
And in the school photo, there was also multiple different, like, if you look into the photo, like, there's multiple different kind of like bruises on her arms and like, she looks kind of very, like, skinnier, a little bit more maltritioned.
Those could have obviously been signs of, like, abuse. We're not 100% sure, but it kind of does appear that way.
(29:14):
So you guys have discussed all of these potential theories, all of this evidence and lack of evidence.
Are there any final steps that can be taken to put a lid on Mackenzie's case, to finally close it and get justice for her father? Or is it just going to be forever unsolved?
So genetic genealogy has progressed a lot since then, so that could be really useful to find out who the individual was.
(29:38):
Some of the suspects, or at least one of them has since passed.
If we could get DNA samples from their son, that could be useful because they can compare that to the DNA evidence they already have and potentially find a match.
There's also what the detective was talking about, the new lie detector machines.
I forget, I forget what they're called, but those would be good to go back and question some people again with because they're very, the polygraphs originally are very unreliable.
(30:09):
And some of the individuals in the case likely could have easily lied their way through that with no problem.
That was the voice.
How do they say it?
Voice stress analysis.
Voice stress analysis, I think it was called, yeah.
So I just have two more things.
So is there anything else about the case that you think is important to mention?
(30:30):
And then secondly, what are, you spent a long time, you spent a whole year researching, finding out about Mackenzie.
What are the things that you're going to hold with you for the rest of your life about her case?
I would have to say that so after the night of the fire, Sharon and Billy and like the family who were like living in the house that had just burned down the previous site, they had stayed at this hotel.
(31:01):
And we heard like reports from like the hotel staff that they were at the pool and having like a great time that they were partying and not really like acting like their daughter had just died the night before.
And sorry, the vacation that they went on like relatively very soon after using money that was basically like donated from the community to them to help pay for the funeral.
(31:30):
They used some of that money to then go on a vacation to Florida.
Like what? It was like probably less than a month after her funeral.
Within days?
Within days, yeah, of the funeral, which there's all these things that they keep doing.
It's like it makes it seem so.
I am.
They posted a picture online of them on a motorcycle just smiling and like having like a great time.
(31:54):
It's it's confusing because they try to paint themselves as not being involved in the case.
But if they really weren't involved, then why are they acting so completely, you know, nonchalant about it?
It's like they don't care, especially her mother.
It's surprising how much she acts like she just does not care.
And there might be more going on in that relationship as well than what we know.
(32:18):
But on the surface, it just seems like unrealistic that they'd be acting.
Yeah, that's the one thing about when we work with these things, too, is we tend to get information from one side of the story,
especially the one that's emotionally attached to it and still trying to find those answers.
(32:41):
Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk to the mom or the boyfriend.
We don't know their stories.
We also don't know how people react to certain situations.
So not that we're accusing them of doing anything wrong.
It just there were some things that seemed kind of strange that they probably should answer to at least to give an idea of why those things were happening.
(33:02):
Now, again, we weren't able to confirm everything that supposedly happened.
A lot of these are rumors.
So we're not accusing them, but it would be nice to hear from them and say, hey, this is really what happened.
Yeah, especially if they're not involved, you know, that's their opportunity to show the world that they're not involved and maybe make their own contribution.
(33:23):
So we were also talking to a local detective, Chad Jones, who basically said this case was solved.
So his theory is that her mother and her boyfriend in a relationship and her mother is under like what he calls the Cinderella effect or the Cinderella syndrome, where basically he thinks the boyfriend was consistently, you know, taking advantage of Mackenzie.
(33:53):
And this it became competitive in the household with Mackenzie and her mother, because her mother also obviously wants that attention from her boyfriend.
So he thinks it may have turned into a competition and, you know, motherly instincts might have just gone out the window.
(34:14):
So in that case, it's possible that she was more directly involved. It's also possible she's been manipulated.
She might still be being manipulated.
And if this is true, all it takes is for her to speak up.
But again, this is just a theory.
We have no evidence of this.
Right.
So when you guys first took the class or signed up for the class, what did you expect and what did you get out of it that surprised you or changed your idea about who was the class as well?
(34:49):
I knew it was probably going to be like a difficult class.
Like I knew that like it was going to put me in some like situations like I wasn't initially comfortable with like, I wouldn't say I'm like always the greatest with some sort of situation.
So I knew I was probably going to be challenging myself with talking to like police departments or police detectives or parents and victims or certain things like that.
(35:13):
I didn't think I was going to get like I knew I'd have some sort of like emotional connection.
I just didn't think that I was going to get as like emotionally driven and emotionally connected.
Like to the case, I guess, like I didn't realize. I don't know.
For me, I went into it expecting it to be difficult because, you know, you warned us a lot in forensics, especially that it's not.
(35:38):
There's a lot of downtime and it's a lot of just putting your head down and getting the work done.
So I didn't go into it expecting that.
I didn't expect to be doing a case on an eight year old.
And that was especially this kind of case where she was, you know, really weird.
In a lot of the other cases, there are a lot of factors that go into the lifestyle of the victim.
(36:00):
However, in this case, she was just a young girl. I mean, yeah.
And she was definitely like more of like an innocent bystander to everything that was like happening around her.
Like it's not like she had any control of what was necessarily happening in her life, which I think made it harder because it's like it's not that like any of the people like like in the other classes in their case.
(36:23):
It's not like these people also asked for what happened to them.
It's just that there was nothing like in her lifestyle.
Like she had barely like done anything in her life.
Like she was eight. So it's like, I don't know, it's kind of like harder in that situation.
But she couldn't escape her surroundings.
Her victimology had nothing to do with furnaces.
It had to do with everybody else's.
(36:44):
I would have to say that like going into this class, I knew that it would be like a lot of like work and like research.
And stuff, but I didn't realize how much it would be or like how much we would actually have to do.
Like how much digging we would have to do on Facebook.
I would never spend any time on Facebook.
(37:05):
And I had like 30 minutes just looking at my daily activity and just looking at like Mackenzie's help Mackenzie's case Facebook group justice for Mackenzie.
And then and then also Donald's Facebook and just like going through like the contacts and stuff.
(37:26):
It's just like something I would never like picture me doing.
But I did it through this class and it was just a really cool experience.
And I just want to say I'm sure Mackenzie's father and her family appreciate all the work you guys have done.
It's his little girl and you guys are getting her story back out there.
If anyone has any information regarding Mackenzie's case, who should they contact?
(37:48):
Where should they go?
So the Fayette County Police Department is still the investigating authority.
So by all means, they should be contacted first.
However, you know, you can also contact us.
You can contact the cold case program and we'll get the information where it needs to go.
Well, I'm sure they have a crime stopper's number also.
(38:10):
So anybody has any information.
So what are your final thoughts about Mackenzie's case about the class, about how it's affected you for the future?
For me, I've already taken some of what I've learned in this class and applied it outside of the class.
You know, you start to notice things and you start to think about things differently after seeing these cases and investigating them.
(38:39):
You know, it's you want to believe everyone is good.
But the truth is there are always little things that they might not even be aware of that you just start to notice and pick up on things that seem strange or out of the ordinary.
And I already had a situation recently where things could have been worse, but they were.
(39:02):
Thank goodness.
So it's just things like that.
And I'm a lot more cautious now.
I think like just like my thoughts, like I think it's like I'm going to take like this class and like everything about Mackenzie's case.
And I'm probably going to think about it for a very long time.
Like I don't think it's like going to like leave my headspace.
(39:23):
Like it'll always kind of like be there.
And I think that like I hope like eventually I'll be able to like, like I'm not going to like focus my time on it as much anymore.
But I think that like eventually I'd hope to like hear some information or get information about like something that happened in Mackenzie's case.
Like I hope good things through the future in Mackenzie's case and that like something is done with like like the genetic genealogy.
(39:50):
And I think that it's going to be like something I'm going to think about for a very like long time in my life.
Honestly, just to kind of add on to Maddie.
This is honestly just a class that like going into the future, I can just always like look back and just say like, I was a part of cold case.
Like like that is not something that like a lot of people can say.
(40:14):
And just thinking about like Mackenzie's case, I can like talk about it with people and say like, this is the case that I did.
These are like the steps that I followed.
These are like the people that I worked with.
This is like I actually worked on a case.
And that's honestly not something that many people can say.
Just thinking about Mackenzie and like and like hearing, hopefully hearing more information about it in the future.
(40:42):
I really hope that like it brings light to this case more because it's kind of been shadowed over the years.
Well, you just talked about something that I thought was important is that talking with other people about it.
That's kind of the goal.
You know, I wanted this to stick with you.
I wanted this to be something that you will think about one for your own kids someday when you have your own.
(41:03):
But to the more you talk about it, the more information gets out there.
And who knows who hears that.
Maybe see something or know something or been from that area.
You know, and then we can possibly get some answer to that.
Well, I appreciate all the work that you did.
Someday we're going to spend a little more time talking about the details in this case.
(41:26):
Because like I said, I think 2020 should pick this up because after talking to Donald, there's things that just don't seem like they went the right way.
They're supposed to.
And we hope that someday Donald can get a little bit of relief.
He'll never get closure because he lost his daughter and he'll never get her back.
(41:48):
She's frozen at eight years old.
We don't really know what she would have been.
And I hope that you guys learned that you help somebody.
Just giving Donald the attention that he's looking for, trying to get the story out.
And maybe one day, one day they'll get the answer to the guilty case.
(42:09):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Cold Case MHS.
This podcast was edited by the students of Cold Case MHS and produced by Mr. Hubbard and myself.
The music was performed and written by Alexa Dahl and the artwork was created by the students of MHS Design Studio Internship.
Please consider sharing this podcast to bring more light to these victims.
Tune in next time to Cold Case MHS, Monsters and Demons.
(42:58):
Big downs in memory.
Let's find the enemy.
We won't leave it behind.
Behind every shadow.
A story to be told.
Whom lies I was special?
But some hearts have grown cold.
(43:22):
And the depths of the darkness, stuff the guru for remains.
Behind every cold case.
There's people fighting day to day.
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